From girl dinners to Madonna squats, TikTok regularly gets us obsessed with the most niche content.

At the moment, chiropractors are having their moment in the spotlight – specifically, videos where patients get their necks, backs and joints cracked.

However, while they might be weirdly addictive to watch, a doctor has warned TikTok users against getting this kind of treatment.

They’re also worried that users will try the methods at home, sharing stark warnings against doing so.

Taking to TikTok, Dr Ever Arias was just one expert who shared his advice.

Speaking to his 136,200 followers, Dr Arias noted how one of his patients, aged 20, had visited the hospital after hearing a snapping noise during a session with her chiropractor.

The patient had actually suffered a cervical compression fracture – essentially a broken neck, caused by compression or pressure on the bone.

Such fractures can be treated properly by wearing a brace for up to eight weeks, but more serious breaks may require surgery and months spent in a cast.

Dr Arias also warned of other serious conditions that can be brought on by these cracking sessions.

‘It’s important to understand that if you crack your neck there’s a couple situations that you could put yourself in,’ Dr Arias explained. ‘I see that is sometimes people come in with strokes and they had a chiropractor manipulate their neck – and they ended up having a vertebral artery dissection that caused them to have a stroke.’

In more simple terms, the cracking caused a tear in the wall of one of the large blood vessels in the neck, which went on to cause a stroke.

‘It’s important that if you go into a chiropractor you tell them, “don’t touch my neck,”‘ Dr Arias said.

He also says you should never try a DIY job.

‘You could cause your own vertebral artery dissection or other injuries to vessels in the structure of the neck.’

At the end of the video he added: ‘So just hopefully you use that information to never crack your neck again.’

Since being posted, the clip has over 5.4 million views and thousands of viewers took to the comments section to react. Many users said they won’t stop cracking their neck despite the warning.

‘If I don’t crack my neck I feel stiff and get a pressure pain down my back,’ one viewer wrote.

While another added: ‘Neck cracking is an addiction. I am going to need more than “never crack your neck again.”‘

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A woman has shared how severe topical steroid withdrawal (TSW) caused a whole host of health problems and even forced her to quit her job.

In February this year, Sharon Shute was prescribed steroid tablets and creams to treat a spot on her neck

But after just two weeks, the 55-year-old – from Colchester, Essex – stopped using the cream as it was making the rash even worse.

The first signs of topical steroid withdrawal came after she tried to taper from five to two pills a day, and symptoms returned every single time she attempted to reduce her tablet intake.

TSW is a reaction people face when they stop using over-the-counter steroid creams – which are widely used as a remedy for eczema and other skin conditions. Those suffering from TSW can suffer hair loss, insomnia, flaking skin, and sore, puss-filled blisters amongst other issues.

Sharon said: ‘My legs turn purple and swell up. My hands would swell. My ears would clog up and I’d be deaf for the day. I had insomnia – I’d be awake most nights itching my skin.

‘Sometimes I’d wake up and I couldn’t move my head and face because the skin was so dry and tight. My eyes are dry, and lids are sometimes hard to blink.’

In July, things were so severe that Sharon had to be admitted to hospital.

She continued: ‘The rash had covered most of my body and Eythroderma was a life-threatening condition.

‘I felt like I was on fire.

‘My lowest point was when I smiled at a patient’s visiting grandchildren and they turned away because they were scared of my face.’

Now, Sharon experiences burning arms and legs, shredding skin, and purple legs and hands when she stands or walks for an extended period of time.

She also can’t regulate body heat and has lost nearly all her hair.

These health issues have even resulted in her quitting her job as a nursery plant assistant. Currently, she’s living off Statutory Sick Pay, at £109.40 a week.

Sharon says TSW has completely upended her life – emotionally, physically and financially – and she wishes she never used steroid creams in the first place.

She said: ‘I think if I never had been prescribed steroids orally and creams my original rash would have healed by now. It’s changed me and my life.

‘It’s hard to see a future where I’m not ill, to be honest. It really brings me down. I’m hoping my new medication Methotrexate will improve my condition.’

She hopes sharing her story will help warn others of the consequences around steroid creams.

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Taz Hoesli, 22, went from being an active dancer performing on London’s West End to spending a week in the ICU due to sepsis.

Last October, aged 21 and a ‘peak fitness, dancing eight hours a day, doing all the workouts you can imagine’, Taz got what she thought was the flu.

But the now 22 year old, who had no underlying health conditions, ended up in hospital, fighting for her life – she’s still working through the trauma she experienced.

Like most people, Taz didn’t know much about the deadly illness, and now wants to share her story for Sepsis Awareness Day.

‘When you’re that fit and healthy, I think you just think you’re a bit invincible,’ Taz tells Metro.co.uk.

‘But then I started getting fluey symptoms while I was doing a dance job in Newbury.

‘The night before, I just thought I just really don’t feel 100%. But you know, as we all do, we kind of just push through it.

‘So I turned up to the event, which was outdoors, and I started shivering. I wasn’t very hungry. I was kind of having a temperature, getting hot sweats, even though I was cold.

‘When I was at that event, my agent emailed me and said that I had an audition for a West End Show – my dream show.’

Taz felt she couldn’t turn down the opportunity, so went to the all-day audition, dancing and singing – but she was feeling much worse, and had begun experiencing dizziness.

Then she noticed a pain in her right hip, and so she believed maybe she’d pulled a muscle there, and that on top of being ill was making her feel so bad.

‘I thought I could sleep it off, so I went to bed that night but when I woke up in the morning I had excruciating pain. I just put it down to doing too much the day before,’ she continued, and went onto teach the singing class she ran.

Things took a turn for the worse that night.

‘I woke up at 4am, and I had never ever felt this amount of pain in my whole life.

‘I actually had to text my mum who was only in the room to say I can’t even stand up.

‘So that’s when my parents rang 111 and they were told I’ve probably just strained something in the audition.’

Taz was then given painkillers, and though she wasn’t convinced by this conclusion, she trusted the experts.

While on the painkillers, it turned out she had gotten to the last round of auditions for the West End show – so she got a train to London and credits adrenaline with getting her through the last call.

‘I managed to drag myself through London to this studio to do this final singing calls,’ she says.

‘So I didn’t actually have to move, which was obviously helpful because I could barely walk at this point.

‘They said I didn’t look very well when I got there, and I just fobbed off.

‘When it was over and I went back to the train station, I literally fell to my knees. I was in so much pain. I felt so unwell.’

She was put on a train with a chaperone and sent home. A man pick me up at the other side and thought something is really not right.

New symptoms set in: Taz now had a temperature, she began falling asleep midsentence, she couldn’t pass urine, and couldn’t eat. It’s around here her memory is missing, and she has been told what happened next by her parents.

‘My dad was asking me questions, and I was just speaking basically gibberish back to him,’ she says, which is a common symptom of sepsis in it’s later stages.

‘He called 111 again, and luckily when I spoke to the doctor this time, she saved my life.

‘She said, I don’t want to scare you guys, but I’m going to bring an ambulance because everything you’re telling me sounds like your daughter’s got sepsis.

‘And my dad was like, I have no idea really what sepsis is, I’ve seen it on films and that but none of us had any idea of what it properly was prior to me being ill.’

Once at the hospital, she was tested for a UTI, as the symptoms can appear similarly in people, but of course, this isn’t what she had.

‘I had no idea what was going on – I was out of it and couldn’t even answer basic questions the medics were asking me.

‘The next morning, I was taken up to the ICU and put on a high flow oxygen ventilator – and I stayed there for a week.

‘I don’t remember anything at all, apart from small snippets of doctors coming in.’

In this time, fluid was found in Taz’s lungs and she was in respiratory failure. The cause of sepsis was found to be Strep A – which rarely has such complications.

Last year, Strep A was doing the rounds in the UK after an outbreak, and Taz unfortunately caught it during that winter. She was treated with antibiotics to target the illness.

‘It was a very scary time, and I’m recovering still 11 months on,’ she shares.

‘When I was in hospital, I don’t actually think I knew how unwell I was.

‘The scariest part was waking up covered in wires, confused. But I remember being more focused on getting better than dwelling on it.

‘Before I was ill, everyone called me “positive Polly”. Everyone would come to me to get their positive kick.

‘Originally, when I first came out of hospital, I felt like, it hadn’t really affected me that much. I’m just super grateful to be alive.’

However, as she began to process it and eventually start seeing a therapist, she realised she had PTSD.

‘With trauma, sometimes it doesn’t hit you straightaway. Everyone processes trauma differently.

‘And when my me and my therapist worked on the idea of me having PTSD, I was like, there is no way that that can be me – that’s something that only happens to soldiers after the war.

‘But I had night terrors and flashbacks, and I’m still working through that.’

As well as suffering mentally, Taz hasn’t been able to return to dance yet, despite forcing herself to take up teaching again three weeks after leaving hospital.

‘I was worried about getting back to the career of dance and that everyone was moving on without me, and that I would never get back to doing what I loved,’ she says.

‘I was desperate to have some normality.

‘It’s frustrating as someone who was really active before, but now I try to look at it from a perspective of like, everything happens for a reason.

‘I think that this will make me so much stronger than I was before, in the long run.

‘I think it’s important that I try and look on the positive side as well as obviously dealing and feeling all those emotions.’

She has physio, given the Strep A bug manifested itself in her hip and shoulder (though doctors don’t know why exactly).

‘I’m really getting there now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, so I’m feeling positive.

‘It’s just that the recovery, especially of the septic arthritis is just grueling. It’s so long. And it’s also slightly unknown.

‘The doctors are trying their hardest to help me out, but it’s very much a trial and error situation. I would say I’m probably about 75% back. I’ve still got a journey ahead of me, but I’m super proud and grateful that I’m at the point of where I am in my recovery.’

Taz still lives with her family, which has meant she’s been supported financially and in terms of her physical recovery. If she didn’t have her family to lean on, she’s not sure how she would have been able to make money to support herself.

Having been supported by The UK Sepsis Trust too, she says: ‘I will forever be grateful for all the work that they did and supported me through it during this recovery. It’s just been invaluable.’

You can find out more about the work The UK Sepsis Trust is doing here.

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Despite her seniority as an experienced surgeon, Hannah* recalls there was no escape from sexual harassment and abuse in her job.

It was rife in the corridors, the wards and even in the operating theatre. However, she was too scared to expose it.

‘I didn’t want to be a troublemaker,’ Hannah admits. ‘I didn’t want to not be able to have fun with my colleagues.

‘I didn’t want people to be, you know, weird around me, because they were worried I was going to “tell” on them.

‘And so I allowed an increasing level of physical contact which I wasn’t comfortable with – until it reached a point where he then assaulted me.’

Accounts of sexual assault and harassment in the surgery industry emerged after surgeons began speaking out in a journal, published towards the end of 2021.

As a response, The Royal College of Surgeons of England issued a statement in January 2022, condemning acts of sexual misconduct.

But now, new analysis by the University of Exeter, the University of Surrey and the Working Party on Sexual Misconduct in Surgery has revealed that a third of women surgeons who responded to the researchers said they had been sexually assaulted by colleagues in the past five years.

It’s clear that the issue is going to require a rigorous overhaul in order for there to be lasting change.

Female surgeons are hoping for a #MeToo moment – but whether they will get that over fleeting uproar is yet to be seen.

Sexism runs rife

Sexism, before it even escalates to assault, is a blatant issue within the trade.

This scandal aside, the are shocking accounts: a surgeon who burnt his initials onto patients’ livers some years ago was only removed from medical registers last year. And one report  found female patients were more likely to die when operated on by men than women.

Surgery is a heavily male-dominated industry in the UK and always has been.

Women make up 41% of early stage surgeons but only 30% of higher trainees and 14% of consultants – meaning men hold 86% of the top jobs.

This is one reason as to why Hannah’s story is sadly unsurprising.

Not wanting to ’cause trouble’ and risk negatively impacting her status at work, she remains anonymous. There is fear around the consequences of speaking out.

‘I was aware of the difference in the way that female medical students and doctors were treated from the very outset of going into hospitals, by predominantly male consultants and male registrars, who are the more senior doctors,’ Hannah tells Metro.

‘That ranged from comments about appearance, to the way that the male medical students would sometimes come and ask the female medical students to go and ask a specific person if we can have a teaching session with them – because they knew that they were more likely to say yes to the girls than they were to the boys.

‘It’s difficult thinking back to because you normalise a lot of the things that are said or the behaviours that you see.’

Hannah says male colleagues made comments on her breasts, physicality, and PMS.

‘As I became more senior, I was more aware of my need to masculinise in certain ways,’ she notes.

This involved getting ‘in’ on the sexist jokes, brushing off things that didn’t feel right, and even taking on typically ‘female’ domesticated duties, such as running for cups of tea.

‘I behaved in order to fit in better with the men at the operating table so that I wasn’t elbowed out,’ Hannah tells us.

‘I started to participate in conversations that I would normally never have participated in, talking about things like the appearance of women’s breasts because I felt like if I didn’t, I wasn’t part of the team.

‘And this was on an operating table, around a patient.

‘I feel quite ashamed that I have tolerated things previously, but to say to someone that has control over your progress “I’m not really comfortable with that” takes quite a lot of confidence.

‘You would need to know that you were supported.’

Assault in the workplace

Things changed when Hannah was sexually assaulted by a former colleague on two occasions – a colleague that people ‘knew’ could be troublesome towards women.

While at work, she was assaulted in the office space through unwanted sexual touching.

On a separate occasion, that same man assaulted her while she was alone and preparing to go into theatre.

She had a ‘freeze’ response both times and stood there in disbelief, ‘pretending it never happened’.

After both instances, she went straight to work and carried on as normal, as she ‘had patients to see’.

‘After the second instance I did report him for inappropriate sexual touching,’ she says.

‘That was difficult for a lot of reasons.

‘To some extent, this person’s behavior was known to be inappropriate, it was accepted as such, it had been normalised across the department.’

Hannah’s report, which was made internally within her branch of the NHS and not to the police, was met with a response that ‘was not ideal’.

Hannah claims that the offending man did not face any ramifications for his actions in the way of suspension or through taking on sexual misconduct in the workplace training.

This is part of the problem with the underreporting of cases.

One key reason as to why Hannah felt she could file a complaint was because she was in the process of looking for a new job, so knew, sooner or later, she would be able to leave and start afresh without this tarnishing her reputation.

Hannah says: ‘All the statements from official bodies say we don’t tolerate that and you must report it. That’s the problem.

‘If it was that easy to do, people would do it frequently.

‘It’s everywhere. We’ve got a problem like all of medicine and all of surgery has a problem.

‘And if I had been on rotation, early on in my career for instance, I wouldn’t have had the option of leaving. It’s not like I could sit there and say, I want to go somewhere else.

‘I think it’s unfair as people who have already suffered and are struggling then have that burden of reporting it.’

Tamzin Cuming, Chair of the Women in Surgery Forum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, is more optimistic about the reporting of incidents.

She says: ‘It’s something of a MeToo for surgery, and the response of support from many colleagues, including crucially of course many male colleagues, has been heartening to see.

‘There is no place in the surgical profession for any kind of bullying, harassment, or sexual assault.

‘A cultural change is needed in those backwaters of operating theatres stuck in the last century who haven’t woken up to the fact that women are their equals.

‘This means anyone and everyone who experiences or witnesses inappropriate behaviour should speak out, not passively observe or excuse.’

Having worked in a traditional male-dominated setting in the past but nowadays with a female team leader, she’s seen the difference first-hand and need for systemic change.

‘I did move on from that culture to working within a team led by a female surgical consultant and the atmosphere in her theatres was like a breath of fresh air,’ she says.

‘This opened my eyes as to how relaxed and pleasant an operating theatre could be without the culture of misogyny that was otherwise ubiquitous.’

This watershed moment is partly down to respected surgeons Rebecca Fisher and Simon Fleming.

They co-wrote an article exposing sexual assault in surgery in a medical publication called the Bulletin in September 2020.

Simon, who believes these issues have ‘kind of been an open secret’, tells us: ‘I am an ally and advocate, and someone who has made mistakes in the past and held his hands up.

‘We all need to grow and change and do better now that we know better.

‘My DMs after the article came out were full of people saying I’m glad you wrote this, but there was also anger with people saying we already know this is an issue.’

He believes the current reporting systems in healthcare are not adequate.

‘There’s no way to do it anonymously at all,’ he explains. ‘The hierarchical structures in the training environment not only infantalises trainees, but means they are not listened to or believed and feel like they cannot report for fear of recrimination.’

The way forward isn’t clear – it’s all well and good saying there needs to be change, but this won’t happen overnight.

In the words of Hannah, ‘the lines seem to be blurred’, and female surgeons are calling for help, support and change.

If you’re in the surgery industry and need support, the Royal College of Surgeons of England has a 24/7 confidential support and advice helpline, and the BMA has a helpline.

If you’ve been affected by the issues raised in this article outside of surgery, find support options from Rape Crisis.

Do you have a story to share?

Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.

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Being handed the iconic Paralympic torch was a surreal experience.

Pride surged through me as I set off in my wheelchair, clasping it tightly.
Surrounded by people cheering, I felt the excitement, hope and inspiration radiating from everyone.

Back in 2012, aged 17, I was a Paralympic torchbearer. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my life.

It was also the first moment I truly realised that I could say I was disabled and feel no sadness.

I was born with cerebral palsy, and I got my first wheelchair at the age of six. It’s a kind of comfort to me that it’s all I’ve ever known.

But when I was younger, I struggled with people staring and asking intrusive questions, like what was ‘wrong’ with me or if I could have children one day.

I became used to saying sorry to strangers if I thought I was in the way, then questioning myself over whether I was apologising because I felt ashamed or embarrassed.

It felt like all I could see at this time was what I couldn’t do – all because I am a full time wheelchair user.

This started to change when I became involved in wheelchair sports around the age of 10 through a charity called Go Kids Go. It helps young people in wheelchairs become more independent.

Through that, I got introduced to sports like wheelchair basketball and rugby, which showed me that I could channel the negative feelings I had about my disability into something positive.

That I could relate to other people who had similar experiences, rather than punish and isolate myself for them.

Sure, I had the love of my family, but until I found wheelchair sports, I didn’t have anyone in my life that had first-hand lived experience of being disabled. So the ability to meet people with similar experiences meant I didn’t feel so isolated.

Through them I learned that ‘different’ isn’t bad, ‘different’ is joyful.

When most kids learned how to ride bikes, I met other children in wheelchairs and we practised popping wheelies together. It felt amazing to be around people who were so similar to me.

It was the first time I remember feeling like I was understood. That I belonged.
When I was 15, I became a volunteer for Go Kids Go – I still volunteer for them today. Through this, I was nominated by them to be a torchbearer.

It was a pivotal moment for me when I started to reshape how I saw my life in a wheelchair.

Swapped resentment for appreciation.

Of course, I do still have tough days, and I’m learning – even into my late twenties – that my journey to acceptance isn’t linear. Sometimes I’m highly aware of what I can’t do, like being on the sand at the beach, or having to plan extensively around places that have an accessible toilet.

Still, when I’m feeling down, I make sure to remind myself of all of the things that I can do in my wheelchair. Travel, make friends, spend time with old ones – live a happy life. If it weren’t for my wheelchair, I couldn’t have attended family events, like weddings, for example.

It’s incredibly powerful when you realise that the tool you once thought was limiting could be used in such an empowering way.

I’m also lucky to be in a relationship with someone who fully accepts me. We met online when I was 27 and he is with me through the hard times and the good. I know I can fully be myself and that I would never be judged, just loved unconditionally.

One thing that really changed my perspective on my disability was focusing on gratitude and joy. I always knew that I wanted to help people, and if my experience could help someone in a similar situation feel more confident and happy, that was enough for me.

Through my volunteer work, it’s always such a magical thing to see a disabled child grow in confidence and come to realise that their chairs are tools to be utilised.

That being said, I don’t consider my life to be tragic or inspirational. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed of my disability anymore, nor do I feel it makes me exceptional or anyone to be looked up to.

I want people to know that my wheelchair is not my enemy. It’s my sense of freedom to appreciate and to be a part of the world.

Yes, I’m used to people staring, but one thing I know is that my life is not to be pitied. Sure, it can be hard at times, but this life has more joy than I ever thought possible.

While my wheelchair may look limiting to others, it’s a tool that boosts my confidence, joy and independence.

It’s something that, today, I wish to give thanks for, rather than resent.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

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A mum taking medical marijuana while pregnant has defended her decision, saying plant medicine is keeping her and her unborn baby alive.

Clarissa Morales, 21, explained that she was prescribed medicinal cannabis by her healthcare provider before falling pregnant to treat her mental health problems and pain from an existing back fracture.

While she did stop smoking when she was pregnant with her first child, now 13 months, the full-time mother later began using infused edibles when her mental health deteriorated.

After finding out she was having a second baby, however, she started to suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) and experienced severe nausea and vomiting. As a result, she could only consume cannabis by smoking, which she found kept helped with her queasiness as well as her mood.

Clarissa, who is now around 32 weeks pregnant, said that although in an ideal world she wouldn’t smoke while expecting, she believes that treating her existing ailments and morning sickness is ultimately worth potential dangers.

But her lifestyle has caused shockwaves of controversy online, where she’s been slammed for putting her baby’s health at risk. Clarissa has even had TikTok pages taken down for discussing the topic and breaking community guidelines.

Defending her choices, she said: ‘I had to think about what method was going to work best and fastest. I had to really weigh the risk versus reward benefit, and there was more reward than anything.

‘It’s not something that I enjoy doing, but what’s the other option, I’m throwing up in a hospital?’

Clarissa, who lives in New Jersey, USA, explained she was prescribed medical marijuana prior to pregnancy for her mental health and for back fracture pain.

She saw an instant improvement in terms of pain, and felt her head was ‘finally clear for the first time’.

‘I initially stopped with my first pregnancy,’ the mum recalled.

‘I stopped for around three weeks. But my mental health soon deteriorated – it got really bad.

‘With my morning sickness, I was throwing up all the time and it included blood. I was tearing up my oesophagus. Cannabis was the only thing that kept the nausea at bay.’

Clarissa says she ‘looked at various studies like neurodevelopmental outcomes after prenatal marijuana exposure,’ and tried a range of other methods, but after nothing worked she decided to begin smoking again (although she kept her usage to a minimum).

Having previously suffered from miscarriages, she believed cannabis – which is legal for medical use but considered a Class B drug when used without prescription in the UK – helped her to safely bring her daughter into the world, as she had never kept a pregnancy for so long.

‘I like to refer to it as plant medicine because that’s what it is. It’s something that I take to help my ailments,’ said Clarissa.

‘It’s very stigmatised. I’ve lost countless TikTok accounts for just talking about it. People put medicinal users along with recreational users, which is very frustrating because I’m not doing it for fun.’

Clarissa also added that she is currently doing well and her baby is progressing as expected.

She said: ‘My baby is growing. They are measuring on time, and the anatomy scan went great.’

When asked if her marijuana usage affected her daughter, she claimed that while she was born at a low birth weight, her severe morning sickness was responsible.

Clarissa said: ‘She was born weighing 5lbs 10oz at 42 weeks gestation, so she was small.

‘Doctors attributed that to the fact that I dropped like 60 pounds when I was pregnant. But she was completely healthy.

‘Now she’s 13 months old, she’s actually advanced for her age. She’s been crawling since she was four months old, and she properly started walking at 10 months.’

Clarissa is hoping that by sharing her story, she can show the thought process that led to her judgement.

But Dr Alexis Missick of UK Meds commented: ‘During pregnancy or while breastfeeding, no level of cannabis use is known to be safe.

‘Developmental disruption of a foetus has been associated with maternal marijuana usage in many published studies into marijuana exposure during pregnancy.

‘Clinical evidence highlights that cannabis usage amongst pregnant and lactating people is linked to side effects such as childhood developmental deficits and lower birth weights, as well as a smaller head circumference, a smaller size for gestational age and other birth defects.

‘There could also be a greater risk of spontaneous preterm birth in mothers who smoke cannabis during pregnancy and a higher risk of neonatal intensive care admissions.

‘Pregnant women shouldn’t make the assumption that it is safe to smoke cannabis during pregnancy until more information is available.’

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Last summer, Barbara Geraghty-Whitehead, 58, began to experience hot flushes and dizziness, as well as developing an ear infection.

The school inclusion manager, who lives in Cheshire, initially put these changes ‘to the back of (her) mind’, but after symptoms persisted, she visited her GP in September 2022 and underwent tests.

Within a matter of hours she received a phone call from her doctor, who expressed concern over a high white blood cell count and told Barbara that they were worried it ‘could be blood cancer.’

One week later, after further tests, the mum was told she has chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) and received the devastating news that the disease is incurable.

‘You say you want to carry on as much as normal, but from that second nothing else was going to be normal anymore,’ said Barbara.

‘I wanted to go in and for them to say, “No, it was a mistake, it’s something else,” but they didn’t, they said it was CML.’

Barbara started taking chemotherapy tablets that same day – and despite experiencing side-effects of fatigue, nausea, acid reflux, and a loss of taste, nearly one year later she has responded well to treatment and has been able to see her daughter get married in Cyprus.

But after nearly ignoring her own symptoms, she wants to encourage others not to ‘make excuses’, as ‘people need to know the signs so they can get diagnosed early’.

‘When I was first diagnosed, you don’t know where to start and that in itself is overwhelming, but the support I’ve received has been fantastic,’ Barbara said.

‘I still feel tired, there can be days where I can sleep for hours, and there can be days where I have a good day, and when you have a good day, you just make the most of it.

‘I think about [my diagnosis] every day and it is hard and I do get upset, but now I’ve just got to face the fact that this is the new me.’

Barbara said she has always enjoyed spending quality time with her family, going out for meals, travelling abroad, and walking her dogs.

However, back in March 2020, during the first coronavirus lockdown, she said she ‘didn’t feel right’ and started experiencing ‘a dizzy vertigo feeling’.

This sensation came in waves over the following two years up until the summer of 2022 when she felt lethargic and listless, and she developed her first ever ear infection.

On top of this, she said she was experiencing regular hot flushes, but she attributed this to the warm, balmy weather and ‘thought no more of it’. She also didn’t think it was related to menopause, as she had already been taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) patches for years to treat her bone pain.

‘I started not feeling right and I couldn’t figure out what it was, but I didn’t do anything about it – I just left it,’ Barbara explained.

‘Normally, I would be up and about, making use of the time that we had off during the summer, but I found myself just sitting around not really having the motivation to do anything.’

Looking back now, she realises she should have acted sooner – but on September 16, she bit the bullet and visited her GP.

Recalling that terrifying time, she added: ‘Everything happened so fast, it was just like a rollercoaster.

‘I think it was worse waiting for the blood test results because I didn’t know what type of cancer it was, whether I was going to live, whether I was going to die.

‘But all I wanted was to get the very first tablet into my body, as I felt like I was being eaten away because it was in my blood and your blood travels everywhere.’

Barbara started treatment the same day she was diagnosed, which she said was the ‘first positive move’.

Although she was told her CML is incurable, doctors reassured her other patients had responded well to the chemotherapy tablets she needed to take daily, and this gave her hope.

And thankfully, Barbara has also seen results, meaning she was able to fly to Cyprus for her daughter Jess’s wedding in July – an event she knew she could not miss.

Looking further ahead, she is planning a trip to New York for her husband Paul’s 60th birthday, who she said has been her ‘rock’ throughout and has done everything to support her.

Yet although she is adjusting to a new way of life, Barbara wants to stress that ‘if something isn’t right, no matter how small it is, just go to the doctors and get checked.’

She continued: ‘When I was diagnosed, I just started thinking of my family, because if you’ve got kids, you don’t want to not be here for them – that was the thing in my head.

‘I just thought, “I’ve got to do this, not just for myself, but for all the other people around me as well”, and I wanted to see my daughter get married.

‘She had booked her wedding, and I thought, “There’s no way on this earth I’m missing that wedding”.’

For more information and support, visit Leukaemia Care’s website here.

Do you have a story to share?

Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.

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A woman has issued a warning over the rapid onset of sepsis after she was left in an intensive care unit with an illness so severe, she had to learn to walk again.

Suzanne Graham, 45, was suffering from what she suspected was a bad cold in the run-up to Christmas 2019.

She was struggling to breathe and talk, so she made an appointment with her GP.

Suzanne hoped for a quick recovery just in time for the festive season, but her symptoms rapidly deteriorated. She was taken to intensive care and put on a ventilator.

She was diagnosed with severe pneumonia, sepsis, and acute respiratory distress syndrome that left her with just 10-20% of normal lung function.

Suzanne, from Glasgow, spent 10 days in intensive care, so long that her muscles began to waste away.

She couldn’t stand and had to learn to walk again with the help of three physiotherapists.

After extensive therapy and training that helped her adjust to life on crutches, Suzanne was finally able to return home following the ordeal.

Recalling her traumatic illness, she said: ‘I was busy and there was a lot happening.

‘I had a cold that I didn’t think too much about, but it just lingered.

‘When it got closer to Christmas, I started to get more unwell, but I thought the cold had just developed into a flu.

‘Looking back, I had no idea how unwell I really was.’

Symptoms of sepsis

One night when she was unable to sleep, Suzanne recalled a friend of her age who had recently recovered from pneumonia.

‘I thought that was unusual, because I’d always associated pneumonia with older people, so I looked up the symptoms of pneumonia and the flu, and quickly found that my symptoms were all pointing towards pneumonia.’

Suzanne arranged an emergency appointment with her GP but her condition had worsened to the point where she was unable to stand for any length of time.

She said her husband drove her to the GP despite the surgery being just 50 metres from their house.

There a doctor measured Suzanne’s blood oxygen and listened to her lungs.

‘I just remember her saying to me, “I don’t want to alarm you, but we will be calling an ambulance – you have to go to hospital”.’

‘I remember getting into the ambulance, but I have no memories from then on, so this is all from what I’ve been told by family members.’

Upon arriving at intensive care, Suzanne was attached to a ventilator – but her condition quickly deteriorated.

‘I was in need of oxygen. They said the situation had spiralled out of control, and the oxygen that I was getting from the ventilator wasn’t going to be enough to keep me alive,’ she said.

Doctors said the only treatment available to her was ECMO, a specialised temporary life support system only delivered in certain parts of the UK.

ECMO, or Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation, is a treatment used in extreme cases where a patient’s lungs or heart are not functioning at a normal level.

The machine uses an artificial lung to oxygenate the blood outside of the body.

Luckily, Suzanne was eligible for the treatment – but the closest machine was 145 miles away, in Aberdeen.

A team of five medical staff drove through the night with a portable ECMO machine, which Suzanne was immediately hooked up to on arrival.

‘Normally, they would hook you up to an ECMO machine in a theatre, but I was so unwell that they couldn’t move me at all. Then they took me and drove me through the night to Aberdeen in an ambulance.

‘Essentially, the pneumonia had become severe. I had 10-20% of lung function, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and sepsis.

‘It was getting into a multi-organ failure type situation – my lungs and kidneys were failing.’

Suzanne was in Aberdeen for seven days, where she continued to receive ECMO treatment. Luckily, she responded well, and was able to be transferred back to Glasgow to continue her treatment.

She was still in intensive care, but no longer needed a ventilator to breathe, and doctors were able to take Suzanne out of the heavily medicated state she had been in throughout her ordeal.

‘This is when I start to have memories of being there,’ she said.

‘I was massively confused about what had happened, because of a mix of what my body went through, and the drugs that I was given. I had quite severe hallucinations.

‘I didn’t know they were hallucinations at the time – I thought everything was just very strange.’

Now fully conscious, Suzanne was moved to a high dependency unit for the next week, where her recovery began.

‘I was bedbound. I was in hospital for three weeks, and it’s amazing just how quickly you lose your muscle mass.

‘I think they call it ‘intensive care syndrome’ – because you’re just lying there, you lose your muscles. My muscles had just wasted away in that time.’

Unable to sit up in bed, never mind stand, three physiotherapists had to help her stand for the first time, as she was no longer able to support her own body weight.

After extensive work with physiotherapists, Suzanne was finally able to return home.

Hospital staff told her that recovery could take a year, based on the severity of her illness and the time spent in intensive care.

‘Mentally, it’s been a lot. It’s a known thing for people in intensive care to experience hallucinations – people can struggle with making sense of that,’ said Suzanne.

‘Mine were so real, and I was convinced they were. It took me a while to accept that they weren’t. That throws a lot of things into confusion – was this memory real, was it another hallucination?

‘My brain also felt really slow and I was worried about returning to work. What if I couldn’t remember how to do my job?

‘Physically, the main recovery was centered around building up my fitness. I’d lost a lot of weight and muscle mass, so I was building up fitness.

‘I’m so grateful to the doctors and hospital staff, they were amazing. My family were there by my side the whole time and supported me through.

‘I’ve been extremely lucky to survive it intact – sepsis can cause loss of limbs and have other physical effects. I’m very lucky to have made a complete recovery.’

Now five years on and fully recovered, Suzanne has become passionate about sharing her story to raise awareness of the symptoms and dangers of sepsis – a medical emergency which kills around 50,000 people per year in the UK.

According to charity Sepsis Research FEAT, symptoms to look out for include very high or low temperature, confusion, shaking, blotchy skin and a difficulty urinating – combinations of these symptoms or rapidly worsening symptoms, are a reason to seek urgent medical attention.

‘When are you going to stop?’

That’s what people have been asking me for years now. 

See, I’m 61, a former ultramarathon runner and multi-world record holder.

Yes, I’m old, grey, have wrinkles and am a grandmother now, but I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. 

Pushing for more world records, and smashing old ones.

When I was at school, I was quite sporty. We mainly played team sports, like netball, and never did athletics, or running.

After leaving school at 17 I think I was so delighted to get out of education that I threw myself into work – leaving exercise behind, too.

I became a receptionist before getting married at 22, and had my first child the following year.

After that, I became a seamstress – making wedding dresses around the kids. There was no time to get fit, or stay active.

My youngest was six when I started running, realising it was important to have time to yourself too – even as a mum. 

Still, the kids came first – and weekends were family time, fitting my runs in during the week when they were at school. Some people even scolded me for leaving my kids at home, as if I was selfish – but I needed some ‘me time’.

In my mid-thirties, I started doing longer, more challenging runs. I did treadmill running at first, then moved to longer distances outside. 

It sounds weird now, but at the time, hardly anyone ran outdoors – it just wasn’t the done thing. After meeting a group of female runners in the gym, they encouraged me to start running outside, and 10 km turned into half marathons, which turned into marathons. 

And soon, ultramarathons.

Running made me feel alive and positive – to me, then a mum-of-three, it was an escape. I didn’t need to think about anything.

About 18 months after I started running, aged 38, I signed up to compete in the Marathon des Sables after my friend showed me it in a magazine. You run 250 km across the Sahara desert for six days, with everything in a backpack – camping as you go.

My husband didn’t think I’d do it as I love my make-up and bed – but I managed it, even if I did pick up a tummy bug at the beginning of the race and couldn’t keep any food or liquids inside me…

I remember thinking: ‘If I can finish this race feeling rubbish, imagine what I’d be like at 100%’ – and so started the beginning of my crazy running adventures.

In 2008, aged 45, I broke my first world record. I became the fastest woman to run about 840 miles from John O’Groats to Land’s End, completing it in 12 days, 15 hours, 46 minutes, and 35 seconds.

I remember feeling so tired, barely being able to walk, that I only had two sips of champagne before having to be carried to bed. Not really taking in the significance of my run.

I held the record for about 12 years. Records are there to be broken, after all.

When I was 50 I broke the record for fastest woman to run from the top to the bottom of Ireland – completing it in just over three days. The woman before me had only held it for six months, so I don’t think she was very happy with me! 

I’m also the record holder for the furthest distance travelled on a treadmill by a woman – I managed seven days, non-stop.

This record has been broken. I had one main break during the day where I slept for 90 mins. Each stop had to be recorded. 

I won an amazing 352-mile-long race in the Arctic back in 2007 aged 45 and was one of only two people to finish – even though 10 of us crossed the start line. 

With temperatures as low as -40 degrees Celsius, I think people were being overly polite about my usual preference of pink race gear – and stunned when I not only completed the race, but won it in 143 hours! 

To my knowledge, my race record still stands – but I won absolutely nothing, not even a medal!

I’ve raced in the 135-mile-long ultramarathon, Badwater 135, in Death Valley, too – widely known as ‘the toughest foot race on Earth’.

But despite all of these achievements, I’ve noticed that women become invisible as they get older – as their children grow up, as they get grey hair and soft bodies.

When I was 50, my husband came to a race with me and was told ‘an old woman with grey hair’ had already crossed the checkpoint he was waiting at. I was that ‘old woman’.

Sadly, in 2017, I took on the epic challenge to run across America. After over 2,215 miles in 40 days I was on track to beat the female world record, but I suffered a knee injury that stopped my running career – for good.

It was devastating, and I grieved a part of myself that I’d never get back for a long time.

So, I turned to cycling. And, on the 10 year anniversary of my John O’Groats record attempt, in 2018 I made the journey by bike in nine days. I even began swimming to overcome my fear of water. 

Sometimes, when I tell people my age, they gasp and go: ‘Wow, really?’ It’s as if it’s a shock that I’m up for a challenge, or fit at ‘my age’. People think I should be frail, or forgetful and doddery.

That I’ve already had my swan song.

But I’m far from being written off.

In fact, on my 61st birthday last month, I flew out to Turin in Italy to take part in the North Cape 4,000 – a 4,400km self sufficiency bike event crossing 10 countries finishing at the North Cape in Norway. It took me 20 days.

There’s absolutely no reason why I can’t keep going  – hopefully into my seventies, eighties and even nineties.

I love pushing my limits; testing what it is my body can achieve and is capable of. Exercise gives me so much. I don’t need to worry about what anyone else thinks of me unlike when I was at school where I was made to feel very negative about myself. 

Adventure makes me feel good, and that’s enough to lace my trainers up for or get on my bike  

Mimi is an ambassador for Absolute Collagen for its ‘Strong in Your Own Skin’ campaign – find out more here

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‘This is God’s way of telling you that you’ve done bad things in this or a former life. You’re being punished for your sins.’

These were a family member’s words when my mum told them that I had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). 

They could have asked how I was, how were we all coping, or what impact this was having on us all. But they didn’t. 

One of the so-called ‘sins’ was mum and dad having a love marriage that was outside of caste, in an era when arranged marriages were the acceptable thing to do. 

During a time that was already incredibly hard, that conversation made us feel completely unsupported and stigmatised. And for this response to have come from a family member made it even worse, as they’re the very people we most needed to be positive and supportive. 

But instead, we were made to feel that the diagnosis was somehow our own fault. This experience isn’t unusual. Misunderstanding and ignorance of disability is common in the South Asian community.  

Over 130,000 people live with MS in the UK. It’s a neurological condition causing damage to the coating that protects our nerves. 

No one knows for sure why people get it. It’s likely to be a mix of genes, things in your environment – like vitamin D levels, and lifestyle factors like smoking – something I’ve never done. 

Like many people, I was diagnosed in my late 20s, after experiencing symptoms that included going completely numb down one side of my body, extreme fatigue, muscle spasms and other sensory issues like pins and needles. 

Initially I dismissed the symptoms, thinking it would be something simple, like a pinched nerve. I eventually went to my GP thinking they would say my symptoms would disappear on their own and that would be the end of it. 

My cousin had been diagnosed with the condition the previous year, which prompted my GP to quickly refer me to a neurologist. So MS came into the conversation very early, but I worried that it might have been a brain or spinal tumour.

When the diagnosis was finally confirmed, I felt relief that I was no longer in limbo. 

I knew what we were dealing with and I could start to do something about it, but I was scared for the future. I asked my neurologist for a prognosis and he couldn’t give me one.

There was no way to predict what it would do or how it would affect me. I found that really difficult to come to terms with because I like to know what’s happening.

On top of this, I thought I would play a part in looking after my parents as they grew older, which is expected in my culture. But as my parents started to age, I was coping with this new diagnosis and everything that came along with it.

I had to adapt how I worked – I started working from home and had more flexible working hours, to manage my fatigue. This meant my career options became more limited, which in turn affected my finances. I became more reliant on my parents for support, not just financially, but also practically – when travelling and doing things around the house.

They continued to work well into their 70s, putting off retirement for much longer than any of us anticipated, because they were concerned about the possible financial burden that might come with my increased disability in the future.

I was living with them (and I still do, in my early 40s) and had to rely on them with tasks such as DIY around the house, managing the household paperwork, doing all the everyday chores like cleaning, shopping and laundry. .

I felt like I was becoming a burden, even though I’ve never experienced stigma from my immediate family – they never saw me this way.

Not everyone in my life has been like this though, with some extended family members, family friends and members of the community reinforcing the idea that somehow I was ‘failing’ for being unable to live up to some of these cultural ideals.

Because, on top of my own feelings of guilt of becoming more dependent on my family, among South Asians I’ve experienced a blame culture around illness. Being told that it’s karma, and my family’s done something bad in a former life, is distressing. 

I’ve had people tell me that I shouldn’t discuss my condition openly because it will affect relationship prospects and my family’s reputation. They’ve told me they’re scared of ‘catching MS’ because they think it’s contagious. Conversely, other people have brushed it off as ‘nothing’ and said that I’m making a big deal out of something ‘they had at Christmas and were cured with some antibiotics.’

The lack of awareness still astounds me. 

About a year or so after my diagnosis, while attending an MS Society event I was told by a staff member about the support group: Asian MS. My mum and I decided to go along to a session they were running, and we had this instant feeling of ‘oh my goodness, these people just get it!’ 

With Asian MS, there were cultural references beyond my disability that I could talk and laugh about – like Bollywood movies. Being part of the group really helped me process everything that was going on. I felt like I finally had a network of people who understood me. 

I now volunteer with Asian MS. The group, which is completely free to join, provides culturally sensitive support, which addresses the particular nuances to being Asian and having the condition.

We can direct people to information in different languages, and help people explain their condition to family members.

This might include explaining the mechanics of MS – that it affects the brain but isn’t a mental health condition, for instance. 

Some of the main issues we hear regularly include being able to explain it to family members who don’t speak English, trying to improve understanding of what causes the condition and the specific symptoms, and requests to connect with other Asians within the MS community. 

I’d like to see greater visibility in the Asian media for the South Asian disabled community, so that disability becomes more normalised and we can open up these conversations more.   

Representation and inclusion are also really important when it comes to research, which ultimately breaks down barriers. 

The MS Society has committed to raise funds for the ADAMS study, which is investigating how genes impact the chances of getting MS in people from different ethnic backgrounds. It’s a study that I’m participating in and supporting as it will hopefully lead to more research with underrepresented groups.   

For me personally, life has become inextricably intertwined with advocacy and patient engagement. So I will continue to do all that I can to advocate for better care, treatment and awareness for people affected by MS generally. 

More specifically, I will continue to raise the profile of the condition within the Asian community so that we can break down barriers and improve support. 

You can find out more about Asian MS and contact the group here. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

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My dad, Alan, used to joke about taking his own life if ever things got ‘too bad’.

My older sister and I laughed it off at the time, but little did we know that, one day, he would actually do it.

For some years leading up to his death, his physical and then mental health had been in decline and it was likely he had Parkinson’s. 

And, on a blisteringly hot day in Bristol in July 2013, he died, aged 82.

When I let myself into my dad’s house that afternoon, I sensed that something was terribly wrong almost immediately. The roller blinds were half down as if he’d gone on holiday and there was an eerie stillness.  

I witnessed the aftermath of his suicide while my three-month-old firstborn slept soundly in his car seat on my dad’s hand-built kitchen table, blissfully unaware of the horror unfolding around him. 

Despite the 45-year age gap, we were more like friends than father and daughter. 

We used to go to dance classes, the pub and so-called ‘grab-a-granny’ weekends together with his ballroom dancing friends. They really knew how to party.  

We also shared a similar sense of self-deprecating humour, though I’m slightly more restrained than him on the playful heckling front (at the moment).

He wasn’t the most expressive or affectionate person – which was probably a generational thing – but I knew that he cared.  

I remember having to drag him to my university graduation ceremony only for him to make a quick exit on his moped as soon as it ended, while my peers were being taken out for lunch by their proud parents. 

Still, I marvelled at the way he brought up my sister and I alone after our mum died, aged 38, from hereditary bowel cancer in 1980. 

A carpenter by trade, my dad could turn his hand to anything practical.  

He single-handedly built a two-storey extension to our family home (despite it taking 15 years), fixed cars, built a caravan from the chassis up and even changed the hard drive in my ancient first computer.  

He was the only parent I ever really knew and I think this made his death all the more painful.   

Looking back, there were definite signs to suggest he might take his own life. He started saying out of character things, like that he didn’t want to be a burden, or that he’d never cut the grass again. 

He became unusually anxious and seemed preoccupied.   

His neighbours told me they saw him staring vacantly at the TV for hours on end, which wasn’t like him at all.

He became uncharacteristically open and expressive in the days before he died, saying that he had been depressed for much of his life and that after my mum died, he just ‘functioned’. This was upsetting to hear and I hoped it wasn’t true. 

I marched him to the doctor who went through a risk assessment with him and he started taking anti-depressants a few days before his suicide. 

Before his death, the only people I’d heard about dying by suicide were parents of school acquaintances and famous people, but no-one I actually knew and certainly no-one my dad’s age.

The stories were still shocking, but didn’t feel close to home.

People asked me why he did it, and some said he was selfish because he knew it would be me who would find him. One said that suicide was the ultimate sin in their religion. 

The most valuable support I received was from strangers, fellow bereaved people who had been through a similar experience. 

I found them through a local peer support group run by charity Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide and I now help to run the group myself. They have become my friends, colleagues and supporters and I cherish my ‘suicide companions’. 

In the 10 years since my dad’s death, a source of ongoing learning, comfort and reward for me is the work I do around suicide bereavement support and prevention.

I’ve found that being bereaved by suicide has made me hyper-vigilant to people in crisis.

Over the last decade, I have been an advocate of open and honest conversation around suicide, which is why just over a year ago, I created Beside Yourself – a voice representing those living with suicide. 

We offer support based on knowledge and insight gained through direct, lived experience because we know this fresh perspective provides a crucial, trusted role in promoting understanding and change. 

There is still so much assumption and misinformation around suicide.

It is estimated that one in five of us will experience suicidal thoughts at some time in our lives, irrespective of age or diagnosed mental illness. These feelings are a human response to coping with serious challenges and therefore, I believe, natural.   

The key thing is not to fear them or panic when someone else says they may be having suicidal feelings. 

It’s important to act on changes in others’ behaviour and not be frightened to ask directly about suicide, too.

Suicide prevention is everyone’s business and not only for awareness days. 

No-one has the power to fix anyone, but by acknowledging our feelings and talking about them openly and without shame or stigma, we can identify trusted individuals and organisations who can provide support.  

Many suicide prevention charities and not-for-profits were created in memory of a young person, but the feelings and emotions experienced following the death by suicide of an older loved one are no less devastating.   

I think it’s important that when designing suicide prevention campaigns and services, we remember that older people are at risk of suicide, too.

According to the ONS, suicides among pensioners reached record highs in 2022 following the pandemic, citing causes like loneliness, illness, loss of independence and financial difficulties. I think that my dad experienced all of these, and more. 

I’ll never like or forget what my dad did, but I have come to accept it. 

I read this quote recently that sums up my life since my dad died:  

‘We don’t “get over” or “move on” from our trauma. We are forced to make space for it. We carry it. We learn to live with it. 

‘And sometimes we thrive in spite of it.’

Beside Yourself Website: https://besideyourself.org 

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‘A doctor told me Ollie was dead in the same room they’d said he was “happy and healthy” just week before,’ says Hayley Storrs, 34. ‘I was numb from shock.’

Hayley was five days overdue, when she learnt that her much longed for baby with her partner, Reece, had died in the womb.

Now, as she continues to come to terms with his death she wants to support other parents’ who have also experienced baby loss.

Hayley, who is also mum to Ella, nine months, is also running the Royal Parks Half Marathon next month, to raise money for Tommy’s, the largest UK charity researching the causes and prevention of pregnancy complications, miscarriage, stillbirth, and premature birth.

Hayley, an NHS worker from Leeds, and Reece, were thrilled when they learnt she was pregnant. Hayley said: ‘I found out I was pregnant with Ollie on January 31, 2021.

‘Reece and I had been together around 18 months and decided to move in together when the first UK lockdown hit.

‘I was completely shocked when I saw the blue line turn to a positive. I was convinced it would take us a long time, but there he was. We were excited, nervous, happy, and hopeful for our baby.’

The pair had a private 12-week scan, where they found out they were having a boy. They had a gender reveal party with friends and family, where blue confetti announced that they’d be welcoming a son.

But, Hayley says that from around 26 weeks onward, she was worried. Despite doctors insisting that Ollie was ‘perfectly fine’ she says she was ‘worrying day-in-day-out’ about how her pregnancy might end.

‘I couldn’t shake that anxious feeling something was wrong,’ says Hayley. ‘There was no indication to suggest this at all, except my motherly instinct said Ollie wasn’t okay.’

On the morning of October 15, 2021, Hayley was visited by a community midwife, who told her that she should have ‘no concerns’ about her upcoming labour.

But just an hour later, Hayley was sat at her dressing table, about to put her makeup on, when she felt a ‘popping’. She looked down, expecting to see her waters had broken, but instead, saw blood.

A friend took Hayley to hospital while, Reece, who had been at a funeral, rushed to join them. But Hayley says she ‘knew what was coming’ after she ‘hadn’t felt Ollie kick during the journey’.

Hayley eventually had a scan and was told by a doctor that Ollie’s heart was no longer beating – he had passed away in the womb.

‘I recall Reece shouting “no” repeatedly, but I stayed silent,’ says Hayley. ‘The world seemed to stop, and I felt like I was watching myself on TV.

‘I was numb from shock but was quickly taken to labour.’ Ollie was born two hours later.

‘Then I was quickly pushed to make decisions about his funeral arrangements within a matter of hours – it was truly heartbreaking,’ says Hayley.

The next day, Hayley was discharged from hospital, leaving without her baby.

She says the weeks after losing Ollie were ‘the worst of her life’, leaving her ‘catatonic with grief’.

The taboo surrounding baby loss made an already horrific situation, even worse. She says: ‘I no longer speak to a few family members who were incredibly unhelpful and insensitive after Ollie’s death. Other people simply ignored us and continue to do so to this day.’

In an attempt to find others who understood her grief, Hayley went online.

‘I began to connect with women who had sadly lost their children in similar circumstances, and it’s given me an outlet for my grief and lets me chat to people who understand how I feel. I also started a blog.’

Hayley was also able to get some answers as to why Ollie was stillborn. ‘We later learned that my placenta was on the 10th centile and also had notches, which increases foetal and maternal mortality by up to 35%,’ she says. ‘If I had been offered early delivery, or even a simple Doppler scan, Ollie would have been alive today.’

Knowing that Ollie could have been saved with different treatment has led Hayley to want to raise awareness of baby loss, and fund research and better understand into it. ‘I have heard countless stories like mine,’ she says. ‘The UK has one of the worst stillbirth rates in the world, despite having one of the most advanced healthcare systems. Why is nobody talking about this?’

She will be running this year’s Royal Parks Half Marathon in aid of Tommy’s – who also supported Hayley when she gave birth to her second child, Ella, in December 2022.

The half marathon takes place on October, 8, the day before the start of Baby Loss Awareness Week – which also happens to be the week of Ollie’s birthday.

Hayley is looking forward to representing hundreds of parents who have suffered a similar fate to her own on race-day. She says: ‘I plan to run the race carrying a big rainbow flag behind me, which has the names of hundreds of babies we’ve lost written on it.

‘I want to encourage others to speak our children’s names, to keep their memory alive now they’re gone, because their memory is all we have. It’s an honour to wear their names.’

When asked what advice she would give to someone going through something similar, Hayley said:  ‘Please hold on – things get easier. Hope may seem very far away right now, but I promise you it’s there.

‘Your baby’s life mattered, no matter how brief. You’ll always be a parent to that little baby – death cannot take that away from you.

‘There’s absolutely no right or wrong way to how you wish to remember your baby, and it’s okay not to have things figured out. Keep going and the fog will eventually begin to clear.

‘There are days when I want to just get back into bed and hide from the world, but I do believe I’ll see Ollie again one day, and that helps me manage my grief day to day.’

Reflecting on her thoughts ahead of race-day and beyond, Hayley says: ‘I’m nervous! I’m not an experienced runner, but I’m excited to see how much money I can raise by the time I’ve crossed the finish line.’

‘For me – it’s just about spreading awareness and removing the taboo surrounding baby-loss. There are millions of families across the world waking up facing another day without their child – sadly, I’m just one of them.’

To donate to Hayley’s cause visit her JustGiving page.

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Believing in yourself is a powerful tool – but for many, it doesn’t come easily.

In fact, a lot of the time, we can do the opposite, and go into self destruct mode, known as self-sabotage.

Self-sabotage is when your behaviours and thought patterns hold you back, and stop you from doing the things you want to do.

Maybe you start to push a wonderful partner away, or you stop making time for hobbies and activities that make you feel good. Or, you might not even realise you’re doing it.

So how can you tell if you’re engaging in this behaviour – and what can you do about?

Brenda Winkle is the host of Your Yes Filled Life podcast and a breathwork facilitator – she says breathing techniques can help you get unstuck.

‘If you find yourself indulging in behaviours that don’t move you forward in your life, then it’s time to do the inner work,’ says Brenda.

‘A large glass of wine to destress at the end of the day might help feel better in the short term but you’re avoiding actually getting on with doing the thing you actually want to do,’ she explains.

Brenda advocates breathwork as a way stop self-sabotage in its tracks. ‘With breathwork, you’ll gain the ability to regulate your body’s stress response. It is something that can completely reprogram a person’s self-concept.

‘This will reduce the negative impact that stress can have on your health and performance, elevate your cognitive function, decision-making, and problem-solving skills, as you find clarity and focus through the power of intentional breathing.’

Here, Brenda explains the ways in which we may be self-sabotaging, and how to literally breathe through it.

You refuse to celebrate something good in your life 

It’s called the ‘Upper Limit Problem’. It’s those weird self-defeating beliefs and behaviours that many of us carry around – that we’re not deserving of success, that we’re not good enough, that good things don’t happen to us.

Without even realising it, we sabotage ourselves by turning up late or constantly running ourselves down in public, or drinking too much the night before an important meeting. It’s been called the ‘inner thermostat setting’ which is when we subconsciously limit the number of happy feelings that we enjoy, keep ourselves small and focus on the negative – no matter how many brilliant things we attract into our life.

How to create change: When you notice a fearful thought (despite something positive happening), try to observe the fear rather than identify with it.

You can say to yourself, “I’m noticing fear”. Then try to bring your awareness to the area around your heart and activate five to seven slow breaths in through the nose, and out through the mouth.

Keep one hand on the heart and place the other hand on your belly, just above your belly button. Keep the breath moving in through the nose and out through the mouth for five to seven more breaths.

You may notice yourself sighing, shifting positions of your body, yawning, or even experiencing goosebumps. By slowing the breath and bringing your awareness onto your body; you’ll notice your thoughts stop racing.

Every time you start to feel doubt, fear, or anxiety give this a try and see what happens.

You feel panic not joy when something great happens

Our brains are wired to notice the bad, not the good. Known as negative bias, the research shows that we automatically pay more attention to negative events than positive ones.

If you don’t consciously start to work on your negative bias, you can become anxious and fearful – even when there are great things happening in your life. 

How to create change: Start to notice your thoughts. If you realise you are feeling bad, stop and notice what you were thinking about just before then.

By learning to notice your thoughts, then you can take the next step: start to babysit your thoughts and reframe any discomfort as a positive sign that something great is happening in your life: you’re becoming more aware of how your thoughts make you feel.

The next step is to regulate your nervous system. Make the switch from your sympathetic nervous system – which responds to stress and danger – to your parasympathetic system – which helps you relax – by using the box breath.

Breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold for four. Repeat four times or more.

You find yourself complaining and blaming all the time.

This is a sign that you are not taking personal responsibility. Complaining and blaming means you’re not doing anything to change things in a productive way.

When you get into the energy of blame, you’re no longer remembering that you are an incredible being and you have the capacity and the responsibility to create the change you want. When you are blaming like this, you are outsourcing your responsibility and giving away your power.

How to create change: When you notice yourself blaming or complaining, pay attention to where you feel sensations in your body. Maybe it will feel like pressure on your heart or butterflies in your belly, perhaps you’ll notice an ache somewhere.

Pay attention to that sensation, ask, “What are you trying to tell me?” You might get an instant answer, and it might take some time.

If you don’t get an instant answer, try putting a hand on the body part you are noticing sensation and inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth.

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Years ago, I was listening to the radio in the car.

I heard a segment on Woman’s Hour with a man discussing his wife’s struggle with menopause. They were sleeping in separate beds as she was so hot and uncomfortable.

He was recognising her suffering, and seemed determined to find answers that would help her. But had found nothing.

I could hear in his voice how desperate he was to find a solution to ease her hot flushes. 

It made me think of my own struggles with this symptom – how they felt all-consuming and debilitating.

And that’s when it hit me: I had to help. 

So, in 2018 and approaching my fifties, I started a business – creating clothing designed specifically for women suffering through menopause.

My background is in textiles, and I’d already been running my own textile agency for the past decade.

At the time, I’d just finished a meeting with a menswear company and had this specialised fabric in the back of my car. It’d originally been designed for NASA, and was temperature regulating. The fabric interpreted the body’s heat, stored it and then released it back when the body started to cool.

It occurred to me how useful this may be to women experiencing hot flushes – myself being one of them. 

I hadn’t suffered as badly as some of my friends – but, for some women I knew, it felt like they were burning up.

I thought that the idea of menopause-friendly fashion would definitely exist, but was shocked to discover that it didn’t. 

There was nothing I could find on the market made to regulate the body’s temperature. To help women.

All too often we assume women will keep calm and carry on – suffering in silence. I’ve sat through meetings when I felt my whole body must be bright red because of how hot I felt.

I had another friend tell me she once hid her face in her handbag during a meeting, surrounded by men, as she was so embarrassed by her hot flush.

As women, we learn from a young age to just keep going and not complain – whether we’re experiencing period pain, morning sickness and, in many cases, menopausal symptoms.

But why shouldn’t a woman’s comfort be a requirement for her day to day life? If men suffered hot flushes, would this type of clothing have been made available to people sooner? Probably!

Perhaps consumers simply didn’t think there was a need to invest in clothing that made menopausal women more comfortable.

In actual fact, menopausal women are the fastest-growing demographic in today’s workforce – so we simply cannot be ignored any longer.

After hearing that radio segment, I put the feelers out to women I knew that were the same age as me and used them as focus groups. I asked them their thoughts on this type of clothing, how much they’d be willing to spend and whether they thought it was a good idea. 

The feedback I received was so positive that I took the leap.

I enlisted the help of a freelance designer, and worked with them on four initial styles – a lounge pant, a vest and two basic t-shirts. We produced an initial batch of them all in white, grey and black and, through word of mouth, I started hosting parties at women’s homes to sell them.

The feedback was incredible.

This planning stage took around 18 months, but once we felt we had a good, solid product, we launched a website and went live. That was over five years ago now and it’s just gone from strength to strength.

I love the clothing, it’s so versatile. You can wear it under your work clothes, or around the home and the nightwear helps me sleep so much better.

Actually, some of the most incredible feedback from women I’ve had is about how they’re finally able to sleep again.

Michelle Heaton is one of our celebrity fans, and has also modelled for us. She went through early menopause at the age of 35 after undergoing a hysterectomy, and has been such a champion of our work.

It’s great to see celebrities like Davina McCall and Lisa Snowdon speaking so openly about the menopause and perimenopause, too.

For so long, menopause hasn’t been discussed in the mainstream, for fear of women feeling old and being seen as ‘past it’ by society. 

Let’s face it, women have long been valued in society for their looks or youth – and we used to make women feel as though menopause was a sign they had passed their sell-by-date. Often, we still do.

But women have so much more to offer. 

Not only are we seeing women in menopause as a growing number in the workforce, but women in their fifties are starting to carve out a new direction for themselves – rather than hide away, invisible and ashamed.

I feel that menopause should be included in the school’s curriculum so it’s discussed as a health issue from a young age. Really, we just need to normalise it so women can speak up when they need support and not ever feel they have to suffer in silence.

Hopefully we can quash this stigma for good. 

As told to Kat Romero

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

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For the health-conscious among us, popping your vitamins in the morning is as second nature as brushing your teeth.

In fact, you’ve probably taken the same supplements, every day, for years.

But it turns out you could get more benefit from your health-boosting pills by not taking them.

Hear us out.

Your body is pretty smart and constantly adapts. When you take supplements every day, the body can develop a tolerance to them, reducing their effectiveness.

Instead, taking them in cycles with breaks in between – known as ‘supplement pulsing’ – could make them work better for you.

Clarissa Berry, is a nutritionist for DIRTEA, a range of powders and Super Blends made with functional mushrooms which naturally enhance your wellbeing. She explains: ‘Sometimes the body adapts in response to a supplement, in an attempt to keep the body in a state of balance, resulting in a dampening of the effect of the supplement.

‘Supplement pulsing essentially means taking supplements intermittently in order to prevent the body building up a tolerance, to reduce the chance of adverse effects, or to optimise the intended benefits.

‘It usually involves taking a supplement for a set period of time, for example three months, before taking an intentional break while you notice any changes.

‘During this rest period, an alternative supplement may be added, or ‘pulsed in’. Supplement pulsing can also help you turn into your body, to assess when you might benefit from a supplement, or when you can do without it.’

Supplement pulsing may also help to mitigate any adverse effects from what you’re taking.

‘Just like medications, supplements often have wide-reaching effects in the body, often beyond the purpose they’re being taken for,’ says Clarissa. ‘In some cases, certain supplements taken over prolonged periods can cause negative side effects.’

There is also an argument that supplement pulsing more closely mimics our natural rhythms. ‘It is rare that our bodies are exposed continually to any one nutrient or food,’ adds Clarissa.

‘Finally, there are many supplements that it is just not wise to take over extended periods of time, either because they interfere too powerfully with biological functions, for example supplements that affect hormone balance, or because they are intended to offer temporary support while underlying processes are restored.’

So how do you pulse your supplements? Well, it’s pretty straight forward – but it’s worth doing so with some professional help.

‘First you would need to define your cycle duration,’ explains Clarissa. ‘A short cycle might be a schedule of five days on, two days pause. A longer cycle might be three months on, one month off.

‘You would also need to determine your supplement dosage with the help of a professional. Always start just one supplement at a time so that you can identify the cause of any effects you may experience.

‘During both the on and off phases, notice how you feel, including any positive or negative changes. It can be helpful to keep a journal.’

Clarissa notes that the decision to pulse any supplement should be made after thorough research and in consultation with a healthcare professional or nutritionist.

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‘Are you thinking of suicide?’

It’s a question that most might dismiss, with the phrase ‘it doesn’t bare thinking about’.

But in dismissing the possibility that someone might be suicidal or thinking about suicide, we’re doing nothing to help those struggling with their mental health.

Asking someone whether they’re thinking about suicide might feel extreme, but Simon Blake, the Chief Executive of MHFA (Mental Health First Aid) England, advocates for asking the question.

‘The stigma and silence about suicide causes enormous harm and kills. We are not brilliant at talking about death, even more so suicide,’ he says, as new research from MHFA England shows a third of people believe incorrectly that asking about suicide can put the idea in someone’s head.

On the contrary, evidence shows that asking a direct question to someone who has a plan to end their life can save their life.

‘Asking someone if they are thinking of taking their life sensitively and with care and empathy is proven to prevent suicide,’ Simon says.

Research from MHFA shows nearly 40% of people don’t know if asking the question directly is the right thing to do.

‘It may feel uncomfortable, but it is lifesaving. With the right training we can all develop the skills and confidence to support someone in crisis,’ he adds.

‘People may think about suicide for different reasons.

‘However, we know that suicide is preventable through education and intervention. We all have an important life-saving part to play.’

Signs someone might be feeling suicidal could include changes in behaviour, or people putting their affairs in order – though sometimes, there isn’t a ‘clear sign’ someone is thinking of suicide.

‘If our gut tells us there is something wrong and we think they may be at risk of suicide – the best thing we can do is ask them directly and sensitively,’ Simon says.

Never agree to keep someone’s suicidal thoughts confidential.

If someone is at immediate risk of attempting suicide, dial 999. If someone is having thoughts of suicide encourage them to call Samaritans on 116 123.

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Regardless of the mattress you have, sometimes it can feel like trying to fall asleep on concrete, as if you can’t get comfortable no matter how much you toss and turn.

By morning, however, that same bed which once seemed so inhospitable hugs every contour of your body, begging you to stay in its cosy embrace.

It’s a strange paradox experienced by many, and one that seems particularly frustrating once the alarm goes off each day.

Before you condemn your shapeshifting bed to the dump, though, it’s worth looking inwards to fix the problem.

Uncomfortable bedding can definitely be an issue that stops your brain switching off, along with external issues like noise or light.

But according to Becky Spelman, psychologist and founder of Private Therapy Clinic, the most common factor in preventing nighttime relaxation is ‘an active mind or high levels of stress.’

She adds: ‘Additionally, certain medical conditions or sleep disorders, such as insomnia, can make falling asleep challenging for some individuals.’

There aren’t borrowers coming in and turning your mattress from nails memory foam overnight either: the changes you go through in the hours you’re asleep are why you feel so different about your bed.

Becky tells Metro.co.uk: ‘Our bodies have a natural sleep-wake cycle called the circadian rhythm. Towards the end of the sleep cycle, our body temperature rises, and the release of hormones like cortisol and serotonin helps us feel more awake and alert.

‘As a result, we may feel more comfortable in the morning due to these physiological changes.’

A hormone called melatonin – which is responsible for controlling the sleep-wake cycle – also plays a part to this snuggly switcheroo.

During sleep humans pump out plenty of melatonin, but as soon as we wake up this production stops.

It can take time for what’s left over to dissipate, so traces of it still coursing through your body could be why you feel like you’re cosied up in a cloud first-thing.

If you regularly find it difficult to wind down at night, it can be handy to take a look at your space and bedtime routine first – something you may see referred to as ‘sleep hygiene’.

‘Creating a comfortable sleep environment is crucial,’ says Becky. ‘Make sure your bedroom is dark, quiet, and at a comfortable temperature. Invest in a quality mattress, pillows, and bedding that suit your preferences too.’

She also recommends minimising your exposure to screens and stimulation close to bedtime, instead opting for soothing activities like ‘reading, taking a warm bath, or practicing relaxation techniques.’

Blue light emitted from phones and computers has been found to mess with that all-important circadian rhythm, so it’s best to steer clear of scrolling in bed, as well as avoiding vigorous exercise at nighttime which has the opposite effect to what you’re going for.

When it comes to how to wake up easier in the mornings, consistency is key.

‘It’s helpful to establish a regular sleep schedule,’ says Becky.

‘Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day, even on weekends, and avoid hitting the snooze button, as it can disrupt your sleep cycle and make you feel groggier.’

You may still have days where you want to swaddle yourself in the duvet, but hopefully if your sleep is improved you’ll feel more restored and less attached to your bed.

‘Exposing yourself to natural light after waking up can help regulate your circadian rhythm and promote wakefulness,’ Becky adds.

‘Additionally, engaging in some light physical activity or stretching can help energise your body.’

If your sleep issues continue or you regularly feel tired after sleeping, it’s best to visit your GP. You may have a condition such as sleep apnoea, in which case no amount of sleep hygiene will get to the root of the problem and medical advice is what’s needed.

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Hurrah! Just in the nick of time, summer is here.

And whether you’re in a beer garden, picnicking in a park or lounging at a beach, you might be enjoying the glorious weather with a drink in hand.

There’s nothing quite like a cold tinnie or a fruity cocktail when the sun is shining but – and maybe it’s just us – we always seem to feel the affects of the alcohol a lot quicker in the sun.

So what’s the deal? Are you simply drunk on vitamin D? Or does the sun have some magical lightweight inducing affect?

We spoke to GP Dr Philippa Kaye, to get to the bottom of the situation and, we hate to break it to you, but you can’t blame the heatwave on your drunken antics.

‘The alcohol concentration is the same irrespective of the weather,’ she puts it simply.

However, there are some sun-related factors that might contribute to your tipsy-ness.

‘In the heat you sweat more as your body tries to cool you down. So you’re more likely to be dehydrated already in the heat, which might affect how you feel and intensify the effects of alcohol,’ she explains.

‘Added to this, the feelings of being drunk, and heat exhaustion can feel similar – so be careful.

So are their precautions you should take when drinking during this heatwave? Well, if you want to be really cautious, Dr Philippa recommend avoiding alcohol all together.

‘I would advise not drinking in the sun,’ she explains. ‘But other precautions you can take include using sunscreen and drinking more (water) to prevent dehydration.’

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Tears of relief stung my eyes as I pulled on my jeans. As I walked out of the nurse’s room, I gave her a grateful smile and thanked her once again.

Because although I’d winced from a sharp burst of pain after she’d donned surgical gloves to pull out my long-forgotten coil, my physical discomfort had subsided.  

Now, I only felt relief. Relief that my symptoms hadn’t been the cancer I’d suspected, but because I’d left my IUD in for too long.

Weeks earlier, I’d requested an appointment with my GP – concerned by grumbling twinges that resembled period pains, though it’d been years since I went through the menopause.

The pain made me double over when it took hold, and I’d then bleed for about a week.

After confiding my symptoms to the receptionist, I was asked to get to the surgery as quickly as possible.

I hadn’t been overly concerned by what I thought would turn out to be a minor irritation, but once I saw how keen the doctor was to get me seen by a specialist, I began to suspect there was something more sinister happening. I started to panic.

As my GP examined me on a couch behind a curtain, my knees were shaking.

Then, when my GP said I needed to be checked to rule out womb cancer and a hospital appointment should be made within days, my heart became heavy. 

My doctor was quite stern. ‘Please keep calm,’ she said, witnessing my escalating stress.

I was now very anxious, with flashbacks of an already well-trodden path of oncology meetings, hushed predictions, and life-shattering diagnoses.  

‘Please don’t tell me to keep calm,’ I immediately shot back. I was terrified, and with good reason, having lost not one but two loved ones to cancer. 

Both learning they had months to live in a journey that began in this very room.

Heading home from my appointment, I felt scared and was dreading the worst. I rang my friend Katie, and she promised to come with me to my hospital test in three days’ time.

Because the thing was, we’d both been in this situation before, with my husband Neil and my best friend Carol, Katie’s sister.

Devastatingly, they didn’t make it. 

Neil had been diagnosed with melanoma six months before he died in May 2012, aged just 44. Carol’s diagnosis came only six weeks before she passed away with lung cancer in May 2017, aged 45.

I’d already outlived two of the most precious people in my life and here I was, exactly where they’d been mentally, wondering what on earth was coming next. Hoping for the best.

I was completely lost without them, changed beyond recognition. My future, confidence, and everything I felt I knew about life, pulled from me. 

To be here now, facing these tests and potentially starting the same journey was unbearable. 

There was no way I could tell my daughters, twins Emily and Melissa, now 24, about what was happening. I couldn’t bear for them to worry about me after all we’d been through as a family. 

I was a wreck. Hell to be around as I snapped at the slightest thing as my not-too-illogical worries took hold. 

So, it was Katie’s hand I held as I sat in the waiting room of the hospital, waiting for my exploratory scan. And her who, with terrified eyes herself, helped calm my breathing when I had a panic attack, thinking of what may come next.

My recollection of that initial hospital visit is now a complete blur. They said I should come back three weeks later for a ‘procedure’ – but as I look back, I can’t even remember whether they told me what they thought was wrong. 

I couldn’t face a waiting room where both Neil and Carol anticipated treatment, at New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton, so I went to Walsall Manor, just five miles away.

As a nurse nudged my legs apart, this time, I shook so much my knees almost knocked.

I was so scared, and everything became a haze of dread.                            

‘There’s something up there,’ the nurse said. ‘I think I can detect string.’ 

I was baffled. What on earth could she mean? My days of needing tampons were long behind me.

‘Have you ever had a coil?’ she asked.

It took me a minute but I then remembered that, yes, I’d had a coil fitted. About 15 years ago.

I was erratic taking the pill, so the Mirena coil was a sound option back then. A busy mum of twins, with a loving partner, I knew the odds for conceiving twins for a second time – 17 to one. We weren’t taking any chances.

Somehow, I never grasped what should happen when its time was up. That it needed to be removed.

The Mirena coil as it’s now more commonly known, is reportedly licensed to be fitted and used for five years. If fitted in a woman aged 45 or over, it can be left until the age of 55. 

How could I have blanked something so important?

But the thing was, as a widow at 44, contraception and sex were the last things on my mind. Neil had died in 2012 and, by my reckoning, I’d already forgotten all about my coil as a busy working mum of twin girls.

Instead, I’d been focusing on getting through my grief. Trauma clouding my memories and judgement.

So now, after a doctor’s appointment, a scan, and a return visit where I had my coil removed, I was suddenly free of worry. A weight was lifted.

This time, going home after my appointment, I was elated. I decided I could, and should, tell my daughters what’d been on my mind and apologise for my grumpiness.

There’s little information available to inform women of the dangers of a coil staying in too long, with sparse medical statistics or research about the issue, even if it seemed to me someone always knew someone it had happened to. 

Conditions that can be caused by a forgotten coil include peritonitis, pelvic inflammatory disease, and uterine perforation. More seriously – and thankfully very rare – effects are a pyometra (which means pus in the uterine cavity) and actinomycosis, a bacterial infection.

For anyone who thinks they may have overlooked the fact they have a coil, as life gets in the way, I’d say go and tell your doctor as soon as you can. Don’t be embarrassed – it’s better to check sooner rather than later as the risk of complications could grow.

And, if you’re someone having a coil fitted for the first time, please be a little savvier than me.

It’s good to remember it’s your responsibility to remember when the coil is due to be removed and a new one considered. You should get a little card with suggested dates on, and it should go on your medical notes as well. 

So don’t forget and put yourself through the unnecessary anguish I endured – I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

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As Louise Royle lay in bed with her husband, she put her head on his chest, as she did every night.

But on this occasion, Louise, 40, noticed something that terrified her. ‘I could hear his heart beating, but it was faster than usual,’ she explains. ‘The rhythm kept skipping beats.’

As a veterinary nurse of 20 years, Louise knew how dangerous an abnormal heartbeat can be. ‘I didn’t sleep much,’ she says. ‘I was worried he was going to die in the night.’

It was this small act of love between the couple that led to Louise’s husband, Will, 39, being diagnosed with a life-threatening heart defect.

He went onto have a six-hour open-heart surgery to replace his aortic valve – the valve which controls the flow of blood out from the heart to the rest of the body.

Now, Louise says Will is ‘like a new man’, and she’s taking part in the British Heart Foundation’s London to Brighton Off Road Bike Ride, to raise funds for life-saving research.

Louise and Will met as teenagers at school, where they dated for 18 months, before getting back together eight years later. An active couple, the pair enjoyed walks in the countryside and were members of their local archery club. Will’s health issues began, out of the blue, in January 2018.

Liz, who lives in Peterborough, explains: ‘Will was working in the military. He’d been really fit and healthy and there weren’t any warning signs.’

But one morning, Will ‘wasn’t feeling 100%’. Later that day, he had a seizure. 

‘I remember getting a call from his boss telling me he’d been found unconscious in his work van,’ says Liz. ‘They were asking me if he was epileptic or had a brain problem.

‘I drove straight to hospital was relieved to find Will conscious and talking, albeit very confused.’

Doctors gave Will an ECG and ultrasound but couldn’t find anything wrong. He then spent the following weeks tired and falling asleep at work before having a brain scan, which also came back as normal. 

It was one night, soon after, when Liz lay in bed with her husband and noticed his heart wasn’t beating as it should. ‘I said to Will how worried I was and he said he could feel it happening,’ she says. ‘Will said he wasn’t worried but I could tell he was trying to reassure me.’

The next day, the pair contacted the doctor. ‘They listened, agreed and started him on a 24 hour monitor the next day,’ says Liz.

Will was referred to a cardiologist who found he had a bicuspid aortic valve. It meant his aortic valve had two flaps, instead of the normal three, and because the valve wasn’t functioning normally, his heart had to work harder to pump blood to the rest of his body. Will would have been born with the condition, which had gone undetected.

‘After the diagnosis things moved quickly,’ says Liz. ‘In April 2018 he had open heart surgery where he was fitted with a mechanical valve to help ease the strain on his heart.’

The surgery took six hours, and all Liz could do was wait. ‘I was very nervous although knew he had to have the surgery,’ she says. ‘I waited in the waiting room of the hospital for six hours and was eventually allowed into the ICU.’

Thankfully, Will made a quick recovery and two weeks later he was back home. 

Louise said: ‘He felt like a new man and had so much more energy. He’d previously used to get tired a lot, not out of breath, but quite lethargic, but now he had so much more energy and felt as if everything was back to normal. The procedure hasn’t stopped him in his day to day life at all.’

And the pair didn’t realise that the new valve came with some interesting sound effects.

‘You can hear his valve clicking as his heart beats,’ Louise says. ‘We joke he now ticks like the crocodile in Peter Pan.

‘It’s incredible to think that things like this can be done – and without all the research the BHF helps fund, he may not be here today.’

Tragically, Louise and Will understand the loss of a loved one due to a heart condition. Just three years after Will’s scare, in 2021, his sister, Lisa, suffered a fatal cardiac arrest. She was just 39.  

Lisa had been staying in assisted housing after getting support for her mental health, when she collapsed. 

Louise said: ‘The people there called an ambulance and tried to do CPR, but there was no defibrillator available. They couldn’t save her. It was a huge shock to us all.’

Following the tragedy, Louise and her sister, Nicola, decided to start riding their bikes, challenging themselves to ride 1,000 miles for £1,000 to raise money for a defibrillator in Lisa’s memory. 

Wanting to do something more, this year, Louise, her sister, her mother-in-law, Jenny, and Will all took part in the BHF’s London to Brighton Bike Ride in June. And now, to challenge herself further, Louise will be taking part in the London to Brighton Off Road Bike Ride on Saturday 23 September.  

The challenge will see more than 2,000 cyclists come together to take on 61 miles of superb views and technical terrain as they all come together to raise money to help fund lifesaving research into heart and circulatory diseases. 

Louise said: ‘Everyone in the world has a heart and a heartbeat. Will’s heart condition scared us all, we got complacent and then what happened with Lisa scared us again. It’s so important to raise awareness of the important work the BHF helps fund. What they do is amazing, and Will wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.’

Roisin Greenup, Senior Events Manager at the BHF, added: ‘It’s fantastic to see Louise’s passion and determination in helping us fund lifesaving research.    

‘Without the dedication of our cyclists and the commitment of fundraisers like her, we wouldn’t be able to fund research that has already broken new ground, revolutionised treatments and transformed the lives of millions of people in the UK.’ 

To sign up to take part in the London to Brighton Off Road Bike Ride visit the BHF website here. Or to sponsor Louise visit her JustGiving page here.

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Suzanne Graham, 45, thought she was suffering from a bad cold.

As her symptoms worsened during the run-up to Christmas five years ago, Suzanne, from Glasgow, assumed her cold had turned into the flu, but when she Googled her symptoms she realised the truth was much more severe.

‘One night, I couldn’t sleep, and I remembered that my friend, who was the same age as me, had had pneumonia,’ she said at the time.

‘I thought that was unusual, because I’d always associated pneumonia with older people, so I looked up the symptoms of pneumonia and the flu, and quickly found that my symptoms were all pointing towards pneumonia.’

She quickly booked an emergency appointment with her GP which, despite only being 50 metres up the road, she needed to be driven to by her husband because of how week she felt. 

‘The GP measured my blood oxygen and listened to my lungs,’ Suzanne said.

‘I just remember her saying to me, “I don’t want to alarm you, but we will be calling an ambulance – you have to go to hospital”.’

It turned out Suzanne had severe pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and sepsis. She only had 10-20% of her lung function.

‘The ambulance came and took me to intensive care,’ she said.

‘I remember getting into the ambulance, but I have no memories from then on, so this is all from what I’ve been told by family members.’

By the time she was put on a ventilator, doctors warned Suzanne’s husband that the situation had ‘spiralled out of control’ – the oxygen from the ventilator wouldn’t be enough to keep her alive.

The only option was ECMO, or ExtraCorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, a treatment that uses an artificial lung to oxygenate the blood outside of the body. 

ECMO is only used in rare cases, and the closest machine was 145 miles away in Aberdeen.

A team of five medical staff drove Suzanne through the night with a portable ECMO machine, which Suzanne was immediately hooked up to on arrival.

At this point, Suzanne said, ‘it was getting into a multi-organ failure type situation – my lungs and kidneys were failing.’

She stayed in Aberdeen for a week before becoming well enough to return to Glasgow.

She remained in intensive care for a while, where she experienced hallucinations, before being moved to a high dependency unit to start her recovery.

‘I was bed bound,’ she said. ‘I was in hospital for three weeks, and it’s amazing just how quickly you lose your muscle mass.’

Suzanne couldn’t even sit up, let alone stand up, and three physiotherapists had to help her stand for the first time.

Thankfully, after extensive work during the week with physiotherapists to learn to adjust to using crutches, Suzanne was finally able to return home.

‘Physically, the main recovery was centred around building up my fitness,’ she said. ‘I’d lost a lot of weight and muscle mass, so I was building up fitness.

‘I’m so grateful to the doctors and hospital staff, they were amazing. 

‘My family was there by my side the whole time and supported me through.

‘I’ve been extremely lucky to survive it intact – sepsis can cause loss of limbs and have other physical effects. 

‘I’m very lucky to have made a complete recovery.’

Five years on, Suzanne is passionate about sharing her story and raising awareness about sepsis, which kills around 50,000 people per year in the UK.

According to charity Sepsis Research FEAT, symptoms to look out for include a very high or low temperature, confusion, shaking, blotchy skin and a difficulty urinating. 

If you experience combinations of these symptoms or rapidly worsening symptoms, be sure to seek urgent medical attention.

Do you have a story to share?

Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.

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There’s no better feeling than stepping out from under a hot shower and wrapping yourself up in a fresh warm fluffy towel.

Apparently though, it’s a feeling us Brits aren’t all that familiar with, with new research showing that a lot of us aren’t washing our towels anywhere near as much as we should be.

New research from the experts at Showers To You shows that a third of Brits wash their bathroom towels just once every few months!

But it gets worse, with 3% of respondents washing their bathroom towels a measly once a year.

But a towel that hasn’t been washed for a while can’t be that bad, can it? We’re as clean as could be when we use them.

Think again.

It turns out 90% of our bathroom towels are infested with coliform bacteria, according to a recent study. Ew.

To be clear, coliform bacteria are organisms that can indicate the presence of disease-causing bacteria in water.

What’s worse is that 14% of the towels had E.coli nestled in their fibres.

Clinical pharmacist, Nyrah Saleem, previously told Metro.co.uk that ‘bacteria such as E. coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa can pose health risks if they exist in large amounts in your home. 

‘While most strains of E. coli are harmless, certain strains can cause serious health issues, especially if they contaminate food or water,’ she said.

Health issues which can be caused by E.coli include diarrhea, urinary tract infections, respiratory illness, and infections like meningitis in severe cases, according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This being said, most E.coli strains are indeed not dangerous and are part of a healthy intestinal tract.

However Nyrah adds: ‘If large amounts of pathogenic E. coli are present in your home, there is an increased risk of infection if you come into contact with contaminated surfaces or consume contaminated food or water.’

It’s safe to say you’re coming into contact with a contaminated surface if you’re rubbing yourself dry with an E.coli rich towel. Yikes.

The moral of the story is that we should be washing our towels more often than we do currently.

So how do we get our towels properly clean again?

Professional cleaner and TikTok queen of clean Ann Russell gives plenty of advice to renters and homeowners on how best to clean and maintain their homes.

She’s got the perfect tips for cleaning your towels and it’s not what we had in mind.

It turns out Ann says you shouldn’t use fabric softener as it prevents moisture from getting in and leaves these towels and cloths essentially redundant.

However, detergent is needed when getting things like fake tan and makeup off of them. If that isn’t an issue though, Ann simply uses water.

Yes you read that right. Then, to keep them soft, she doesn’t always tumble dry them. Instead, around 30 minutes into them drying outside, she gives them a shake and then turns them upside down.

This apparently opens up the fibres. Then, voila, you have clean towels and no longer need to stress about bacteria.

Do you have a story to share?

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My eyes flickered open, and it took me a few seconds to work out where I was. 

The smell of antiseptic assaulted my nostrils, and the incessant beep of monitors filled my ears as I looked around an unfamiliar room. 

My leg was wrapped in a vacuum bag and as a surgeon crouched down beside me to explain my options for the future, a wave of fear and confusion swept over me. 

It was May 2019 and I had just woken up at University Hospital of Coventry and Warwickshire having had life-changing surgery to save my foot after a freak accident.

Just hours earlier, I was riding my motorbike to a routine appointment when a car hit me side-on. I flew off my motorcycle, crashing into the road. 

I didn’t know how bad my injury was; I assumed I’d broken a leg. 

But instead, I’d suffered a degloving – where the flesh, tissue and muscle around my left ankle was lost and the sole of my foot fell off. I was also bleeding out.

Having spent almost two decades serving in war zones like Afghanistan, both with the Infantry and Intelligence Corps, I felt like I understood risk and danger.

After a few days in hospital, however, as the months of rehabilitation loomed in front of me, I felt a sense of hopelessness.

It turned out that my biggest battle was ahead of me – coping with the challenges of my injury and the dark depths my mental health would sink to. 

There is a picture below of Jonny’s stitches that some readers may want to scroll past

But it was getting back into sport that would end up saving my life and giving me the chance to represent my country at the Invictus Games. 

I had a month-long stay in hospital, having had seven surgeries in total to save my limb, before I had to learn to walk again. 

It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. And I’d done two tours of Northern Ireland and Afghanistan in my career as an army reservist, dealing with the daily threat of IEDs that haunted every step that we took on patrol.

Over the course of six months, I started from a wheelchair, moving to crutches, to walking poles and then finally to one pole.

After gruelling rehabilitation, my walking was improving, but even though my physical health was strengthening, my mental health had fallen apart. 

Doctors told me I’d have a permanent limp and wouldn’t be able to snowboard or play rugby again, things I had loved.

I started withdrawing from my family and avoided the things I once used to enjoy. 

Flashbacks of my accident consumed me and I found myself returning to the crash site again and again.

Those negative thoughts coincided with the Covid lockdowns and it left me isolated, and in a really dark place.

I felt like I couldn’t open up to my wife about this, as she was dealing with her first pregnancy and I didn’t want to worry her any further.  

She had been so supportive, but I felt that this was my fight to take on alone, but now I realise this wasn’t true, and that the love and support of my family was a vital weapon. 

I began to drink more and more, and by the autumn of 2019 I was at rock bottom.

But within a few months, I was determined to come out the other side, which I have done with the support of my family and access to ‘Op Courage’ – the NHS’s mental health support scheme for veterans and reservists. 

I had Eye Movement Distraction Remedy – a blinking therapy to help me process the trauma and flashbacks – and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, which addressed how I was unravelling as a person, including how my behaviour impacted my relationships.

In 2022, I heard the Royal British Legion, who I had fundraised for previously, were delivering Team UK to the Invictus Games. 

Pre-injury, I had been aware of, and inspired by, the Games, which are a series of competitive events for wounded, sick and injured veterans and serving personnel founded by Prince Harry in 2014.

Having chatted to a couple of previous competitors about their experience, I realised I could still do the sports I loved – they’d just manifest themselves in a new way.  

I signed up, choosing three specific events, powerlifting, due to my post accident re-introduction to weight training via CrossFit, indoor rowing because I simply wanted to get fit again, and cycling, which has been the toughest challenge.

Getting back on two wheels again after a motorcycle accident has taken courage but I’ve got by with the help of the Team UK coaches and my fellow competitors.

As my training ramped up, I have not only begun to enjoy the kinds of activities I had participated in pre-accident, but honestly feel fitter than before.  

My little girl Margot, now three, even copies my gym movements and I already know that I have begun to inspire her too.

No matter what happens in competition, being able to stay active with Margot as she grows up is my Invictus medal!

The camaraderie between competitors brings down a barrier because there’s that shared experience that we all have of both serving and being injured. 

I never have to explain how I’m feeling – my teammates just get it.

I was speechless when I was selected to compete for my country and have been training ever since, preparing for the games in Dusseldorf.

My accident, and the mental health struggles that followed, have been my biggest challenge, but I’m determined to make them my biggest strength. 

As I represent my country, and reflect on how far I’ve come, my wife and daughter, my biggest fans, will be cheering me on.

I can’t wait to make them proud.

The Royal British Legion supports everyone in the armed forces, facing illness or injury. The charity in partnership with the Ministry of Defence is leading a team of veterans and military personnel to take part in this year’s Invictus Games. Visit rbl.org.uk/Invictus

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

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A mum-to-be says a rare pregnancy symptom has left her clothes and even her toilet seat stained blue.

It might sound like something from science fiction, but Keisha Sethi, from London, is just one of many women who have reported the unusual phenomenon over the years.

According to online forums, many expectant mums are blaming a condition called chromhidrosis – a disorder of the sweat glands that usually manifests with coloured sweat – it may be yellow, green, blue, brown, or black due to a pigment produced in the sweat glands called lipofuscin.

However, there is no proven link between pregnancy and chromhidrosis – often dubbed ‘Smurf butt’.

Keisha, 24, from London, first noticed the symptom when she was seven months pregnant, when her boyfriend, Brad, spotted the blue toilet seat.

‘It just happened overnight,’ she said. ‘It was quite crazy actually, it was like I was leaking blue ink. I felt like an octopus.

‘I had no idea what it was. I went to the loo a few times and my partner went into the bathroom and was like, “Keisha are you wearing something blue?”

‘I thought I was going crazy or that my partner had done something, I was very in denial it was me.

‘I tried to wipe it but it just would not come off.

‘That same night I went to check my clothes and I had blue stains on my white top that I’d normally wear to bed. There were stains on my pillows and the bedsheets.’

The women’s fitness company owner was terrified that her inky stains may be a sign that something was wrong, and said she felt like a ‘leaking octopus’ and ‘like a creature from Avatar.’

Keisha said: ‘I wasn’t wearing any jeans as none of my jeans fit me anymore so I knew it couldn’t be that.

‘My mum was super worried, she’d never heard of anything like this.

‘I thought, “Is my pregnancy not agreeing with me? Is it my clothes? Did I eat something wrong?”.

‘I called the triage up and they said they’d never heard of it. It’s so rare. The person I spoke to was laughing because she thought I was joking around.’

Keisha stayed up researching the bizarre symptom all night with her partner, who soon read similar accounts from women online, and discovered her colour-changing sweat could be down to chromhidrosis

‘It turns out it was just my skin and the sweat changing colour due to hormones,’ she says simply.

The week-long staining left as suddenly as it had appeared, and two months on Keisha is now expecting a baby girl any day now.

Keisha, who runs Fitness with Keisha, shared her story on TikTok.

‘I thought I’d get it out onto other people’s For You pages and so many people said they’d had similar experiences,’ she says.

Keisha added: ‘If you’re dealing with an unknown symptom like I was, hopefully your doctor will be able to help.

‘I find social media and TikTok can be helpful as people put their experiences on there.

‘Try to find someone and reach out if they’re having the same experience, just for that extra reassurance. That was when I could relax.’

Keisha’s video received more than 747,000 views. One person commented: ‘IT HAPPENED TO ME! I thought I was turning into a Smurf!’

Another said: “When I was on maternity I met someone else who had the same thing! Apparently it’s a hormone thing!’

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I don’t remember much about the night of my 18th birthday. 

I remember feeling embarrassed because I was drunk before the food arrived, and I remember being sick in the toilets before going back to the bar and ordering another vodka orange.

Other than that, the night is pretty much a black hole. Gone. 

I woke up the next morning with a horrific hangover and a sense of impending doom. The hangover lasted three days. The sense of impending doom lasted three weeks.  

It wasn’t the first time I’d been drunk. It wasn’t even the most drunk I’d ever been. But it was the first time I’d got drunk since I was mugged the year before, and something had changed. I had changed. 

I wasn’t drunk when I got mugged, but I had been drinking. Subconsciously, I started to associate alcohol with feeling unsafe and out of control because of that. 

The decision to stop drinking entirely, which I wouldn’t make for another four years, was my way of regaining some control. 

But initially, despite that messy 18th, I didn’t quit drinking altogether.

I thought I might lose friends if I became teetotal, so instead, I became someone who rarely drank. 

I still hated how it made me feel – like anxiety was burning me from the inside out – but I feared the social consequences of being an official non-drinker, especially at such a young age.

I kept it on the table so my friends wouldn’t ostracise me while simultaneously dreading and avoiding any occasion they might expect me to drink. 

I’d also started to notice a pattern. I would dread social situations that involved alcohol, and then when I was in these social situations, I would feel like I needed a drink to relax. 

It was a vicious cycle. I would have a drink to take the edge off my social anxiety, and then my anxiety would go into overdrive for days.

I’m incredibly lucky to have the friends that I do and, looking back, I know they would have loved and supported me whatever I decided.

But I didn’t want to look ‘weird’ or draw attention to myself by not drinking, and I wasn’t ready to deal with all the inevitable questions.

They did, of course, notice – after all, there’s only a certain number of times you can lie and say you’re on antibiotics before people start to think there’s something seriously wrong with you. 

Slowly, I started to open up to my closest friends about how alcohol made me feel. Anxious. Out of control. Unsafe.  

Invitations to events started to come with caveats: ‘Don’t feel like you have to come, there’s no pressure. You don’t have to drink! We can do something else!’

It was a weight off my shoulders. I could be myself completely, and my friends were still going to accept me. I didn’t have to pretend anymore. 

My decision to stop drinking entirely came after a completely innocuous conversation with one such friend last June. 

I was in America visiting my brother and his family. We were camping and socialising with people on the campsite that I didn’t know very well, and I had a few drinks. I’m not sure why I did it. 

Perhaps it was the anxiety of being away from home. I don’t remember consciously thinking I needed a drink, it was more of an automatic response to feeling ill at-ease.

I mentioned this to my friend on the phone a couple of days later. She went quiet for a moment and then said: ‘You had a drink? Why? What’s wrong?’ 

It then dawned on me that not only did I only drink when I was anxious, but everyone knew that about me. 

But I’d been so preoccupied with how other people felt that I hadn’t considered how I was feeling. 

If I was allergic to alcohol, I wouldn’t force myself to drink it to save face. So why was I disregarding my anxiety to please others? 

I needed to stop putting myself into situations where it became unbearable.

So, aged 22, I quit entirely. 

I knew it was the right decision for me, even though it was hard. 

The difficult part, for me, wasn’t saying no to alcohol. The difficult part was saying no to the social events that accompany it. 

Again, I didn’t want to lose my friends. 

But I didn’t. The only thing that has changed is how we show up for each other: we go to more coffee shops and restaurants together than we do bars; they order me mocktails without me having to ask, and they never buy me bottles for my birthday. 

They still invite me on nights out, but they hold space for me to say no without feeling any guilt; they appreciate my honesty. 

My friends know I might miss their birthday parties, but I will never miss their birthdays. 

And we still have fun. That hasn’t changed. If anything, we have more fun now because the time we spend together doesn’t involve me being constantly on edge. 

I’m now comfortable enough around alcohol that I can go to some events and choose not to drink without feeling crippling anxiety, or obliged to drink to satisfy others. 

There have been times when I wish I could drink – when I feel like I’m missing out on something. 

I didn’t get to get wine drunk with my friend when she broke up with her boyfriend. I didn’t get to drink beer with my boyfriend when we were on holiday in Germany. 

But I did get to wake up early the next day both times and make us coffee without feeling like the world was ending – and that’s enough for me. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

Share your views in the comments below.

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Most of us tend to fall within two camps: the glass half full cohort and the glass half empty community.

But a new theory on TikTok aims to recruit more people into the former category  – all through the power of positive thinking.

‘The Burnt Toast’ theory, that’s currently doing the rounds on the platform, is the idea that when something irritating, annoying or frustrating happens – like burning your morning toast – it’s because it’s part of a bigger plan.

That failure or inconvenience might have delayed something even worse happening.

One TikToker explains: ‘Burnt toast theory is the idea that if you burn your toast before work and it adds five to 10 minutes to your trip, it’s actually saving you from something catastrophic.

‘Maybe saving you from a car accident. Maybe saving me from someone who you don’t want to run into. But this is the idea that inconveniences in our lives, or when something releases us in the universe, it’s either saving us from something more detrimental or pushing us in the direction that we need to go in.’

Psychotherapist and therapeutic counsellor Rosalind Miles, from Counselling Directory, says: ‘People might find Burnt Toast Theory resonates with their values of compassion and reasoning. It helps them to find acceptance surrounding the “why” of something that has happened within their life. 

‘This can be a small trigger, or a bigger life event. The theory is not limited to the amount of meaning it can offer.’

However, it also could be a good way to approach setbacks. Of course, burning toast is only a minor setback in comparison to losing out on a job, being dumped, getting injured, or simply having a terrible day – but we can still applying the same thinking.

Life and career coach Natalie Trice says: ‘The theory looks at is how we can be aware of our mindset, how we tackle setbacks and view the world around us.

‘Yes, when things don’t go our way, it can be frustrating but ultimately it will lead to something else. You don’t get the job could lead to you getting a promotion where you are or landing something better. Being dumped by text isn’t fun, but letting that bad date go free opens you up to meeting someone who will be kind and considerate. 

‘Essentially, setbacks aren’t the end of the world and if you think of challenges this way, you are on the road to being more self-aware and building more of a growth mindset.’

Natalie says this way of thinking ultimately helps us to build mental resilience, too.

She says: ‘The next time something unexpected, uncomfortable or annoying happens, just take a moment to see if it really is bad. Are you in danger? Are you hurt? Is there a new way ahead?

‘Yes, you can write a blasting review on Glassdoor or post a passive aggressive TikTok, or you can reassess, find a new way forward and drop the negativity that could cloud the rest of your day.

‘There will of course be instances when you really do feel like the universe is against you but building resilience means you don’t have to sweat the small stuff and have the strength to deal with challenges with ease and calm.’

Do you have a story to share?

Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.

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A 26-year-old woman was shocked when a simple sinus infection turned out to be something far more serious.

Martial arts instructor Natasha Gunther Santana, from San Jose, California, suffered from five separate sinus infections in 2021 – and was given antibiotics to treat them.

But when the final one didn’t clear, Natasha knew something wasn’t right as she was constantly vomiting, experiencing severe migraines, and started to become unusually angry and irrational.

Some tests at the hospital revealed that Natasha had immunodeficiency PRKCD mutation – which meant that the antibiotics weren’t working for her infection anymore – and a CT scan revealed a brain abscess.

To treat this, the 26-year-old needed seven operations in total (four brain surgeries and three sinus ones). 

But after the final brain surgery, Natasha was left with half of her skull removed and was forced to wear a special helmet for five months to protect her head.

Natasha also had learn to walk and talk again through intense therapy – and says she wouldn’t have been able to get through it without the help of her husband, 32-year-old Joao.

She said: ‘I wore a helmet and tried my best not to go outside. I went out of the house for doctor visits and maybe less than five times out to places like the mall.

‘I’d wear my helmet and a hoodie so people couldn’t see it. It’s extremely scary.

‘I was also very traumatised and afraid of people walking by and accidentally bumping into me. It took me about a year to get over the trauma and fear of being hit by someone by accident.

‘I felt very insecure and it made me extremely depressed.’

But although Natasha went through an incredibly tough time during this period, she’s come out the other side with a more positive mindset.

She and her husband have also since welcomed a baby boy.

‘I have a beautiful baby boy named Raiden, and my husband and I are about to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary,’ Natasha added.

‘I have had headaches every day since, that hasn’t gone away.

‘I’ve come to terms that this is my new normal and I’m just happy to be alive.

‘If you have a sinus infection, and have more than three a year, get a head CT and see a specialist. It could save your life.’

Do you have a story to share?

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Have you ever spent the first few days of a holiday uncomfortable, bloated and gassy for seemingly no reason?

Chances are, you experience gut lag – the disruption to your gut health that comes from flying – and you’re not alone.

Research by Symprove found that 50% of women experience gut lag, with over a third feeling uncomfortable wearing swimwear.

Just under a quarter of women flat out refuse to take long haul flights because of the impact on their gut. 

It’s clear many of us are suffering silently with pain, bloating and discomfort when trying to relax in a new country. But what on earth causes it?

What causes gut lag?

According to Dr Laura Falvey, a gut health specialist and clinical director at Roczen, there are a number of reasons for this, from the cabin pressure to spending hours without moving.

‘Due to the pressure of the cabin at altitude, gas in the bowel expands during a flight,’ she tells Metro.co.uk.

‘Staying sedentary on long flights can also reduce natural gut movement, causing constipation and bloating.’

Long haul flights are particularly disruptive for our tummies, and this is because they can affect the sleep-wake cycles of out gut microbiome.

‘Similarly to how we get jet lag, our gut microbes are also governed by a daily rhythm, which can be upset when travelling to different time zones,’ says Dr Laura. 

How to avoid gut lag

While it may not be possible to avoid gut lag completely, there are steps you can take to make things run a little smoother.

Go to the toilet

First things first, if you need to use the toilet while flying, use it. Don’t be shy!

‘It may feel awkward but be sure to visit the toilet if you need to,’ says Dr Laura.

‘Avoiding going can lead to more gas being trapped in the bowel, which can lead to further bloating and discomfort.’

Stay mobile

One of the causes of gut lag is staying sedentary for the whole flight, especially a long haul flight.

‘To combat this, try to stay mobile during the flight, ensuring you get up, stretch, and walk down the aisle regularly,’ says Dr Laura. 

‘Dehydration is another key factor in keeping things moving, so be sure to drink plenty of fluids, ideally still water. 

‘Infusing water with some berries, lemon or cucumber can help to make it a bit more interesting.’

Follow time-restricted eating

On long haul flights in particular, following time restricted eating (TRE) can help you to minimise the effects of gut lag by making sure you don’t eat at unusual times, confusing your body.

‘For example if you are flying overnight when you wouldn’t normally be eating, try to avoid breaking your routine by having a meal or snacks on the plane,’ says Dr Laura.

‘Once you arrive, be sure to switch to the meal times and sleep/wake times of your destination, allowing your body to adjust to the new time zone.’

It’s also a good idea to avoid gas-forming foods and try not to eat or drink anything that you normally wouldn’t before the flight (we’re looking at you, Full English Breakfast and a glass of prosecco).

‘If your gut is not used to this, it won’t process it as well and can leave your digestive system feeling out of kilter,’ Dr Laura adds.

‘Although it’s tempting to abandon your routine when travelling, sticking to lighter, easier to digest foods eaten at your normal times will really help to minimise any uncomfortable digestive issues.’

Manage stress

Finally, the stress of travelling can have an impact on your gut health — especially if you have IBS.

‘Try to plan ahead,’ says Dr Laura. ‘Avoid packing at the last minute and making a rushed dash to the airport. 

If you are a nervous flyer, it can help to prepare some relaxing podcasts and mindfulness techniques, too.’

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Doctors have warned of a relatively new STI that less than one in five people have heard of.

Mycoplasma genitalium, or Mgen, was discovered in the early 1980s, but a reliable test for Mgen wasn’t produced until 2017.

Despite less than 15% of people having heard of it, Mgen impacts up to half a million Brits, or 1-2% of the sexually active population.

The reason Mgen is relatively prevalent while also remaining unheard of is that it is often symptomless, just like HPV.

‘What makes this STI so prevalent is its ability to go undetected,’ said Dr Neel Patel, GP at LloydsPharmacy Online Doctor.

What is Mgen?

Mgen is an STI caused by a tiny bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium that affects the urinary tract of both men and women.

According to Dr Neel, ‘it can be spread by both vaginal and anal sex, although transmission may occur even without penetration.’

Symptom-wise, Mgen is similar to chlamydia, although it is caused by a different bacteria.

While Mgen is often symptomless in 80% of men and 50-70% of women, some people do show symptoms after one to three weeks after infection. 

The symptoms are slightly different in men and women.

It’s possible to get tested for Mgen, however it isn’t routine at STI clinics, so it’s a good idea to ask your doctor directly for an Mgen test.

However, says Dr Neel, ‘they may only test for it if you present symptoms or if you’ve raised it as a concern.’

Is Mgen dangerous?

Mgen often clears up on its own, however, left untreated, it has been linked to pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) which, says Dr Neel, ‘has been associated with preterm births and miscarriages.’

He said: ‘If someone is infected who has other STIs, such as HIV, Mgen may make them more likely to pass on those other infections.’

It’s also important to note that Mgen can lie dormant in the body for months or years, so getting tested is vital to ensure you don’t pass it on to someone else.

How is Mgen treated?

‘It is very unlikely for Mgen to go away by itself so it’s important to seek treatment,’ says Dr Neel.

‘Mgen can be treated by a course of antibiotics, though it may take multiple rounds and different types of antibiotic to clear the infection.’

One major concern with Mgen is that it could become a ‘superbug’.

Due to its similarities with chlamydia, doctors in the past often tried to treat Mgen as chlamydia, causing a rise in antibiotic resistance, making it even more important to get tested and treated as soon as possible. 

Once treated, Dr Neel advises waiting two weeks after finishing your antibiotics to have unprotected sex to ensure you don’t pass it on.

Finally, if you want to avoid catching Mgen, make sure to get tested regularly (every three to six months, depending on your number of sexual partners) and always wear a condom.

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Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.

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When Dick Berry went to visit his GP one morning, he saw there was a queue and, needing to get to work on time, quickly left the surgery.

After initially retiring as a policeman, Dick realised the ‘quiet life’ wasn’t for him, and went back into work as a seafront and events team supervisor in the coastal town of Weston Super Mare.

The 59-year-old was usually active and in great shape. In fact he’d received a clean bill of health at a check-up just a few days earlier.

But after leaving the surgery that day in February 2013, Dick’s life changed. He has no recollection of the terrifying accident that followed, or the cardiac arrest that wiped his memory and nearly cost him his life.

‘I was not expected to make it through the night,’ he says.

Despite the events of the day being a blur, Dick has been able to piece together what happened from other people. He explains: ‘I left [the surgery] because I was expected at work and would have had staff waiting for me.’

He made it to his van, but barely managed to drive down the road before crashing into the wall of a house next door to the GP.

Thankfully he knew the resident of the property, who raised the alarm and called doctors out to help him.

At this point Dick was unconscious, so medics had to think on their feet to workout the cause of the collision and stabilise his condition.

Doctor Simone Tucker, who had rushed out from the surgery, recognised the symptoms of cardiac arrest, using a defibrillator and performing CPR to restart his heart.

Staff from the Great Western Air Ambulance Charity (GWAAC) then attended the scene before intubating Dick and getting him to the specialist heart department at Bristol Royal Infirmary as quickly as possible.

Dick, now 69, credits the first responders for saving his life, as within two hours of arriving at the hospital he’d had a stent fitted.

His journey was far from over, though, and things were so touch-and-go that doctors told Dick’s wife Claire to prepare for the worst.

‘The family lived through many days of uncertainty as my health fluctuated in hospital,’ says Dick, who was placed into an induced coma for five days.

‘I was not expected to make it through the night when I suffered with pneumonia.’

Claire, who received the devastating news that her husband could have brain damage even if he survived, added: ‘This period in the hospital was the hardest time – the family named Dick’s room “The Dark Room” because it was a sad and desperate place for a while.’

Dick was released from hospital eight days after the van crash, taking six months off work to recover at home.

He said: ‘During rehabilitation I walked a lot and attended weekly classes at the local leisure centre. That was provided by the NHS and was really helpful and informative.’

Now, the only lasting effects of Dick’s terrifying ordeal are tinnitus and some short-term memory loss.

‘It’s strange,’ he said of his lapses in memory. ‘I don’t think it’s just me aging gracefully, I really do have trouble sometimes remembering something that I did or said thirty minutes ago.’

Doctors described him as one of the ‘fortunate few’ for bouncing back after the cardiac arrest. He went back to work after his six months off, before retiring for good in 2019.

He credits his recovery with his fit and outdoorsy lifestyle, and has gone on to stay active by joining the Weston Super Mare Lions fundraising club and welcoming five grandchildren to his family.

‘My wife and I have enjoyed travelling and recently spent the winter in New Zealand and Australia which was wonderful,’ added Dick.

Claire still deals with flashbacks from the incident, but the couple both count themselves lucky that ‘all the ducks lined up that day.’

Dick said: ‘From crashing the van to being resuscitated by the doctor, to the help from the air ambulance crew and doctor, to two hours later having the stent fitted recovery in hospital and the after care at home, I could not have had better.’

Dr Leon Roberts, former GWAAC Critical Care Doctor, remembers the case especially well, as Dick was his first patient after he was signed-off for the role.

He recalled: ‘It was a memorable first day; Dick’s incident was followed immediately after with a call-out to another cardiac arrest. It felt like an induction of fire.’

It could have gone very differently without the quick thinking of bystanders and medical staff, though.

‘Dick lucked out with his chain of survival,’ added Dr Leon. ‘On another day, it might not have worked.’

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