THE IDEA: TICKTRACKER In July of 2017, 13-year-old Olivia was on vacation in Missouri with her family. While outside Olivia noticed a tick on her dog, Mo (short for Missouri). Olivia & her mom watched the tick start to burrow into Mo’s leg. They quickly found needle nose tweezers to properly remove the tick from Mo. As Olivia was removing the tick she asked her mom, “Is there an app that can show what ticks are around us?” That night Olivia looked online and found that currently there was no app to help track, report, and educate people about ticks. This gave Olivia the idea to create the TickTracker app to help keep everyone safe. Olivia has suffered from chronic Lyme and co-infections since she was 6 years old. She is a Lyme advocate and the founder of The LivLyme Foundation. ABOUT LIVLYME FOUNDATION: LivLyme Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization supporting the work of researchers and scientists who are dedicated to finding the effective treatment for Lyme disease and ultimately finding the cure. LivLyme Foundation also provides assistance to children and their families struggling with Lyme Disease through education and funding. We envision a world without Lyme. Working toward this goal, we will provide valuable resources to educate all, support those who are battling Lyme, and help develop the cure. ABOUT LYME DISEASE: Over 350,000 people are diagnosed with Lyme disease every year in the US. This equates to over 29,000 new cases every month, 959 new cases a day, 40 new cases every hour. As the fastest spreading vector-borne (tick-borne) disease in the US, the number of new cases of Lyme is 1.5 times greater than breast cancer and 7 times greater than HIV/AIDS. 200 children get Lyme disease every day, that’s 4 school busses of children a day diagnosed with Lyme. The cost to treat Lyme disease is in excess of $1 billion per year, or approximately $3,000 per patient per year. But, the per-patient cost of treating PTLDS (Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome) can be in the $10,000 – $100,000 range. Most insurance plans only cover treatment for the first month, leaving the patient with out of pocket expenses for medication, supplements and treatment. Another challenge that patients face is the rising cost of medicine. Doxycycline, an antibiotic routinely prescribed for treatment of Lyme disease, has increased from $.03 per pill to over $5.00 per pill since 2014. Many patients take two of these per day. Without help, some children won’t be able to get the medication they need.
