Avril Lavigne Diagnosed With Lyme Disease: "I Was Bedridden for Five Months" and "I Thought I Was Dying"

"I had no idea a bug bite could do this," she tells People

By Zach Johnson Apr 01, 2015 12:30 PMTags
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Life got pretty complicated for Avril Lavigne last year.

When she visited Las Vegas to celebrate her 30th birthday in October, she wasn't in the partying mood. "I could barely eat, and when we went to the pool, I had to leave and go lie in bed," she recalls, adding that she'd felt lethargic and lightheaded for a while. "My friends asked, 'What's wrong?' I didn't know."

Shortly after, Lavigne was diagnosed with a severe case of Lyme disease.

"I had no idea a bug bite could do this," she says. "I was bedridden for five months."

The "Girlfriend" singer believes a tick bit her sometime in the spring of 2014.

As the "Rock 'n' Roll" singer reveals in People's Apr. 13 issue, she spent months recuperating at her home in Ontario. Lavigne spent time with family, watched movies and talked to fans using social media. Her husband, Chad Kroeger, 40, checked in during breaks from his tour with Nickelback, and for a while, Lavigne's mother moved in to help take care of her. "There were definitely times I couldn't shower for a full week because I could barely stand. It felt like having all your life sucked out of you," the singer says.

"I felt like I couldn't breathe, I couldn't talk and I couldn't move," she says. "I thought I was dying."

Lavigne kept her health news private, but she did open up to one fan via direct messaging on Twitter. The posts went viral in December, but she didn't mind. "They were asking about me since I was MIA, so I mentioned to one fan directly that I wasn't feeling good. The get-well messages and videos they sent touched me so deeply," she recalls. "I lay in bed watching them and cried so much because I felt loved."

Today, Lavigne says she is feeling "80 percent better.

"This was a wake-up call," the "Sk8er Boi" singer says. "I really just want to enjoy life from here on out."

People's Apr. 13 issue is on newsstands Friday.