Shania Twain Says She Never Got Her Voice Back After Suffering From Lyme Disease

Most people know Shania Twain by the songs she sings, but they may not know that she contracted Lyme disease after being bitten by a tick while horseback riding.

According to Good Morning America, she knew that something was wrong at the time, but she was on tour and didn’t know what was going on.

She did black out on stage at one point and said: “My symptoms were quite scary because before I was diagnosed, I was on stage very dizzy. I was losing my balance. I was afraid I was going to fall off the stage.” She said that she was having these millisecond blackouts regularly, about every 30 seconds.

When she was eventually diagnosed with Lyme disease, she got the treatment she needed. One of the side effects she wasn’t expecting, however, is that she was having trouble with her voice.

In an interview with Good Morning America, Shania explains: “There were seven years where I could not, for example, yell out for my dog. My voice would just cut out in certain places.”

It took a few years before people were able to make the connection. She said that it wasn’t anything obvious and nobody connected Lyme disease to it, but a neurologist was able to come to the right conclusion.

As you can imagine, being a professional singer and then having something affect your vocal cords is going to be stressful, to say the least. She considers herself to be unfortunate and that it is an ironic condition, but she is grateful that it didn’t attack somewhere else.

Although she has regained her voice, she does admit that it is “different” at this point. She says: “I have a different voice now but I own it. I love my voice now.”

Check out the video below: