Charlotte Laycock first found herself having difficulty eating in November 2020, when she was just 31. She had problems swallowing and soon found she could only consume food in liquid form. “It was the weirdest thing, my jaw felt too weak to chew,” she toldShe also found that by the afternoon each day, her speech was slurred.
“I was into marathon running and climbing mountains and I thought, ‘This can’t be happening to me’,” she said. “I was petrified.”, it most commonly affects the muscles that control the eyes and eyelids, facial expressions, chewing, swallowing and speaking. But it can affect most parts of the body.Ms Laycock, an event manager who lives in Devon, saw a neurologist on her return home. By this point her weight had dropped by two-and-a-half stone. He confirmed her MG diagnosis.
She takes steroids which can come with side-effects including weight gain and insomnia, and has suffered receding gums as a result.“I’d feared that I would never be the same again. That I would be in a wheelchair and I could kiss goodbye to working and Immunoglobulin treatment, which works by neutralising or destroying damaging antibodies, is used for patients with severe MG or when patients haven’t responded well to the more routine treatments.