A 29-year-old woman left housebound and fighting for her life after being bitten by an insect on holiday is hoping to raise £65,000 help regain control of her life.

Samantha Calby from Upton spends up to 23 hours inside her house, only leaving in a wheelchair for hospital appointments following an insect bite when she travelled to Italy aged 15.

Since then Samantha has been in and out of hospital suffering from repeated infections and viruses.

In 2017, she decided to pay for a private test for Lyme disease as the one available on the NHS is only 35 to 45 per cent accurate.

The test came back positive and Samantha, although relieved to find out what was wrong with her after 14 years, felt frightened and unsure how to beat it.

Lyme disease can be spread to humans by infected ticks and can spread to the brain, heart, nervous system and muscles.

If the immune system fails it can shut down the body.

Samantha is now hoping to raise £65,000 so she can stabilise her symptoms before flying to Germany for stem cell treatment to help her regain control of her life.

She told the Globe: “I have always been a private person and never asked for anything for myself from anyone.

“I have always been the kind of person who likes to give and see other people happy rather than receiving.

“But my health circumstances have forced me to seek help and speak up before it is too late.

“I missed out on so many of the things my friends were doing in their twenties and spent a lot of it in and out of hospitals.

“It feels like part of me died in 2014 and that I am no longer living just barely existing.”

Wirral Globe:

So far £5,630 has been raised of her £65,000 target.

The cash will go toward the likes of IV antibiotics, immunotherapy treatment, ozone therapy and stem cell treatment.

She added: “Me and my close family do not have much but we will be putting every penny we have into this treatment.

“I know it is a lot of money to ask for and I would never ask if it wasn’t my life at stake but this amount is to cover the full cost of all treatments like is mentioned above and this is because of the severe stage my health is at there is no quick option in recovery, I wish there was.

“It’s going to take roughly two to three years of treatments for my body to heal and be in remission but I am hoping to notice big improvements sooner.

“There’s a support group on Facebook with around 8,000 members and I more people join every day.

“The NHS can treat it short term but I’ve been left with this for 13 to 14 years.”

Due to her condition Samantha suffers from the likes of black outs, breathing difficulties, facial paralysis, memory loss and tremors.

Samantha said: “Lyme disease took my twenties away from me. I want to be healthy and living my life.

"I just want to have the chance of a normal quality of life and help others.

“I wish I was more educated about it all those years ago and took preventative steps.

“It’s not the NHS’ fault that this isn’t widely available here, the Government must give more funding to our health service so that it can cope with treating diseases such as Lyme."

To donate to help Samantha visit https://www.gofundme.com/SamanthaCalby