Woman ‘starving to death’ due to fatal condition

By Hannah Van De Peer

A young woman is "starving to death" due to a fatal vascular condition, which she initially mistook as bloating. 

Charlotte Kent, 25, is bedridden after a five-year-long "fight" with superior mesenteric artery syndrome (SMA) - a condition that means a blockage in one of her major arteries is crushing her intestine.

The formerly "outgoing, active" student thought she had bloating from excessive training - but her symptoms gradually worsened over five years, leading to significant weight loss and the inability to keep food down.

She had to give up her dreams of becoming a police officer after she was left with numerous bowel obstructions, continuous vomiting and an NG tube for nutrition.

Her mum, Leanne Bennett, 46, is currently raising money for a life-saving operation in the US called the Alvear procedure - in which the duodenum is untwisted and repositioned.

Leanne's hope is to be able to find a surgeon in the UK who can offer this - as it would be less risky for Charlotte to go to the US for the operation.

And Leanne says Charlotte is malnourished and fears she's "watching her slowly die" while waiting to fund the surgery.

Leanne, who cares for Charlotte full-time, from Earith, Cambridgeshire, said: "Charlotte is dying before my eyes - her body is just slowing down.

"Because SMA is so rare, doctors in the UK have little understanding about it - and she hasn't been offered the new surgery to correct it.

"The Alvear procedure is so new, it isn't yet available on the NHS.

"To be honest, she's been presenting with symptoms, like a distended stomach, from a fairly young age - but I always put it down to growth spurts."

When she was young, Charlotte was known for being constantly active and started training to become a gymnast at the age of 13.

Leanne says she was always having bouts of "feeling sick and bloated" - but put the symptoms down to childhood infections and illnesses.

Seven years later, at the age of 20, she developed a mysterious, right-sided stomach pain.

"In February 2020, doctors whipped her appendix out in the hope it would stop her pain," Leanne said.

"But it only got worse.

"We started taking her to hospital every other month, because it was always something - pain, massive stomach distension, being sick - and, eventually, malnutrition.

"In the last 60 months, she has spent 47 of them in a hospital bed."

Despite the numerous hospital trips, Charlotte's care team couldn’t figure out what was going on - but agreed she was severely malnourished.

In 2021, she began being fed via a nasogastric (NG) tube, as she was unable to keep food down.

The mom decided to seek a second opinion from a private radiologist, who specialized in diagnosing SMA.

After running a process of elimination, he diagnosed Charlotte with the rare disorder - which affects an unknown number of people in the UK, and just 0.3% of the population in the US.

He told them the only way to save her life would be to undergo the Alvear procedure - a brand new procedure which is not yet available in the UK.

In the US, however, the procedure can cost upwards of £30,000.

Leanne said: "It's such a short procedure - it only takes one-to-two hours, if everything goes well - and it could save Charlotte's life.

"It's her only hope."

Charlotte said: “I have been struggling for way too long with the illness.

"It's really hard to deal with day-to-day.

"I feel like my life has stopped - the world continues to go round and I'm stuck in the same place.

"I wouldn't wish this on anybody, I just want a normal life - and I don't think that's asking much."