Avril Lavigne Talks Managing Lyme Disease: ‘I’ve Gone Through So Much’ but ‘I’m in a Good Place’
After nearly four years out of the spotlight, Avril Lavigne is back — and ready to tell her story.
Happy and healthy after a devastating battle with Lyme disease, the pop star, 34, reveals how the medical crisis changed her life in the new issue of PEOPLE.
“I’ve gone through so much,” says Lavigne, whose struggles inform her new album Head Above Water (out Feb. 15).
“It gave me a purpose,” she adds of her journey, “and made me find myself all over again.”
As she exclusively revealed to PEOPLE in an April 2015 cover story, Lavigne had been quietly suffering from Lyme disease after disappearing from the public eye in the fall of 2014.
Earlier that year, while on tour, Lavigne began feeling weak, but doctors at first cited dehydration and exhaustion. Months later — as her symptoms worsened and she struggled to even move — she visited a Lyme specialist who diagnosed her with the disease, a bacterial infection contracted from a tick bite that causes symptoms ranging from moderate fatigue and muscle pain to debilitating dementia.
5th album: 
