Avril Lavigne shared her battle Lyme disease in a 2015 interview with People, saying she was "bedridden for five months" and sometimes didn't shower for a week at a time because she "could barely stand." She described it as "having all your life sucked out of you."
She had to take a two-year hiatus before announcing her triumphant return in a 2018 issue of Billboard magazine. But finding the right treatment that would allow her to return to music was an evolving process. "It's a bug — a spirochete," she said, referring to the bacteria the disease is rooted in. "So you take these antibiotics, and they start killing it. But it's a smart bug: It morphs into a cystic form, so you have to take other antibiotics at the same time. It went undiagnosed for so long that I was kind of f*cked."
The singer-songwriter started a foundation in her name in 2010 to support those dealing with serious illness or disability, with a specific focus on those impacted by Lyme disease.
