A DEVOTED mother searched the Internet to help diagnose her son with a rare disease after he was bitten by a tick.

Alex Benn is one of only 200 people a year who are diagnosed with Lyme disease, which can lead to ME, multiple sclerosis, dementia, schizophrenia and meningitis.

The ten-year-old was playing in woods near his home when the tick attached itself to his neck.

His parents, Marie and Graham, who run the Arncliffe Arms pub in Glaisdale, near Whitby, North Yorkshire, first thought it was a mosquito bite.

The couple were given a cream by doctors to put on the rash. However, Alex's face later swelled up.

He was taken to Whitby Hospital and was given antibiotics, but one side of his face became paralysed.

Mother-of-two Mrs Benn set about investigating her son's symptoms on the Internet, and found out he could be suffering from Lyme disease, which was later confirmed by blood tests.

He was put on antibiotics and was due to go to Scarborough Hospital on September 26, but a worried Mrs Benn arranged for him to be taken to the James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, where a scan revealed Lyme disease in his brain.

Further tests were also carried out, and the family is still waiting for the results.

For the next three weeks, Alex must be given antibiotics through an intravenous drip.

Mrs Benn said: "If I had not spotted all the information on the Internet, we would not have picked it up so early.

"Alex has been very very unlucky. Many of the farmers around here have been bitten by ticks, but no one else has got Lyme disease or been struck down by a mystery illness that doctors cannot cure."