Mum claims daughter, eight, has been left paralysed after eating tinned tuna every day

A mum has claimed her eight-year-old daughter has been left paralysed as a result of eating tinned tuna on a daily basis.

Lindsey Grant, 30, is “convinced” that the reason for her “perfectly normal little girl” Lexi-Mae’s deteriorating condition is down to the packaging that housed the fish she used to eat every day.

The mother-of-three said: “I am convinced it’s down to mercury intoxication.

“I read something somewhere about a woman who had the same symptoms as Lexi, and she ate tuna everyday and it turned out to be mercury intoxication.

“The doctors haven’t tested her for that yet but I’m sure that’s what it is. I know I could be wrong but I’m sure that’s what it is. She used to eat tuna daily.

“She’s has had endless blood tests, MRIs, CTs, skin biopsy, lumber puncture, EEGs EMGs, PET scans, but nothing is showing up. None of the hospitals have seen this before.”

Lexi-Mae was “perfectly fine” until one morning three years ago which changed everything.

Lindsey said: “Lexi was born fine, everything was normal, until she was about five. She got an ear infection and the doctor put her on antibiotics.

“But the next morning when she woke up it was like she had had a stroke, her face was lopsided and she couldn’t move.

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“We immediately took her to Hull Royal Infirmary and she was on the high-dependency unit for about two weeks, but doctors couldn’t explain what was wrong with her.

“It has been very difficult, she has lost all of her abilities and the doctors can’t understand why.

“She has been like a guinea pig for different treatments but none of them have done anything.

“I have taken her off the medication because it wasn’t changing what was happening.”

Lindsey says that tuna was one of Lexi’s favourite foods and she would eat it both at school and at home.

She added: “I believed that it was good for her and had no problem with her eating it, I always believed that it was healthy.”

Tuna contains a highly toxic organic compound of mercury in small measurements. Mercury doesn’t leave the human body on its own.

Lexi has been subject to several tests and scans but despite numerous hospital appointments in Leeds, Hull and at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, doctors remain baffled by what the cause could be.

Lindsey said: “The next step the hospitals want is surgery but I won’t sign the consent forms, I want her to be tested for the mercury intoxication.

“I want the doctors to take me seriously about it.

“They tell me it can’t be that and they think that I am crazy. I believe that I could be right.”

Lindsey said Lexi’s illness has had a profound impact on the family.

She said: “It’s awful. She used to sing, she used to dance, she used to be a really really funny, perfectly normal little girl.

“But now she has lost all her abilities. She can’t even say ‘mam’. It is heartbreaking for everybody, she is trapped in her own body.”

Lindsey is desperate to hear from someone who might know what the cause is and how to help her daughter.

She said: “Someone, somewhere must have seen this before.

“I’m just at the end of my tether and don’t know how to help my little girl.”

Top pic: SWNS