A devoted mother searched the internet and helped diagnose her son with a rare disease after he was bitten by a tick.

Brave Alex Benn is one of only 200 people a year who are diagnosed with Lyme's Disease which can trigger ME, multiple sclerosis, dementia, schizophrenia and meningitis.

Research suggests only one in a thousand ticks carry the disease.

The youngster had been playing in woods near his home when the tiny blood-sucking bug attached itself to his neck.

He later complained of feeling unwell and could not stop scratching his neck.

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

They realised it was a tick when Graham, 34, removed what he thought was a blood spot and saw it had legs.

In the following days a rash developed on Alex's neck and he was taken to the doctors.

The couple were given a cream to put on the rash and it seemed to work - apart from leaving a small red ring were the rash was.

However, alarm bells started ringing when the youngster's face swelled up and he complained of a pain behind his ear.

He was taken to Whitby Hospital and given antibiotics, but when the swelling went down, one side of his face was paralysed.

Mother-of-two Marie set about investigating her son's symtoms on the internet and discovered Alex could be suffering from Lyme's Disease.

The 37-year-old was "horrified" after reading about the symt of tick-borne infections and took Alex to the doctors.

A blood sample was taken and sent away for analysis and two weeks later it was confirmed that Alex had got Lyme's Disease.

He was put on a course of antibiotics and he was due to go back to Scarborough Hospital on September 26 but Marie was so worried by what she read on the internet she arranged for Alex to be taken to the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough.

An MRI scan revealed Lyme's Disease on the brain.

A painful lumber puncture was also carried out, but anxious Marie and Graham do not yet know the results from the analysis of the spinal fluid.

For the next three weeks Alex had to go to the doctors' surgery to be given antibiotics through an intravenous drip.

The drugs target the bacteria left behind by the tick but there is no treatment for the bacteria which may be laying dormant in Alex's skin cells. At any time one of the illnesses triggered by Lyme's Disease could flare up.

Graham said: "Alex used to be quite boisterous, just like any other 10-year-old, but he's very emotional now and less active.

"He's still got a 10-year-old boys attitude but he's not playing out as much and has quietened down a lot."

Marie added: "If I hadn't spotted all the information on the internet we wouldn't 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's Disease or been struck down by a mystery illness that doctors can't cure.

"I think a lot of people are being diagnosed for other problems, but they are not being tested for Lyme's Disease because it is not something doctors think about.

"We want to raise awareness about the disease because so little is known about it."