14 DAY TRIAL // Teenager Ayllah-Beau Foley suffers from a rare condition called gastroparesis, which stops her stomach from moving her food through her digestive system. This means the girl has not eaten a proper meal for almost five years.
The 19-year-old girl from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, was diagnosed with the rare condition which paralyzes her stomach muscles almost five years ago, and since then she has been fed through a tube directly to her bloodstream.
According to Daily Mail, Ayllah-Beau developed the condition after she returned from a trip to India and has been constantly in and out of hospital since she first started to feel sick.
She and her family initially thought she had traveler's diarrhea (or Delphi belly), which is the most common illness affecting travelers, but they soon realized it was getting worse.
“At first we assumed that Beau just had Delhi belly - something that she’d picked up when she was out there, but she wasn’t getting any better,” her mother Christine explained.
After a series of medical tests, Ayllah-Beau was diagnosed with gastroparesis, and doctors explained to her that her stomach muscles were practically paralyzed and unable to function properly.
They were relieved to finally find out what her health problem was, but, unfortunately, none of the treatments she has tried since her diagnosis, including a feeding tube directly into her bowel and a gastric pacemaker, have cured the terrible disease.
Because her stomach is unable to process food, she has to be tube-fed to ensure she gets the nutrients she needs. She's only able to eat very small amounts of food and vomits if she tries to ingest a whole meal.
Beau's mother explains that she has to be tube-fed for 14 hours overnight to keep her alive, but she still wishes she could eat like any normal person.
“Having this condition has really changed my life. I can’t sit down for meals with my family anymore, I can’t eat out with my friends - I can’t even tuck into a Sunday lunch,” the girl says. “It is really hard but I try and stay positive, and I just hope I can beat this horrible illness one day.”
Gastroparesis is defined as a medical condition consisting of a paresis of the stomach, causing the food to remain in the stomach for an abnormally long time. The most common symptoms include feeling sick and vomiting when eating, nausea, abdominal pain and weight loss. There is no known treatment for the condition, but it can usually be maintained under control.