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Teenager suspected of having an eating disorder diagnosed with Crohn’s disease after 10 years (29 June 2015)

Date: 29/06/2015
Duncan Lewis, Clinical Negligence Solicitors, Teenager suspected of having an eating disorder diagnosed with Crohn’s disease after 10 years

A Manchester woman has told her she was misdiagnosed as having an eating disorder and nasal condition when she was eventually found to be suffering from the bowel condition Crohn’s disease.

Former trainee surveyor Lorna Haymes from Haughton Green in Manchester rapidly lost weight as a teenager until she was skin and bones – but doctors suspected she was taking laxatives and had an eating disorder.

She told the Manchester Evening News that she became so malnourished that she “couldn’t pick up a cup”.

Ms Haymes, now aged 33, eventually lost so much weight she was “like a skeleton” and her bones jutted out. She was also in pain from just sitting on a chair, she said.

Her symptoms – which began when she was 14 – included the need to evacuate her bowels as soon as she had eaten, but instead of suspecting inflammatory bowel disease, Ms Haymes was suspected of taking laxatives.

“I had always been a healthy weight and suddenly it was dropping off,” she said.

“It would just keep happening. My weight was so up and down. Aged 16, I was wearing clothes meant for 13-year-olds, I was so skinny.”

At the age of 17, Ms Haymes was struggling to keep food down.

“I was throwing up every morning. I’d eat something and then throw up.
“Doctors said it was bile in my nose settling in my stomach, so I had surgery on my nose to stop it when I was 18.”

Ms Haymes said, however, that nasal surgery made no difference to her symptoms, which continued to grow worse.

“I was like an old woman,” she said. “I had joint pains, it was agony to walk.
Miss Haymes was then diagnosed with reactive arthritis – but doctors were unsure why she was suffering from the condition.

She continued to lose weight, until at the age of 21 she was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at Spire Manchester Hospital.

I was relieved to have a name for it, but my health had gone down the drain.

“I was put on steroids to make me stronger.”

Crohn’s disease cannot be treated and medications simply keep it under control or in remission. By the age of 24, no medication would alleviate her symptoms and she opted for an ileostomy with a bag, which she later regretted and had reversed.

An ileostomy involves diverting the small intestine through an opening in the stomach called a stoma, and an ostomy bag is attached to collect waste matter.

Later, however, she had the surgery again and has now launched a social media campaign using the #getyourbellyout tag to help other sufferers of Crohn’s disease not feel self-conscious about wearing their ostomy bags.

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