Woman told 'nothing physically wrong' with her diagnosed by Facebook stranger
| Author | Neil Shaw |
| Published date | 24 June 2022 |
| Publication title | EdinburghLive (Scotland) |
Because of this, Annie Marshall soon took to social media to ask for help and after seeing her plea, one Facebook stranger hit the nail on the head when it came to her diagnosis. And it was different to what she had been told in the past.
The 20-year-old who first began experiencing symptoms during the first Covid lockdown took to a Facebook group for gastroparesis sufferers to vent her frustration. However after reading what she had been through, a woman reached out to her and suggested she looks into Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome - MALS for short.
Annie explained that she was unsure of her next steps in getting help and had taken to Facebook to vent explaining: "I didn't know what to do and was feeling really low in myself. I had pretty much given up and vented to a gastroparesis Facebook group about everything that had happened.
"I had a message from a woman in America who said she had been a nurse for twenty years and I should look into MALS. She had it herself and had worked with MALS surgeons - so it was sort of like luck."
Following her experience with food poisoning, the broker went to her GP who told her she was suffering from a stomach bug. However she soon began experiencing pain every time she ate which increased until she was unable to eat even a couple of mouthfuls of food with the pain leaving her bedridden for the rest of the day.
She explained: "I was in lots of pain every time I ate which increased to the point where two mouthfuls of food would make me so ill that I would be in bed for the rest of the day. It increased over a couple of months so I started seeing a few doctors – one did an MRI which came back fine and he said he thought I was anorexic even though I told him 'no, there's something physically wrong with me'."
Despite being told this, doctors realised there had to be something wrong and began seeing specialists to get to the bottom of her debilitating symptoms which is when she was diagnosed with gastroparesis having already been on a liquid diet and losing over two stone.
Annie added: "He told me he couldn't help me anymore and at first my parents believed him too, they trusted him because he was a...
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