YOU’RE A LIFESAVER!

The inspiring stories of the readers who say that without Good Health, they wouldn’t be here today...

Six months after a heart attack at the age of 46, Dave Randle learned that he might not even see out the end of the year. Dave, formerly a tour bus driver for Bruce Springsteen and rock bands, was told his heart was failing fast, but he was too weak for a transplant and no other long-term treatments were available.

‘i was advised to go home, put my affairs in order and arrange palliative care,’ he says. ‘i was devastated — i didn’t want to die.’

The heart attack Dave experienced in 2016 damaged his heart muscle, leaving him breathless and struggling to walk upstairs. He also developed pulmonary hypertension — high blood pressure affecting the arteries supplying the lungs — which can cause clots and meant he couldn’t have a transplant.

As Dave struggled to come to terms with his terminal diagnosis, his best friend Mark Preston rang in excitement in November. ‘Mark told me to get a copy of the Daily Mail and look at a story in the Good Health section about a man in a similar situation to me who’d been successfully treated with stem cells to mend his damaged heart tissue,’ recalls Dave. ‘it sounded too good to be true.’

Dave, 51, who is single and lives in Halesowen, West Midlands, had already heard about stem cell treatment but had been told it was not available.

‘i couldn’t believe what i was reading — you could have scraped me off the floor: heart stem treatments were being carried out in London on a compassionate treatment programme — there was hope for me after all,’ he says.

it was the first time Dave had ever bought the Daily Mail but the feature he read in Good Health that day saved his life.

it told the story of 54-year-old Owen Palmer from Abbey Wood, South-East London, who’d also had a heart attack that left his heart damaged but who’d been successfully treated with stem cells in a trial led by Professor Anthony Mathur, a consultant cardiologist at Barts Hospital.

‘Owen had been in just as bad a situation as me and his heart had only been pumping oxygenated blood out at 21 per cent — around the same as me — and yet here he was alive and thriving six years later.

‘Stem-cell treatments weren’t the stuff of science fiction after all,’ recalls Dave. ‘it seemed like a miracle — i felt very emotional. ‘The article explained how the treatment was done and how it was being funded by a charity called the Heart Cells Foundation. i found the phone number and rang straight away.’ Heart stem-cell treatments have been pioneered in the UK by Professor Mathur, who has treated 450 patients since 2008, including Owen and then Dave. Stem cells are the body’s building blocks for repairing itself and are found in the brain, bone marrow, liver, eyes, heart and skin. They can turn into a host of specialist cells, such as blood or muscle cells, and offer huge potential for treating a range of conditions, including worn-out knees. For patients such as Dave, the treatment involves taking stem cells from the patient’s bone marrow via the hip, processing them and then injecting them into the heart via a catheter. Professor Mathur’s research has shown that between 60 to 70 per cent of heart failure patients treated with stem cells experience improvement in their symptoms and quality of life — ‘which is remarkable when you consider that these patients have often been told there are no more options left for them’, he says. While the £10,000 treatment is not available on the NHS, some 40 patients a year receive it through the charity scheme. Dave had to wait until February 2019 for the procedure (in the meantime his lung condition stabilised thanks to another treatment).

‘On the morning of the procedure, i was lying on the trolley petrified — there was a team of 14 doctors and nurses all lined up waiting for me. i knew it was make or break for me — if this didn’t work there really were no options left.’

DESPiTE being told it could take six months to notice a difference, Dave says he felt improvements within a week. ‘it was like a switch had been flicked, i could carry shopping and walk up the stairs much easier. Within months i was back at work — not as a driver — but training new recruits.’

Two-and-a-half years on, Dave’s heart is now pumping oxygenated blood at 38 per cent and he’s achieved one of his dreams by becoming the licensee of a pub — The Waggon And Horses in Halesowen.

‘i’m humping barrels up the stairs from the cellar, serving as well as working in the kitchen, plus doing all the paperwork — i’m working 16 hours a day, which isn’t bad for a bloke who was at death’s door,’ says Dave.

‘i totally credit Good Health with helping save my life. if it hadn’t been for that article, i would never have known heart stem cell treatments were being done 120 miles away and i wouldn’t be here today.’

Dave is also planning a motorcycle ride around the UK in 2022 to raise money for the Heart Cells Foundation.

Professor Mathur says it’s frustrating more patients are not getting the treatment. ‘Working

with Good Health has been an immensely positive partnership, a real game-changer, and we’re immensely grateful for that.’

Opening her copy of the Daily Mail in January 2017, Angela Denton felt a sense of dread as she read an article in Good Health. It traced the harrowing story of Sarah Smith, a 51-year-old teaching assistant from Kent, who’d spent ten years dealing with ‘everyday complaints’ such as tummy upsets, indigestion, hot flushes and diarrhoea.

She’d gone to her GP each time something new came up — ‘and each time, there’d be another explanation’, as Sarah recounted.

Finally she discovered her symptoms were caused by a rare cancer, a neuroendocrine tumour (NET), diagnosed after her GP, suspecting gallstones, referred Sarah for ultrasound scans that revealed large tumours on her liver. NETs start in the neuroendocrine cells, which release hormones and are found in most organs. Apple founder Steve Jobs died from a NET on his pancreas.

‘Reading Sarah’s story was like reading my own medical history,’ recalls Angela, 67, a retired personal assistant from Buckinghamshire. ‘For six years I’d had hot flushes and stomach upsets, only to be told I was either menopausal or suffering from IBS.

‘I was horrified to think I had the same cancer, but after years of trying to get doctors to take me seriously, I was sure I’d found the cause. I’ll be eternally grateful to Good Health — it saved my life.’

The tumours — depending on location — cause symptoms such as cramps, flushing, diarrhoea, wheezing, skin problems and abdominal pain. However, doctors have so little experience of rare cancers such as NETs that patients often wait years for a diagnosis, and as one leading expert told us, patients may be misdiagnosed with benign conditions such as IBS or the menopause, and given treatments ‘that have no effect’.

Angela spent six years chasing a diagnosis for symptoms, which began with occasional blood ‘spotting’. Doctors attributed this to the menopause even though she’d been through it several years before.

Further tests followed and she was told she might have endometrial hyperplasia, a thickening of the inner lining of the womb, and was fitted with a coil.

But by 2012, Angela was suffering diarrhoea three or four times a day as well as random flushes. Her GP recommended a gluten-free diet, followed by yet more tests — when these came back clear the GP concluded Angela had irritable bowel syndrome, advising her to ‘try to live with it’.

‘I simply couldn’t accept this,’ says Angela. ‘I saw every doctor in our practice but was just made to feel like a hypochondriac.’

It was only when she read about Sarah that Angela found an answer. ‘I took the article to my GP and said, “Look, this is what I’ve got.” He disagreed, but as I was so determined, agreed to carry out tests.’

Three weeks later, Angela, who is married to Mike, 72, a retired distribution manager, received a call from her GP admitting her tests did indeed suggest NET. ‘Although I felt shock to hear the word cancer, I also felt enormous relief I was finally going to be treated.’

She was referred for scans, which revealed she had tumours ‘everywhere’. Angela underwent a 12hour operation in August 2017 to remove her womb, a third of her liver, her gallbladder, parts of her bowel and some of the diaphragm as well as tumours elsewhere.

‘However weak I felt afterwards, I knew that I was on the way to recovery. I asked the surgeon what would have happened if they hadn’t operated and he said it was likely the cancer would have killed me.’

‘All my symptoms have gone and all that matters is I’m alive.

‘Much as I’m grateful to Good Health, I don’t understand why it should be the role of a newspaper to get patients the help they need. If there’s one thing GPs need to take from this, it’s to listen to your patients. It could save their lives.’

Janey Semp, 58, a mother-ofone from manchester, who has a debilitating neurological disorder, finally managed to find the right care via Good Health. She says:

DISHING out the roast chicken, I paused for a moment to watch my family as they sat down to dinner.

It wasn’t a special occasion, but for me it was memorable: proof that, despite being diagnosed with a rare neurological condition, I was able to enjoy everyday life again in a way I’d thought impossible.

And all because in March this year Good Health ran a feature on my illness — functional neurological disorder (FND). This affects 50,000 Britons a year, yet many struggle to get a diagnosis.

FND affects the way your brain and body exchange signals. Yet as this isn’t visible on scans, it’s often overlooked by doctors. For two miserable years I struggled with this condition: my symptoms began as I drove home one afternoon when suddenly, I felt painful pins and needles in my left arm.

I was fit and active so was baffled by this, as was my GP. Over the next few months I began to feel really awful with a constant debilitating headache. And frighteningly, my toes began to curl under, making walking awkward.

Blood tests, brain scans and even seeing an orthopaedic surgeon couldn’t provide an answer. I knew I was ill — I had difficulty walking or raising my arms, my speech was slurred and daily things like putting on make-up were exhausting.

Doctors then began asking if I was suffering from stress.Then last year I went to hospital after my right eyelid ‘dropped’ and I began to shake uncontrollably. It was terrifying, especially as doctors initially suspected a stroke or brain tumour.

It was only the publication of my story in Good Health that led me to an expert who would help — a specialist featured in the article, Mark Edwards, a professor of neurology at St George’s University Hospital NHS Foundation in London.

Following a two-hour appointment and tests in April he diagnosed FND, a recognised neurological disorder for more than 200 years. The relief of finally being understood was overwhelming.

Professor Edwards referred me to specialist neuro-physiotherapists and psychotherapists, which has transformed my life. He took me off the cocktail of medication I’d been put on, which has helped with my speech, and I’ve lost 2½st.

I’m not cured, but I am able to enjoy everyday activities I thought were gone for ever; spending the evening chatting or watching TV with my husband Alan, 78, and going out for a coffee with friends. Good Health has given me back my quality of life.