A mum whose incurable condition left her with a walking stick and “claws for hands” has seen her life transformed by an “unbelievable” new electromagnetic treatment.
Rebekah Bell, 38, from Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, first started experiencing headaches on a flight aged 22 – but within months the pain spread throughout her body and she had to quit her job and start using a walking stick.
She was soon diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a chronic condition thought to be associated with changes in the way the central nervous system processes pain messages.
Rebekah said the illness made her feel like she was “failing as a mother” as she was unable to play with her two children, Robbie, seven, and Harry, five – even sitting down to play with Lego was too much.
She endured more than 15 years of pain and immobility before learning about Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), a procedure which uses magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain, which has only recently been used to treat fibromyalgia.
Since having 20 rounds of rTMS at The BrainWave Clinic in London, Rebekah’s symptoms have miraculously disappeared to the point where she can now “jump on a trampoline” and take her sons on days out, most recently to Go Ape and paddle boarding.
“We went through all of the results and I remember her saying, it is fibromyalgia and we have a treatment for you,” Rebekah told PA Real Life.
“I just remember hearing those words and bursting into tears because nobody had ever said that before.
“I remember my children kept asking me to do things, and I would have to say, ‘I’m sorry darling, mummy’s not well at the moment, I can’t, mummy’s sick’.
“It was heart-breaking.
“I now jump on the trampoline with them and take them to the park, we go swimming and do stuff that two years ago there was absolutely no way I could have done.”
Rebekah remembers having a headache on a flight from the UK to New Zealand when she was 22-years-old that persisted.
Shortly after, the pain started spreading throughout her body and Rebekah was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, for which there is no known cure, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The pain was so intense that Rebekah was given a walking stick and eventually had to quit her job as a veterinary assistant.
She said that over the years doctors have looked for alternative explanations, with one even suggesting Rebekah was just being a hypochondriac.
Others believed her symptoms could be linked to a brain tumour or gut disease but the tests came back negative every time, she said.
To help manage the pain, Rebekah was prescribed a range of treatments, including strong pain killers, steroids and the Myers’ cocktail, injections consisting of a mixture of vitamins and minerals.
“At my worst point I was taking 19 tablets a day, which is not what you expect to be doing in your 20s,” she said.
Rebekah moved to Buckinghamshire in 2012 where she started working part-time in a shop and met her now husband Stephen.
“We settled down and bought a house… I thought, this is as good as it’s going to get,” she said.
Rebekah and Stephen married in 2016 and hoped to start a family together.
“Given my very long and complicated medical history, I assumed it would be very difficult for us to have kids,” she said.
“So we started trying straight away, which led to me discovering I was pregnant on our honeymoon in Italy.”
Rebekah was looking forward to becoming a parent and the pair welcomed their two sons Robbie and Harry in 2017 and 2019 respectively.
But Rebekah’s health unfortunately took a turn for the worse in 2022, when once again she started experiencing frequent headaches.
“Then things got dramatically worse over the next four or five months to the point where I was struggling to make it through the day,” she said.
“I couldn’t use my hands, because they would just seize up. It was like I had claws instead of hands.
“I couldn’t walk for any distance and felt exhausted all the time, even just going to the supermarket.”
Rebekah said her health got so bad that she was unable to play with her children.
“Doing anything was incredibly difficult,” she said.
“I couldn’t even sit down and play with Lego because my hands wouldn’t work.
“Everything was so hard, even just making it through the day.
“You feel like you are failing as a mother.”
Rebekah contacted specialists but said they were fresh out of treatment options, so she decided to see a private GP in Beaconsfield who recommended contacting Dr Stephanie Barrett at The BrainWave Clinic in Harley Street, London.
During her first appointment, Rebekah underwent a battery of blood tests and scans to make sure there were no other medical explanations for her pain.
“To hear somebody say ‘we have a treatment for you’ was mind-blowing,” said Rebekah.
The treatment, rTMS, uses magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain and was first used to treat fibromyalgia in 2020.
While she did not want to get her hopes up, after three days of treatment she started to feel better.
“It wasn’t as hard to get out of bed or cook a meal,” she said.
“The more I had the treatment the easier things seemed, and I was getting less cramping in my hands and pain in my joints.”
Rebekah completed 20 sessions of the treatment and has been left shocked by the results.
“It has just been unbelievable really and if it had not happened to me, I wouldn’t necessarily believe it,” she said.
She still goes for one session every month and said the treatment has completely transformed her life.
“Two weeks ago I did Go Ape with my kids, like I was up in a harness doing the high lines,” she said.
“I think a lot of people still don’t know this is a treatment for fibro, that’s why I wanted to share my experience.”
Dr Barrett, who featured as one of the medical experts on BBC Two’s Diagnosis Detectives, said: “We’re transforming lives.
“Our neuromodulation technology provides an entirely new, clinically proven and non-invasive option for treating chronic pain – and the results have been dramatic.
“More than 93% of our patients report improvements in their symptoms, with many able to reduce or stop medications that cause adverse side effects.
“An impressive 45% of fibromyalgia patients have achieved complete remission, a remarkable outcome that is rarely seen with other treatments.”
For more information visit: The BrainWave Clinic.
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