Girl in excruciating pain and unable to walk 'hates her life' and hopes for treatment in Mallorca
A girl's illness has left her in "excruciating" pain and unable to walk since December 2022. Her mum, Haley Green, of Aylestone, Leicester, said her daughter Izzy "hates her life" and is desperate to be rid of the constant pain.
Hayley first started to worry about her daughter in October 2022 when she lost a lot of weight and started suffering from nausea and headaches. Izzy, now 13, was first admitted to hospital in December 2022 after becoming very unsteady on her feet, and she spent about four months in hospital.
Since then she has been in and out of hospital for long stays. She has been unable to walk and is currently in hospital and on a feeding tube. She is in severe pain on regular occasions and during her worst bouts is unable to speak, just crying out in pain.
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Now her mum is raising money to take her to Mallorca for treatment that's not available on the NHS. Hayley, 38, who had to quit her job as a midwife to care for Izzy, said: "The first time we went to hospital they treated it as an eating disorder and she was put on an eating plan. They said the pain was a functional neurological disorder and that they couldn't treat 'what's not there'."
A year ago Haley had a small victory when Izzy was officially diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) but the condition has no known cause and no treatments that have had much of an affect on Izzy. Hayley found out about a ketamine treatment but the NHS does not offer it.
There is a doctor on the Spanish island of Mallorca who offers the treatment and Hayley is hoping to raise £15,000 to take her daughter to have three weeks of ketamine treatment at the Instituto Dr Scheib Mallorca to see if that can help her daughter.
Hayley said: "She's struggling. She's quite a bubbly, chatting girl normally and she was very active. She's coped very well for a long time but when the pain comes she cries out.
"She cries and says she hates her life. The pain is right from her hips down to her top of her feet.
"The hospital has done a lot for her there are treatments out there that have worked well for other people but they are things the NHS say are unheard of and that they wouldn't even think of trying. There's a doctor in Mallorca and his treatment involves small amounts of ketamine over a period of time and some people have said it leaves them free of pain for up to two years"
Hayley has found it hard fighting to find a solution for her daughter's agony while also caring for her two disabled sons. Her eldest, Harry, 16, struggles with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, a heart condition leading to him fainting, and he is a pupil at a school for youngsters with medical conditions.
Her other son, Jacob, 11, has ADHD and autism and has special needs education. Hayley and their children's father, who are separated, split the care of Izzy and their sons.
She said her world had "come tumbling down" since Izzy was first hospitalised. Therapies they have tried include physio, hypnotherapy and oxygen chamber therapy. But none have ended Izzy's agony.
She said: "Hearing your daughter scream out in pain and saying she hates her life is not what any parent would ever want to experience. CRPS is called the suicide disease for a reason it doesn't come and go, it just gets worse for her and she is understandably depressed - we want our happy, crazy girl back."