Yet again authorities here refuse to acknowledge the disease exists in Australia, which is why Burns has been forced overseas for treatment.

Six months ago Burns was happy and healthy, but overnight her world fell apart. She’s seriously ill, but Perth doctors say it's all in her head.

Burns is a young woman, who, in her own words, was a "very social person. Very bubbly, doing heaps of sport, going to the gym five times a week."

• Lyme disease in the suburbs
• Lyme disease mystery deepens
• Ticking tick time-bomb

Lured by the mining boom, Burns went to work at Cockatoo Island, north of Broome.

It's spectacularly rugged and remote, and where Burns says she was bitten by ticks in February this year.

"I had all these scabs all through my hair. I thought they were just like sweat pimples, and the next day I started getting pains in my wrists. I started getting sweats," she said.

Today Tonight's latest health stories

Burns went downhill quickly, lost fifteen kilos, and spent eleven days in hospital.

"So I had to quit because I had no choice. I couldn't keep going back up to work because every time I did I would just get worse," she said.

Next came the run around from doctors, who told Burns there was nothing wrong with her and that it was all in her head. As for the possibility of Lyme disease, that was completely ignored.

More stories from reporter Mark Gibson

"It's heart breaking. I don't want to go and see any more doctors because I'm sick of it, every time I see them they laugh at me and give me these looks like I'm mentally ill," she said.

If Burns's story sounds familiar, that’s because it is. The problems is Australian health authorities say Lyme disease doesn't exist here and they won't even test for it. Burns sent her blood to Germany and though she came back negative to Lyme, she did test positive to serious bacterial co-infections.

"My CD 57, which is your body's immune response, a healthy person is between 100 up to 300, and I was 34, so it proves that I was extremely sick," Burns said.

Perth doctor Hugh Derham has broken ranks. He says Burns does have Lyme disease and false negatives occur in up to 60 per cent of patients.

"You cannot now say that there is no Lyme disease native to Australia because we have at least half a dozen patients who have never travelled who have Lyme disease," Dr Derham said.

Burns will spend two months in a Bali clinic, treated by an Australian doctor who believes he can help her. It's costing $20,000.

"To pay for the treatment and the travel and everything I've had to get a loan from the bank," Burns’s boyfriend Matt explained.

"The amount of money that we're spending we could've been spending it on our first house together, like a deposit, go on a round the world trip," Burns said.

Instead, Burns is pinning her hopes on an unproven treatment in a foreign country, in a desperate attempt to get better.