Izzy Green first started to feel unwell in October when she lost weight and began to feel nauseous. She was first admitted to hospital in December and has not been able to walk since
A young girl is battling a debilitating illness that leaves her in “excruciating” pain and unable to walk, with her mother revealing her daughter “hates her life” due to the constant agony.
Izzy Green, 13, from from Leicester, has been suffering since December 2022, and her condition has led to numerous hospital stays and reliance on a feeding tube. Her mother, Hayley Green, first became concerned in October 2022 when Izzy lost a significant amount of weight and began experiencing nausea and headaches.
The situation escalated in December when Izzy was admitted to the hospital after becoming unsteady on her feet, leading to an approximate four-month stay. The teenager’s health has seen her repeatedly hospitalised, enduring severe pain that sometimes leaves her unable to speak, only able to cry out.
In a desperate bid for relief, Hayley is now fundraising to take Izzy to Mallorca for a treatment not offered by the NHS. Hayley, who had to leave her job as a midwife to look after her daughter, shared their initial hospital experience: “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 received 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, reports Leicestershire Live. 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, a mother of three, has been struggling to find a solution for her daughter’s excruciating pain while also caring for her two disabled sons. Her eldest son, Harry, 16, battles with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, a heart condition that causes him to faint, and he attends a school for children with medical conditions.
Her younger son, Jacob, 11, is diagnosed with ADHD and autism and receives special needs education. Hayley and the children’s father, who are separated, share the care of Izzy and their sons. Hayley expressed that her world had “come tumbling down” since Izzy was first hospitalised. They have tried various therapies including physiotherapy, hypnotherapy and oxygen chamber therapy, but none have alleviated Izzy’s suffering.
In her words: “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.”
