An ex-Aston Villa player is dealing with excruciating pain that feels as though she is being “burned alive” after a footballing injury developed into a condition known as Suicide Disease. Ellen Martin suffered a knee ligament injury in November 2021 but is now having to battle Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, which causes her to experience burning in her legs, feet, hands, back, face and eyes.
Ellen, who has also played for Birmingham City Ladies, Fulham and MK Dons, says the condition has left her feeling like she is being burned inside out. Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, also known as the Suicide Disease because the extreme pain it causes is too hard to live with, is a disease of the Central Nervous System and is characterised by severe, chronic, high-intensity neuropathic pain that affects a limb, usually after trauma, injury or surgery. The associated pain from the injury is far more severe and longer-lasting than expected and is most often described as severe constant burning. If the condition spreads, it can shut down organs.
Ellen told BirminghamLive : "My life has spiralled downwards from a split-second tackle in a football match. I have been unable to walk freely, sit in a chair normally, socialise with friends and family or work.
"My whole life has paused. With this diagnosis and the rate at which mine is spreading, I have been told the prognosis is not positive, and I will slowly watch my life at 25 years of age disappear through chronic severe burning pain and loss of functionality and mobility.
"All I did was simply tear a ligament in my leg. A recovery I thought would be hard as it's the most feared injury you can have. How I wish it was all I had right now. The diagnosis I have been given is of complete loneliness.
"The McGill Pain Index, a scale rating of pain developed by McGill University, rates CRPS as the top pain humans can experience ahead of childbirth and amputation without anaesthesia. It is a living hell. I feel like I am being burnt alive. Imagine feeling like your body is being set on fire while being electrocuted. That's the kind of pain I have to endure.
"I have been told that all they can do is cover my pain with medication so in no way can anyone treat the condition I have. I have ultimately been told I need a spinal stimulator at some point. They say there is a good chance that I will be bedridden.
"I am a young 25-year-old, was a football player and sports coach and loved to socialise with my family and friends. This diagnosis would take that away from me."
Ellen has now launched a GoFundMe fundraiser in a bid to raise enough money to send her to a clinic in the USA that specialises in treating patients specifically with CRPS. You can look at the fundraiser by clicking here. So far over £6,000 has been raised.
She said: "I have lived indoors for five months - to be told that is my future is not a future I wish to have. I am doing a GoFundMe fundraiser in a bid to get to America and take a chance on some treatment. I want to fight against the impossible. I want to take a chance against the condition that no-one knows anything about."
The Spero Clinic in Arkansas is a holistic medical treatment centre specifically designed to treat chronic neurological pain conditions. They are the only place in the world successful in putting CRPS into remission, and hundreds of patients now live entirely pain-free and normal lives.
For more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea.
