For the last 14 years, Samantha Bloomfield has received a monthly blood plasma infusion to help manage an immune deficiency. Until six months ago, plasma supplies were imported from the US – but after a 25-year ban was lifted on UK sources, she is now able to rely on donors here.
“Every cold I used to get would turn into an infection,” Ms Bloomfield told the BBC.
“I would end up getting pneumonia.”
Ms Bloomfield has common variable immune deficiency (CVID) which is the name for a group of conditions that affect how the body’s immune system makes antibodies and fights infections.
People with CVID are unable to make protective antibodies and therefore become susceptible to infections.
“There was one Christmas, I had pleurisy in December and then a chest infection in January,” Ms Bloomfield recalled.
“It is a blur that was infection after infection, three or four per year.
“I have had to call an ambulance, I have had to have a week in hospital in respiratory.”
The 55-year-old from Gildersome in Leeds was diagnosed with CVID after an operation on her sinuses.
Doctors at Bradford Royal Infirmary discovered she had contracted an infection that did not clear with antibiotics.
She began plasma infusions at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds.