Welcome to the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation

The Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation (CanLyme) was created to promote a more complete and comprehensive understanding of Lyme disease and related illnesses through research, education and advocacy to help reduce misdiagnosis and improve treatments for Lyme disease.

Get help for Lyme

Recognizing symptoms and learning how to talk to your doctor are the first steps towards treatment.

Learn more about Lyme

Understanding Lyme disease is the best way to prevent, diagnose and treat it.

Get the facts

Get the facts on ticks and tick-borne diseases. There are many myths! 

Recent dispatches

Spark hope this Giving Tuesday: Your chance to create change!

ByCanLyme TeamNov 27, 20231 min read

This Giving Tuesday, show your support for the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation. Let’s ignite a spark of hope together. …

Seeking treatment for Lyme disease in Canada

ByCatherine KinsellaNov 27, 20236 min read

“How can you not believe me?” Those are the words of a Canadian adolescent reflecting on the challenges he…

French subtitled online viewing – The Quiet Epidemic

ByCanLyme TeamNov 23, 20232 min read

Visionnement en ligne- The quiet epidemic 20 novembre 2023 et le 4 décembre 2023. C’est avec beaucoup d’enthousiasme que…

Research explores the clinical presentations of Lyme neuroborreliosis

ByCatherine KinsellaNov 22, 20233 min read

New research out of Lithuania highlights the importance of keeping the neurological manifestations of Lyme neuroborreliosis (LNB) on the…

Where there are ticks, there’s often Lyme disease

Lyme disease is caused by an infection that is most often transmitted by ticks, but it can also be transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy.

Ticks can attach to your body without being seen or felt, and diagnosis can be difficult due to symptom presentation, testing protocols and other challenges. 

Learn to protect yourself

You can support our work

CanLyme is a registered Canadian charity. We rely on the financial support of donors. You can help save lives.

Stay connected

Sign up and get our occasional updates, educational resources, and news from our community of experts.

All of the tools in the most fully featured tick removal kit are on display.

Tick removal kits

We are a volunteer driven, registered charity. All proceeds go to education, prevention, awareness, research, and support.
A diagram of tick hotspots hover over top of an image of a hiker carrying a backpack.

10 tips to avoid Lyme infection

Regular tick checks are a way to check your body for crawling or embedded ticks. Check everywhere including these hotspots.
Mother and child sit together tenderly in the beautiful light streaming into the kitchen through a multi panel window.

Donate now

Your donation helps us to fund research and education for health care providers, advance prevention and awareness of Lyme disease – and more.
Illustrations in four panels of how to remove a tick by using tweezers and grabbing way low down near where it's embedded on the skin and pulling straight up, and then washing the skin around where it was embedded.

Tick removal

If you’ve discovered an embedded tick on yourself or someone else there are a few important things to remember.
A microscopic view of borrelia burgdorferi, a corkscrew shaped bacteria.

Lyme basics

Although it is most commonly associated with a tick bite, many people who have Lyme disease do not recall seeing or feeling a tick bite.
A woman walks with her two dogs along a path near in the forest.

Prevention

By taking the right precautions and spreading the word, you can effectively protect yourself, and your family, from Lyme.

More news

Profiling disease burden and Borrelia seroprevalence in Canadians with complex and chronic illness

ByCanLyme TeamNov 10, 20231 min read

Victoria Sanderson and her research team looked at both the health burden and serology of Lyme patients, those with…

Chapter review: Lyme Disease can be a diagnosis of hope by Janet and Felix Sperling

ByCatherine KinsellaNov 9, 202372 min read

For decades now, patients, parents, clinicians and researchers have come face to face with the shortcomings in our healthcare…

US CDC links Borrelia burgdorferi to chronic symptoms

ByJanet Sperling, PhDNov 2, 20232 min read

As recently as 2006, the IDSA guidelines referred to the very real symptoms of chronic Lyme disease as ’the…

Lyme Carditis from A to Z: A new book by Dr. Adrian Baranchuk

ByCanLyme TeamOct 27, 20231 min read

Dr. Adrian Baranchuk, an internationally renowned cardiologist based in Kingston, Ontario has just announced the release of the much-anticipated…

Whole genome sequencing of human Borrelia burgdorferi isolates reveals linked blocks of accessory genome elements located on plasmids and associated with human dissemination

ByCanLyme TeamSep 16, 20232 min read

Abstract Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in North America and Europe. The clinical manifestations of Lyme…

Case study demonstrates need for increased Lyme literacy among health practitioners

ByDr. Sarah KeatingSep 8, 20231 min read

A new patient focused Lyme disease study funded by CanLyme explores the experiences of a Canadian adolescent with symptom-persistent…

Alternative Lyme disease treatments

ByRobert G. MurraySep 6, 20233 min read

Alternative Lyme disease treatments are popular either used alone or in conjunction with antibiotics.1For information about the MyLymeData Registry,…

Children are more than twice as likely to lose their detectable antibodies to Lyme disease bacteria

ByCanLyme TeamAug 28, 20232 min read

Background Lyme borreliosis (LB), caused by Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), is the most common tick-borne infection in Germany. Antibodies against Bb are prevalent in…

Toward a common research agenda in infection

ByRobert G. MurrayAug 17, 20233 min read

In June, 2023 the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine [NASEM] held a two day forum that…

Footnotes