A woman who woke up with \u201cgym\u201d aches was struck down by a sudden paralysis, caused by a rare condition.<\/p>\n
Charlie Wilson, 38, was living a \u201ccompletely normal\u201d life working in Magaluf, Mallorca, before she lost movement in both legs, her left arm, and neck.<\/p>\n
She broke out in lumps all over her body, but doctors didn\u2019t know what was causing her pain.<\/p>\n
After multiple tests and scans and a three-week stay in hospital, Charlie was finally diagnosed with extrapulmonary sarcoidosis \u2013 a rare condition that causes small patches of swollen tissues to develop in the organs of the body.<\/p>\n
In Charlie\u2019s case, her condition is isolated and does not affect her lungs \u2013 the most common place for the condition to form \u2013 and instead affects her limbs, joints, and bones.<\/p>\n
Charlie Wilson, 38, suddenly lost movement in both legs, her left arm, and neck. Charlie Wilson \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
Now, her condition has forced her to move home to the UK, where she has moved into a bungalow with carers visiting four times daily.<\/p>\n
Charlie says her movement has returned, but she now uses a wheelchair for flare-ups, which leave her in pain.<\/p>\n
Charlie, a former shot girl and social media manager, from Darlington, County Durham, says: \u201cMy life was completely normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had literally just been for a walk on Palma Nova beach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next day I woke up and everything was literally normal.<\/p>\n
Charlie Wilson woke up with \u201cgym aches\u201d and was struck down by a sudden paralysis, caused by a rare condition. Charlie Wilson \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
\u201cI woke up the next day, and my body felt like it would if you go to the gym and get that ache, but I don\u2019t go to the gym.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt got to the point where I literally could not move, so my friend took me to the doctors so she could translate as she speaks Spanish.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point, if I had the option to amputate my legs, I would have had it, that was the level of pain I was in.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy sister flew over to look after me, and she had to carry me to the toilet.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy friends kept calling the doctors on my behalf because I was in so much pain I couldn\u2019t do a lot.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said, \u2018We need a blood result immediately.\u2019<\/p>\n
After losing movement in her legs, she needed a wheelchair to get around, 24-hour care, and had to be fed through a straw. Charlie Wilson \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
\u201cFinally, they called and said, \u2018come in in the next 30 minutes\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe [the doctor] looked at me, took a pen and paper and said \u2018you, hospital, urgently, now\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charlie woke up in March 2025 to muscle pain that got progressively worse as the day went on.<\/p>\n
Rushing to both her local doctors and then Son Espasas University Hospital, she was sent home with painkillers after blood tests came back clear.<\/p>\n
But Charlie began to lose movement in her legs, and her twin sister, 38, flew to Spain to help look after her.<\/p>\n
She needed a wheelchair to get around, 24-hour care, and had to be fed through a straw.<\/p>\n
Charlie was admitted again to Son Espasas University Hospital as doctors said they \u201cdidn\u2019t understand\u201d what the cause of her pain was initially. Charlie Wilson \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
On April 2 2025, she had more blood tests, and results revealed her vitamin B12 was \u201cdangerously low\u201d as well as her folic acid, potassium, and iron levels.<\/p>\n
Her inflammation markers were high also, and Charlie was admitted again to Son Espasas University Hospital as doctors said they \u201cdidn\u2019t understand\u201d what the cause of her pain was.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe doctor said he doesn\u2019t understand what\u2019s going on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey brought out two neurologists to do a brain scan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had 33 blood tests, a chest scan, a brain scan, a CT scan, and a PET scan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey found something in the biopsy, and they thought it was sarcoidosis, but that comes up in your lungs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was nothing wrong in my torso.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Charlie was eventually diagnosed with extrapulmonary sarcoidosis, with Charlie\u2019s type that forms in her limbs and joints, affecting just 1.4% of people with the condition, and was placed on methotrexate, a low form of chemotherapy, once a week for two months.<\/p>\n
After it \u201cwasn\u2019t working,\u201d she was moved onto adalimumab, which she says blocks the part of the body that produces inflammation.<\/p>\n
She also says the medication slows her immune system, meaning she is \u201cconstantly sick\u201d.<\/p>\n
Unable to return to work, she moved back to the UK in December 2025 and is still awaiting her medication to be prescribed, as it was in Spain.<\/p>\n
She also has hidradenitis suppurativa (HS), which she also diagnosed with during her initial hospital stay after it lay dormant for years previously, which is a chronic, painful skin condition that causes recurrent lumps, abscesses, and tunnels under the skin, primarily in areas where the skin rubs together.<\/p>\n
Her adalimumab medication has worsened the condition, and recently she was admitted for surgery to remove abscesses in her armpits.<\/p>\n
Charlie says she\u2019s getting better, but her life has flipped upside down- if she\u2019s lucky, she goes into 4 different rooms every day. Charlie Wilson \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I\u2019m OK and out of a flare-up, I\u2019m OK and can walk around Tesco\u2019s, for example, but that would wipe me out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was recently housebound for a few days and then bedbound.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy life before I travelled the world and was used to going from country to country.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I\u2019m lucky if I go into four different rooms every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really tend to go out so much \u2013 I\u2019m in a wheelchair now when I\u2019m in a flare up, and I can\u2019t get up and down kerbs by myself, so it\u2019s not very often I go out in my wheelchair.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the boredom is terrible, my sister and my friends have bought me colouring books, I can only watch so much TV.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a once-in-a-lifetime illness I\u2019m dealing with.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s hardly any medical literature on it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman who woke up with \u201cgym\u201d aches was struck down by a sudden paralysis, caused by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[675,1100,97,252,253,234835],"class_list":["post-707897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-body","tag-gym","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-medical-mishaps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}