IT was a diagnosis that turned Cezara Simpson's life upside down. Mrs Simpson, a divorced single mother who lives in Dyce, Aberdeenshire, with her 19-year-old son and daughter, 17, was 50 when doctors told her that she had relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) last year.
She had been fit and active, snowboarding and playing handball into her 40s, but has been forced to give up work as an offshore oil engineer after a debilitating attack which left her numb on her left side. She now works part-time on a supermarket checkout.
She said she has been "stonewalled" in her efforts to get a referral, or even information about AHSCT, from local medics.
She said: "I've tried to speak to Grampian, but I can't get anywhere. I just go round in circles speaking to the board, I'm like pass the parcel.
"I'm really trying to stop the progression because it's really going fast.
"I live like someone has a blowtorch to my head. My face is in pain, my head is in pain, the doctor is pumping me with drugs which make me even groggier than I already am. I want to work. I want to be able to function normally, within reason, but I can't.
"At the moment, they just say 'there's no funds, you can't go any further'."
Ms Simpson, who is originally from Romania but has lived in Scotland since 1997, added: "Someone on Facebook said to me 'just sell your house and move to England'. I'm a single mother with two kids. I'm trying find ways of keeping my house. I still have to take care of my kids and I can't.
"I paid my taxes, I've worked all the time I've been in this country. It's really heartbreaking to know that something out there is a possibility, that there is something available, but due to politics or whatever else you don't have access to it."
An NHS Grampian spokeswoman said: "The risks and benefits of this particular treatment for MS have not yet been fully established. There are a range of other effective treatments which we do offer and will continue to make available."
Meanwhile, Barry McArthur, 34, said he can "do things I couldn't do before" since undergoing a self-funded stem cell transplant in Mexico last May.
The married father-of-three from Paisley in Renfrewshire was diagnosed with RRMS aged 20. He was at university at the time studying for a degree in quantity surveying, but as his health deteriorated he had to give up his career.
He said: "My mobility was getting worst so I couldn't really go to building sites."
A decade after his diagnosis he was in a wheelchair. Although he had tried drug therapies, they had failed to stabilise his MS long-term.
In January 2016, he asked his GP and neurologist about a potential referral to NHS England for Autologous Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (AHSCT). They wrote twice to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to request the referral, but he said the health board declined to fund an "experimental" procedure.
NHSGGC says patients will be considered on a case-by-case basis for "out of area" treatments if there are "supporting circumstances detailed from the referring clinician".
Mr McArthur went on to raise £38,500 and flew to Mexico instead. He said: "I'm doing a lot more things now than even the physiotherapist thought I could. The main thing that has improved greatly is speech.
"I used to to have to do slight exercises before and I would get tired of it, but now I don't get tired at all.
"I'm still in a wheelchair but I can move about and do things that I couldn't do before. I'm not on any medication."
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