News LIVING HELL
DAMAGE DONE: Mr Rance has been forced to give up his job and home due to his illness.
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A father-of-one says his life has been left in turmoil after doctors allegedly failed to diagnose an incurable condition for eight years.
Mark Rance (27) suffers from Benign Joint Hypermobility Syndrome but, despite visiting a string of consultants at several hospitals, no one was able to make a diagnosis.
As a result, Mr Rance has endured excruciating pain every day and now faces the rest of his life unable to work or carry out daily tasks.
The devastating effects of the illness - a genetic and degenerative condition that affects the body's soft tissues and is incurable - has forced Mr Rance to wind up his electrical engineering business, give his house back to a mortgage company and file for bankruptcy.
The former RAF engineer - who has to wear calipers on his legs and use a mobility scooter to get around - used to own his own home in Millennium Way, Goole, but now rents a property in Jackson Street which he shares with his partner Andrea Cousins, baby daughter Lilly, and Andrea's two children from a previous relationship.
He says doctors at several hospitals failed to spot the symptoms for eight years, incorrectly diagnosing several other illnesses instead, which he says prevented him getting the life-changing physiotherapy sessions he needed for his condition.
It was only when Mr Rance saw a specialist Hungarian doctor who was visiting Goole Hospital - which is not one of the hospitals where alleged misdiagnosis occurred - that a correct interpretation was made, allowing him to research the condition.
However, the damage to his body had already been done and he was unable to undergo physiotherapy, which, if started early enough, can delay the effects of the condition.
Mr Rance said: "Understandably in a way, doctors put it down to growing up and everything, but as I got older it became obvious something was wrong.
"I have seen over 15 consultants over the years - including when I was training with the RAF - but it was always the same result.
"They said 'It's just the way you are' and said there was nothing they could do for me. They said I was just hypermobile and that I was geting pain from it. You end up thinking it's all in your head and stop going to the doctor's. But now I know what I've got - they (the symptoms) are all part of the same thing."
Mr Rance, an electrical engineer by trade, believes he has suffered from the condition since he was seven years old.
Some of the symptoms are clumsiness, irritable bowel syndrome, vulnerability to joint dislocation, and poor spatial awareness.
Mr Rance has to wear the leg braces because his joints are easily dislocated, allowing his knees collapse without the aid of calipers.
He still wonders how he got through even basic training in the RAF, never mind the intensive exercises.
"I was having problems straight away, but I just had to grin and bear it," he said. "It's only this year that I've been finding out the truth about it (the condition), because it's only in recent years that some good research has been done.
"Up until the beginning of this year I had my own business and my own house. I had to give up my business and give my house back to the mortgage company, because our mortgage was based on what I was earning. I've signed the company over to my partner because it got to the point where I couldn't keep up with the work. I don't really know where I go from here."
Mr Rance said: "The only thing that keeps me smiling a bit is being able to spend more time with his one-year-old daughter Lilly."
But he added: "There are days when I don't get out of bed at all."
Mr Rance can't even take inflammatory tablets because they would inflame the irritable bowel syndrome from which he also suffers.
Likewise, the anaesthetic used by dentists to dull pain doesn't work on Mr Rance because of his condition. The last time he went to the dentist to have a tooth extracted he had to do so without pain relief.
Mr Rance is currently trying out new pain-relief medication through a specialist centre.
Published on 24th July 2008 in News.
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