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Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, the husband of 23-time Grand Slam tennis champion Serena Williams, revealed his "surprise" Lyme disease diagnosis after undergoing a full-body scan in a thread of posts shared on his X account Tuesday (July 17).
"Doing a full battery of health scans, tests, etc, and found out I have lyme disease. Wild. No symptoms, thankfully, but gonna treat. Good cholesterol is too low. Bad cholesterol is just OK. Gotta work on that. On the plus-side: 822 ng/dL total + 162 ng/dL free testosterone," Ohanian wrote. "I've got a loved one who had it a few years back, showed tons symptoms etc and just couldn't figure it out until they tested him for it and then found it (treated it successfully, too). I spend so little time in the wilderness/northeast this was quite a surprise."
Lyme disease is described by The Mayo Clinic as "an illness caused by borrelia bacteria" and is typically caused by bites from ticks carrying the bacteria. Early symptoms for the disease include headaches, joint pain, fatigue, rash and flu-like symptoms, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
More than 470,000 Americans are diagnosed with Lyme disease annually and most cases "can be treated with 10-14 days of antibiotics," according to the CDC. Several other celebrities who have battled Lyme disease include Justin Bieber, Shania Twain, Avril Lavigne, Amy Schumer, Bella Hadid and her mother Yolanda.
Ohanian and Williams were married on November 16, 2017, and the couple share two daughters, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., 6, and Adira River Ohanian, born in August 2023.