The Silent Starvation: A Mother’s Desperate Battle with Severe Gastroparesis
When 36-year-old Emilie Cullum vomited shortly after eating her usual morning bowl of cereal in November 2024, she brushed it off as expired milk. But when the sickness persisted violently over the next ten days—leaving her unable to keep any meals down—she knew the problem was far more severe.
“I ate breakfast and was really sick but didn’t feel ill, didn’t have a temperature or anything like that… then had dinner and was sick again,” the aesthetic clinician from St Albans, Hertfordshire, recalled. “Because I had been so violently sick for days, I thought then I had broken my rib being sick.”
What began as a suspected bout of food poisoning has since unraveled into a devastating, life-threatening medical crisis.
From a Misdiagnosis to a “Broken Stomach”
Initially, after a visit to A&E, Emilie was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, an incurable inflammatory bowel condition. However, her symptoms did not subside. For three agonizing months, she was plagued by daily sickness, isolating her from family meals and draining her energy.
Desperate for answers, she booked a private consultation with a specialist in February 2025. The true diagnosis was staggering: Gastroparesis.
Gastroparesis is a rare, incurable condition where the stomach cannot empty food properly, causing it to pass through the digestive system at an abnormally slow rate. The specialist informed Emilie that her abdominal pain was the result of severe nerve damage; the nerves responsible for signaling her stomach to empty were failing.
“My stomach is completely broken,” Emilie was told. “Nothing is going through.”
