[DanaC]

They decided I was 'allergic to everything' too lol. 'Total Allergy Syndrome' they called it. After the testing phase one of the four little bottles of stuff i had to take daily was administered as drops under the tongue, the other three had to be injected, twice a day. I got pretty good at giving myself those injections every day. Except this one time, I don't know what I'd done, but my whole upper arm went dark and hurt like hell. I ended up having to have antibiotics for that.

I think what made the whole thing so streesful for me, was that I was so very ill when it all started. They scared us with horror stories of what might happen if I were to give up on the treatment. That and the way the bitch partner of his bullied me.

I recall one time, they gave me anm injection of a solution containing a small amount of apple pectin and it sent me into such a state. The worst headache I have every had in my whole life. It was like my whole head was exploding. I had to keep my eyes tightly shut. I vomited everywhere, and was crying.

Bitch was angry I'd thrown up on her carpet and told me off for being dramatic. They got me downstairs to the waiting room and left me there, lay across the chairs, waiting for my Dad to drive over from Bolton to come get me. They left me there for an hour, and not once came and checked me. I couldn't stop shaking. My whole body was shuddering. Dad took me home, put me in bed and I was stlll shuddering. They'd basically sent me into shock.

Those dickheads had no equipment to deal with any kind of emergency. They didn't even have equipment to deal with an asthma attack, let alone a major allergic reaction. They reliedwholly on their own as yet unproven serums to reverse allergic response. How amazingly dangerous when you consider what they were doing.

I finished yet another book

I wasn't allowed to read during testing. The only thing we were allowed to do was write numbers across pieces of paper, to see if our handwriting changed, because that could be a sign of allergic reaction. They were working in three hour stints with an hour break for lunch. And during those three hours, there was no talking, no reading, no nothing. Total concentration on your body's responses.


The diet they had me on for about the first 5 months was: cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, beef, lamb, two types of herbal tea. That was it - if it wasn't on that list no go. No pepper, tea, coffee, milk, sugar, cheese, potato, rice, tomato, peas, herbs, bread, pasta --- just that list above. I could eat as much of it as I wanted - and it took a lot of food from that limited list to actually feel full - I was eating whole casserole dishes full of food and still losing weight. Then they introduced small amounts (like a tiny bit once or twice a week) of potato and tomato. Then a tiny bit of cheese and wheat and very occasional bits of sugar.

never occurred to me it was costing anything, but I guess it must have been

if it was the same place, then it was costing a lot ;p If i recall correctly, I think during testing, it was something like £90 per day.

Several months into the follow-up stages, when we had to keep driving over and buying new phials of serum every four weeks, they moved from the place in Manchester to ..... a mansion on the outskirts of Bolton. The first time mum went over to their new place to pick up the serums and hand over yet another £40 per bottle ( I think it was per bottle anyway - there were four each time I think, and remember we're talkin the mid-80s here, so £160 every four weeks was a fuckton of money) she drove up this long, long, driveway to get to it, and then the door was answered by their daughter, in her bathrobe, with a towel wrapped round her hair, and behind her was a large hall and giant sweeping staircase. There was even a chandelier.


I remember the day we decided to throw in the towel. My mum and I sat at the kitchen table and discussed it. I was the one who made the decision. It all boiled down, really, to whether or not we believed their claims that if we were to stop I might die. At this point I was now 13 years old. And bear in mind, when I first went to them, I was so ill, that my doctors had tested me for a number of serious conditions, including porphyria.

They scared the shit out me and my parents, bled the family dry of money, made me even sicker and then used that fact to scare us into staying on the treatment and were more bothered about what was going in Dr F ---'s book than anything else.


I now know, that my main trigger for eczema is stress and having infection present on my skin. There are some foods that I am sensitive to which can make it worse, and likewise some environmental triggers, like pollen and dust mites, but the biggest triggers are stress and infection. What the medical profession now understands much better is the role of infection in eczema and how to deal with it. It requires an extended course of antibiotics - 10 days minimum, possibly up to 28 days if it isn't responding.


Funny story: by the end of that horrible year of illness, I was about 3 stone lighter than I should have been. When we ditched the treatment and I just ate whatever I wanted - I got better, but also ballooned in weight ;p I went up five clothes sizes in about a year.