A grandmother has been able to get her life back just weeks after writing a series of farewell poems to her family after ill health.
70-year-old Carole was “prepared to die” after a stint of bad health saw her moved into a care home and requiring stacks of medication every day.
But just a few weeks after preparing her goodbyes – even penning notes to her family members – the former music teacher agreed to try a new medical device, prompted by her daughter.
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Incredibly, within days she noticed a huge improvement in her overall health, and Carole has since been able to leave the care home and live independently once again – and enjoy an active life with her grandson and the rest of her family.
“The fact I’m able to live independently once again, with just a bit of help, within just five months really is incredible,” she told Need To Know.
“My friends used to come and see me and just cry; now they’re still crying when they visit, but it’s for a completely different reason.”
The “miraculous” recovery comes after years of poor health for the grandmother, following the loss of her husband in 2016, when she “overworked” herself to stay busy.
Despite being fit and healthy, and working up until the age of 65, she could feel her health deteriorating, often becoming unwell.
Carole, from Devon, said: “I noticed my bladder and gut had both stopped working, and I was really struggling to live comfortably.
“Over the next few years, I became increasingly ill, fatigued, and debilitated, also living with a lot of gut pain.
“I was so depressed and anxious as I had no idea what was happening to me, and the doctors had no answers.
“I became reliant upon antidepressants and different drugs.”
Carole was out of A&E every few months because of the discomfort, and was desperate to find out what was wrong.
She said: “Every time I went to them, they would check me over and just send me straight back home.
“I was constantly being told it was just anxiety, but it felt as though someone’s hand was constantly squeezing my heart.
“That mixed with everything else, I just knew there was more to it than that.”
By late 2023, Carole couldn’t carry on at home and decided to go into a residential care home.
She was physically struggling with blood results going in the wrong direction, and her sleep was now severely affected.
She added: “My mobility had drastically declined, and I was in a poor state both physically and mentally.
“I knew I was going to die.
“I just felt so sick and like no one could fix it.
“I decided to write poems to my family as a way of saying goodbye.”
But her daughter Anna, 42, wouldn’t accept defeat, and started looking into alternative ways to help her mum.
Having worked in the health industry for several years, she knew of advances in medical technology, and came across a medical device called Nurosym – a vagus nerve stimulation device which aims to improve overall health.
Anna said: “I was so desperate to find something that could help mum and persuaded her to try this new device I had found.
“At this point, there was nothing to lose, and after reading up on its benefits and studies, I had a feeling it could be the answer.”
Carole got her Nurosym in late November – a year after being in the care home – and within three days she was enjoying better sleep with no night sweats.
After a week-and-a-half, her health was already improving.
She said: “It was miraculous, everything just started to get better!
“After my sleep initially started to improve within just a couple of days, I started to see there might be a chance for me to get some quality of life back, but it just kept on improving.
“I was starting to worry the care home staff as everyone really just sat around in their chairs, and I had only been in wheelchairs since I came, but suddenly I wanted to walk around and just kept asking them to let me out!”
Within two months, Carole was feeling “transformed”.
Her gut mobility was improving, her anxiety had disappeared, the number of medications she was having to take was reduced to minimal, and in April, she was able to move back into her own home.
She added: “It’s crazy to me how I had to go through all of this, tests with doctors, medical appointments, and I was never told anything about the vagus nerve.”
The vagus nerve is a long cranial nerve that runs from a person’s brain stem into the neck, chest, and abdomen.
The nerve is part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is commonly referred to as the rest-and-digest system because it regulates bodily functions while a person is at rest.
It delivers messages to a person’s brain from their digestive system and organs, such as their lungs, heart, and liver.
Nurosym is a non-invasive, wearable device that can be worn around the ear while performing most daily activities, working by sending an electrical charge from the vagus nerve to different areas of the brain to change the way the brain cells work.
Working like a pacemaker for the brain, it purports to have a therapeutic effect on the body, due to its ability to promote relaxation and reduce inflammation.
Carole added: “When you look into it, the vagus nerve was the answer to all of my conditions, but there seems to be an ignorance to it.
“The doctors just never mentioned it.”
Even Anna has been won over, purchasing her own device.
She said: “Mum’s not susceptible to placebo at all, this is something that has really worked for her, and changed her life.
“She has no side effects anymore from the ridiculous number of drugs she was having to take, and we desperately want people to know there is a way for people to get better in a non-invasive way.
“I’ve even invested in my own device as I suffer from anxiety.
“For me, my sleep improved within just a few weeks, I don’t get this sinking feeling in my stomach anymore, and I just have such a positive frame of mind that it’s completely changed my outlook.”
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