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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Jessica Cripps

Woman paralysed at 24 'suffered stroke after taking the pill'

A woman claims she had a stroke that left her arm moving on its own for a week before leaving her paralysed at 24 - because she took the pill.

Bobbie Jarvis had been taking the contraception since she was 17, but says she had never been called for a check up since then.

Then in February, she was admitted to hospital with headaches - but discharged four days later when doctors said there was nothing wrong with her.

A few days later she woke up with no headache so decided to drive to boyfriend Christian Henry-May's house.

Bobbie is now recovering after being left paralysed (Kennedy News and Media)

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While she waited for him to return home, however, she suddenly lost sensation in her arm and blacked out.

Christian returned home and found her unconscious in the garden and immediately phoned an ambulance.

Bobbie, from Worcester Park in London, said: "My hand went numb. I panicked a bit, so I just sat down on the end of the bed and I didn't know what to think.

Bobbie spent a month in hospital and is now waiting for rehab (Kennedy News and Media)

"Next thing I knew, I woke up and I had fallen back and I was trying to hear myself breathe. I knew I needed help but I was trying to find my phone and couldn't find it.

"I managed to drag myself off the bed and out the door up the garden. I don't really remember much else except hearing myself trying to breathe."

She was taken to hospital and claims doctors told her the contraceptive pill had caused her to have a stroke.

The 24-year-old said she did not have a single check-up while taking the pill (Kennedy News and Media)

The effects of the stroke left her arm swinging around madly as if with a mind of its own 'like a cat's tail', she says.

She was also left temporarily blind in one eye.

Bobbie was allowed to go home after seven days, but she started having seizures and was admitted to hospital again on March 5.

The seizures caused her left leg, left arm and shoulder to become paralysed and she now has to learn to walk again.

She said: "You have good and bad days. I'm feeling a bit better about it but some days you do just feel like you can't do it anymore. You just want your independence back."

Doctors say she will make a full recovery, but cannot say how long this will take.

Bobbie said: "I think a doctor should have picked up on it, but I also should have known myself. I think we're both to blame.

"I can't go on any pill or contraception now. I wish now that I knew more than I did when I went on it.

"You don't think of the side effects when you take a pill and someone is telling you it's fine to take. I was sure that nothing was wrong with it.

"I had been on it for so long. It had just become normal to me."

Bobbie with her boyfriend, Christian (Kennedy News and Media)

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Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust said they were unable to comment on issues regarding patient confidentiality without written consent of the patient.

A spokesperson for NHS Sutton CCG said: "We take patient's care seriously and if a patient has concerns, we will work closely with them and our healthcare providers to look into the issues raised.

"We would encourage patients to get in touch with us if they have concerns they wish to raise."

A St George's spokesperson said: "While we cannot comment on individual patient cases for confidentiality reasons, we urge any patient - including Ms Jarvis - with concerns about their care to contact us directly so we can investigate and answer any queries."

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