Lyme Disease Awareness Month: RHONY's Ramona Singer calls herself lucky for early diagnosis of 'scary' illness
Around the first week of March 2020, 'Real Housewives of New York' star Ramona Singer was diagnosed with Lyme disease -- the autoimmune illness, which although not widely known, has also afflicted other celebrities like Alec Baldwin, Justin Bieber, the Hadid family, and Avril Lavigne. The 63-year-old singer's diagnosis came after she reportedly felt ill around Valentine's Day this year, after which she was immediately put on antibiotics but had also confirmed with E! News that she will need to be tested again in just a month's time.
“You must get tested once a year, especially if you’re in an area where there are deer,” the reality star told the outlet. She also shared how she contracted the disease reportedly from an unnoticed tick bite she got while she was spending time in her Hamptons home. But that being said, Singer also calls herself lucky for her disease being caught so early in its stages. “But, we caught it early and I’m very lucky and very blessed,” Singer said, adding that she is also working to “increase immune function through an alkaline diet.”
Singer is also not the only member in her family to battle the disease. As is the case with Yolanda Hadid and her two kids, Bella and Anwar, Singer's sister had also been diagnosed with the disease back in 2018. “It’s just a really scary disease and it’s not black-and-white,” Singer had said at the time of her sister's diagnosis, opening up to Entertainment Tonight. “Life is about having your health — health is everything, and if you’re waking up in the morning and feeling bedridden, you don’t want to go and meet your friends for lunch or work out,” Singer added. “Life is about embracing your passions, whether it’s work, family, or friends and this disease inhibits people’s lifestyles.”
Lyme disease is primarily a tick-borne illness, with early symptoms being an expanding area of redness on the skin. While fever, headache, and tiredness are also part of early symptoms, if untreated, symptoms may develop into a loss of the ability to move one or both sides of the face, joint pains, severe headaches with neck stiffness, or heart palpitations, among others. Luckily for Singer, other than her symptoms, things are more or less going great. "Everything else is great,” Singer shared with the outlet soon after her overall check, claiming her doctor told her: “You’re a strong woman, very healthy and you can easily live to 95.” In response, Singer told him, "I want to live to 100."