A woman with a chronic skin condition has finally found a cure - only to be told that she can't have another baby as long as she is on the medication. If Rebecca Sayers, 23, wants another child she will have to stop taking the drug and risk plunging herself back into depression.
The mum-of-two says her life was totally transformed in March 2021 when she started taking Cyclosporine to deal with her psoriasis. After a lifelong battle with the skin condition, which she previously told MyLondon affected her from head-to-toe and left her hoovering constantly to get rid of the dead skin, Rebecca noticed her skin clearing within days of taking the new meds, reports MyLondon.
"In the beginning when my skin started clearing up I was really happy, I was over the moon," she said. Rebecca described how within just two weeks her skin had totally transformed, giving her a newfound confidence she'd never had before. "I never thought I’d see myself with normal skin, just to dress normally and look normal and be a normal adult," she said.
Rebecca's skin before she started taking the medication (Image: Rebecca Sayers)
But she quickly saw severe side effects. "I’m forever getting ill," she said. "I had pneumonia on Christmas Day. I got a lot of cold sores in the winter. I have a lot of problems with bleeding all the time."
Rebecca said the medication also left her tired, with less energy to play with her two young kids, who are two and four. She also didn't realise was she would be unable to try for another baby while taking the medication. Rebecca claims she only recently discovered she couldn't take Cyclosporine and get pregnant at the same time, after a discussion about its side-effects with her doctor.
Rebecca's skin cleared up within 2 weeks of starting the new medication (Image: Rebecca Sayers)
Rebecca said: "Only recently I asked him about the children situation, what would happen in the future if I wanted more children, and he said to me you’d have to come off the medication and let your skin flare up again really badly."
Rebecca said the state of her skin used to leave her feeling 'depressed' (Image: Rebecca Sayers)
Rebecca says at some point she will have to face the choice between staying on the medication and feeling "happy," or expanding her family. "I’m very unsure in my life now," she explained, "like I’m happy at the moment, I’m happy with the way I look and with my skin, but what happens when things go wrong again."
"When I think back to what I had to deal with, I don’t want to go through that again," continued Rebecca, who insisted: "I don’t think it’s right to be told at such a young age that either you care about how you look or you can have kids."
Left untreated, Rebecca's condition causes skin cells to multiply up to 10 times faster than normal, which makes the skin build up into bumpy red patches covered with white scales (Image: Rebecca Sayers)
She said her doctor told her all about another medication which would clear up her skin as well as allowing her to try for children - but wouldn't prescribe it.
She said her dermatologist told her about the Cimzia injection. Rebecca said he told her it was an "amazing injection" which "works really well" - but the medication is rarely prescribed to patients because it costs thousands of pounds.
The mum-of-two said she has only just got used to finally feeling 'normal' in clothes (Image: Rebecca Sayers)
"I’ve said to the doctor before, what does it take for you to give out that injection? Because you said I’m the worst you’ve ever seen," said Rebecca, who added: "What’s the point in telling somebody about a medication if you’re not going to give it them to help them?"
Rebecca said she feels like the repeatedly let down by the state of healthcare in the UK to treat skin conditions like hers, describing how various health centres have "messed me around my whole life giving me steroid after steroid after steroid. They’re just giving me the cheapest option."
She added: "I’m not a guinea pig to be tested on that many times - one day they say try this, the next they say try that. They all come with risks... [but] someone that’s been suffering for years will of course jump to stop that, to make themselves happy."
A spokesperson for Shirley Oaks Hospital said: "We are committed to the highest standards of patient care for the thousands of patients we treat each year. While we cannot comment on an individual patient, we will examine thoroughly the issues raised."
