Being under the care of Dr Roberts for ECP and his attentive team of therapists has been life changing for me. I wouldn’t have my quality of life back without it. – Jilly, Microvascular Angina
In July 2009, 10 days after returning from America, I developed a nasty virus that lasted 3 weeks. I couldn’t shake off the symptoms and it began to ruin my day-today quality of life. From this point onwards I went downhill. I’m an active person and was accustomed to daily power-walks up Guildford High street, yet I suddenly found I couldn’t do this anymore. I had to stop every 5-6 steps and felt completely breathless, as if someone was standing on my chest. Eventually, I told my husband, who is a GP, that I had a big problem. My doctor and my husband both agreed that I had angina. However, after many tests at Royal Surrey Hospital, they couldn’t work out what was wrong. After a week at Royal Surrey, I went to St George’s, Tooting, before I had an MRI at the Royal Brompton. It was here that they said they could see something was ‘going on’, but that they really thought my problem was ‘in my head’. 10 years later, I had lived a life limited by what I could do. I had some normal days occasionally and was able to maintain my job, but my day-to-day life was a misery.
In 2019, I was seeing an endocrinologist as I had been told I was pre-diabetic. He asked how long it been since my heart had been checked and then he sent me to see Dr Robin Roberts. After a thorough set of tests and investigations, Dr Roberts diagnosed microvascular angina and suggested a course of ECP. 35 hours later, I was symptom free for the first time in a decade. It was an unbelievable experience to feel this much better after so long not knowing what was wrong. My remission continued for another 18 months before I felt my illness creep up on me again. I then had a further 50 hours in January 2022 which alleviated my symptoms, before I chose to have intermittent maintenance therapy to control my angina. At this point, I’ve realised I can’t do without ECP and am able to listen to my body so that I know when I need to return to have more treatment.
Being under the care of Dr Roberts for ECP and his attentive team of therapists has been life changing for me. I wouldn’t have my quality of life back without it.