My name is James Wythe, I’m 27 and currently living in the Bournemouth area, I have developed a passion for healthy living and cooking after falling very ill 6 years ago. My new blog focuses on gluten, wheat, dairy, egg and sugar free foods. Most of my time is spent either in the kitchen creating quick and healthy allergy free meals or thinking about new dishes I can make. Here is a link to my blog. www.healthylivingjames.co.uk
It all started when I fell ill in December 2010 just after completing my sports science BSc Degree at Bournemouth University (where I was playing golf for the University and also the Dorset County 1st team). I thought my illness was just a touch of food poisoning but for some reason I didn’t recover and the symptoms just seemed to get worse and worse. I tried to push through this but reached a point where I had to be rushed into hospital for suspected brain tumour. I had several brain scans but I was so weak at that point having lost nearly 3 stone in weight that I couldn’t eat, drink or even stand up!
On my third trip to hospital I was kept in for 11 days. I was tested for everything they could think of, however all the tests came back “normal”. At that point I had also become hypersensitive to more and more of the medication they were giving me. I also had a severe allergic reaction and developed a sensitivity to light, smells and certain foods. The doctors were unable to give any diagnosis apart from saying that I had some kind of viral infection, so they just sent me home and told me to rest and take it easy for a while.
I did go home and rest, unfortunately I didn’t recover or feel any better, in fact I just got worse. I was bed bound, unable to stand up or walk by myself. I couldn’t watch TV or look at my phone as I was extremely sensitive to the light which would give me awful headaches but to make matters worse, I suffered with severe insomnia often going days without any sleep at all. This made it impossible to see my friends and made me feel really isolated.
After multiple attempts to get help from the doctors they finally, after nearly 6 months, diagnosed me with M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) also known as CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). I was told there was no “cure” and all I could do was rest and wait.
I started to follow some Facebook pages about M.E to gain more knowledge and came across a page called Let’s Do It For M.E (LDIFME) who were raising money for UK charity Invest in ME to do extensive research into the illness particularly into the gut. Over the next few months I contacted all friends and family members and managed to raise £3000 (The charity raised funds to match the donation making a total of £6000) towards the research which really helped them hit the £100,000 goal they had set. If you wish to donate to this charity or find out more about M.E then go to ldifme.org/foundation-research-project/
Continue reading James’s story here – http://healthylivingjames.co.uk/my-story/
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Huge thanks to everyone for your support!