Suicide Disease Developed in Amy Pohl After Failed Cannula Insertion

Amy Pohl, who used to be a primary school teacher in Warwickshire, United Kingdom in Jan. 2018 developed complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), otherwise known as “suicide disease.”

Pohl states that the pain she experiences every day is excruciating and she feels as if she is continuously stabbed with hundreds of pieces of glass that is burning.

Doctors do not know what has caused the suicide disease. Pohl’s family say it is possible the disease developed in her left arm after the former school teacher’s hand developed an infection.

Pohl started to feel tired in Nov. 2017, and a doctor said she had adult croup, an infection of the airways, voice box and windpipe. She was admitted to the hospital for tests in December after a course of antibiotics did not work.

Pohl stated the infection began after she had a cannula insertion and it failed in Nov. 2017 at University Hospital Coventry. She was admitted there in Oct. 2018.

While in the hospital, she developed a reaction to medication which almost killed her and was placed in intensive care.

A week later, a cannula was inserted, and she developed an infection which caused her wrist and hand to swell. Pohl required surgery to drain the abscess.

She returned to the hospital in Jan. 2018 when her pain returned. There she was diagnosed with the suicide disease

25-year-old Pohl is bedridden, fed by a feeding tube, and can no longer ambulate. Eating is so difficult and painful that she has lost 25 kg (56 lbs.)

She also says the pain spread to her stomach and made swallowing agonizing and impossible to stand. She said that when she eats she feels as if someone is stabbing her in the stomach. She can manage to consume 200 calories by her mouth and feeding tube.

CRPS developed the nickname suicide disease because many of those who are inflicted with the disease kill themselves due to the pain.

Pohl tried to kill herself in 2018 due to the brutalizing pain which she describes as being as intense as the pain one has from childbirth, continuously 24 hours a day.

She says that she can not hug her parents anymore and struggles if people breath near her skin due to the suicide disease.

Pohl said she is terrified the suicide disease will get worse and will spread to other parts of her body.

It is unclear the number of people who suffer from suicide disease. One UK study says 3800 people in the United Kingdom have the disease. It is thought in the United States between 5.5 and 26.2 people per 100000 people suffer every year from suicide disease.

Written by Barbara Sobel

Sources:

Daily Mail: Teacher, 25, has ‘suicide disease’ after a ‘failed cannula insertion left her in such excruciating pain she attempted to take her own life’

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