I lost 17st but then my vision went, I lost feeling in my legs and the paralysis spread… it was a vitamin deficiency

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NADINE Hatchett was convinced she was making the best decision for her health when she embarked on her weight loss journey a decade ago.

At 18, she was having the time of her life and was never bothered by her 28 stone body, but decided to heed doctor’s advice after they warned it could put her life at stake.

But just weeks into her weight loss journey, Nadine was rushed to A&E after she began to lose her vision and all feeling in her legs.

There, the terrified teenager was diagnosed with Wernicke’s encephalopathy, a condition caused by a severe vitamin B1 deficiency which can lead to nerve and brain damage.

Now 29, Nadine says she is still grieving her old life and believes her weight loss journey is to blame for her disabling condition.

“I’m still grieving my old life,” sobs Nadine. “I should have had a place of my own by now, I might have kids, I would be able to drive. My life stopped that day and I will never fully get it back.”

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With weight loss jabs not an option a decade ago, bariatric surgery was a popular choice for people with morbid obesity, which is linked to a limited life expectancy and increased risk of developing life-threatening illnesses.

Nadine was loving life at 18, saying her size didn’t hamper her fun but paying heed to medical advice she opted for the gastric bypass, a procedure which reduces stomach size and reroutes the small intestine to limit a person’s food intake.

“I was completely healthy before the operation,” she says. “I had no health conditions apart from being severely overweight. I loved my life, I had a great group of friends, we went clubbing together. I had ambitions of working with children in the future.”

In December 2015 Nadine underwent the nearly seven-hour op at a hospital in the UK.

She had been warned about “dumping syndrome”, a common early side effect which sees food move too quickly from the stomach into the small intestine causing cramping, vomiting and diarrhoea, so initially, she didn’t panic when her stomach pains began.

“I had been told dumping syndrome would be like an overnight stomach bug but instead, my symptoms grew worse,” continues Nadine.

“It got to the point where I was dry-heaving, I couldn’t eat and drink and I began to get brain fog really badly.

“My mum took me to A&E a few times over Christmas but they kept discharging me, telling me I was just dehydrated.

“Then my vision went and I began to lose the feeling in my legs.

“When I collapsed for the fourth time in three days, my mum called an ambulance and when we got to A&E, she refused to let them discharge me again.”

With her symptoms finally being taken seriously, the terrified teenager was transferred from her local hospital to one in London.

She remembers a series of doctors and medical students passing by her bedside due to the rarity of her case and a week after she was admitted, she was diagnosed with Wernicke’s encephalopathy, which is caused by a severe vitamin B1 deficiency and can lead to nerve and brain damage.

The disabling, potentially life-threatening condition is more commonly associated with men over 40 who drink excessively.

“The reason they took so long to find the diagnosis was because they had never seen it in a bypass patient,” says Nadine, who didn’t drink at the time.

“They’d only ever seen it in alcoholics.”

Within days, with her health seriously deteriorating, Nadine’s mum was pulled aside and told her daughter’s life was hanging in the balance.

“She was told by the medical staff that they might have to put me into a coma to save me, they suggested she call family members to my bedside in case the worst happened,” says Nadine.

“The paralysis caused by the Wernicke’s encephalopathy had crept up my legs to my bra straps and my organs had started to shut down.

“They were scared my heart would be affected next.”

Nadine pulled through and spent seven months in hospital before she was discharged, during which she reached her lowest ebb mentally.

“I remember screaming at the amazing doctor who diagnosed me: ‘You wouldn’t see an animal go through this, so why would you let a human?’” she says.

“My mum and my brother were there at the time, he had to walk off because he couldn’t listen to what I was saying.

“I said: ‘Can you not just give me the cocktail of what they give to people on palliative care?’

“She said she couldn’t do that to me, I had so much life ahead of me but I wanted it to end, there and then.”

Battling back from the brink, Nadine was left with devastating neurological complications, including severe nerve and mild brain damage. She was also left in constant pain.

After she left hospital, she needed the support of carers visiting her three times a day for the next year, to help with feeding, washing and dressing.

“My parents’ house was adapted for me, I had a hospital bed in the living room and a wet room replaced the kitch,” she says.

“I don’t even know how long I spent having bed baths and wearing nappies, it felt so degrading, I was so young.”

Since having the operation, Nadine has lost a whopping 17 stone and now weighs 11 stone.

But used to clubbing in her teenage years, she has spent her 20s sleeping in her hospital bed in the lounge, popping to the shops with her mum if she had energy.

“I am only just learning to walk again, 11 years later,” says Nadine, from Shepperton in Surrey.

“I am on so many different kinds of medication and my vision remains poor.

“I suffer from chronic sickness and constant fatigue and am in constant pain.

“I still live at home with my mum, the surgery robbed me of my independence.”

Wernicke’s encephalopathy is a rare but a known side effect of bariatric surgery, with early recognition being the key to avoiding irreversible complications like Nadine’s.

Nadine claims a consultant at the hospital where she had the surgery informally told her that her gastric bypass operation had been performed incorrectly, with part of her stomach cut too short meaning she was deprived of critical nutrients.

She says the doctor went on to deny saying this officially, adding that her attempts to take legal action against the hospital failed.

More than ten years after her world was shattered, Nadine is looking forward to the future and has a partner of a year, Craig, who she met online.

“I can’t just sit and dwell on what has happened,” she says.