Health

Sarah Porter, from Portland in Maine, was 20 years old, sat in math class, when she suffered her first stroke. At first, she just carried on, scribbling notes to prepare for her finals the next week. But her classmate at the University of Maine looked alarmed. 'I went a bit foggy; I didn't think anything of it, I thought I was a bit tired' Sarah told Daily Mail Online.

Rebecca Kiernan, 23, from Featherstone, West Yorkshire, was taunted by children at school who named her 'tig beeth' and mocked her speech problems. Her protruding jaw (left) was so severe that she could barely chew - but surgeons managed to correct the problem during a seven-hour operation (right). They implanted four metal plates and 50 screws into her face as they realigned the 11mm gap (pictured in hospital inset). Despite living on liquids for 12 weeks - she said it was all worth it and has even had to apply for a new passport because she looks so different.

John Dilgen, 14, from Staten New York, was born with a rare skin disorder called epidermolyosis bullosa (EB). It causes the skin to blister and burst, meaning even the slightest touch can make it fall off. Strangers recently pitched in and donated $40,000 to buy John a tub to makes his baths less painful.

Genevieve Lopez (left), 34, from Los Angeles, had an eight-foot drop when she misplaced her feet during a hiking trip with her friends in 2015. She immediately developed tingling sensations in her leg and intense pain - but doctors put the latter down to a mental disorder. Sometimes the discomfort would be so much that she couldn't move one side of her body, causing her to seek medical attention. When the pain worsened, a scan eventually showed a large arachnoid cyst (her scar pictured inset) had grown on her spine, leaving her partially paralysed. Surgeons removed it and three of her vertebrae last June (pictured right with her two children), but it was only recently that she was able to take her first steps unaided - despite being left with extensive nerve damage.

Abbi Holland (right), from Manchester, was just three-years-old when she fell over in the school playground and scraped her knee. But staff didn't clean the graze properly and, later that night, the youngster became severely unwell with a temperature of 43c. She was immediately rushed to hospital (inset) - which is where she spent the next four months fighting to stay alive. Now seven years old (left), she's recovering after needing life-saving surgery to fix an aortic valve leak which was caused by bacteria entering her cut.

A recent survey found 64 per cent of women were unhappy with their body’s size and shape, and a government-funded study suggested 80 per cent of females over 40 were dissatisfied with their bodies. Pictured (left to right), Susie Mason, a life model who lives in Surrey, Rosamund Barnard, a children’s entertainer from Kent, Yvonne Iles, who is retired and lives in London, Emma Donaldson, a teaching assistant from Leicester, Monica Czyzewska, a model from London, and Maria Madalena, an artist from Wales.

All her life TV presenter Sian Williams has taken vitamin tablets to help ward off bugs and boost her immune system. But after undergoing tests, she learned that the pills had left her with nothing more than 'expensive wee' and produced no health benefits whatsoever. The former BBC Breakfast host (right, pictured with Bill Turnbull) discovered that the vitamins, costing her around £300 a year, were not being absorbed by her body. Miss Williams (left), 52, said she previously regularly took vitamin C if she felt she was getting a cold, as well as an 'immune support' supplement containing vitamin A and vitamin B. But she has dropped the supplements after realising that they were not helping her - and could even have been harmful.

This heart-wrenching video shows a son filming his mother with dementia who forget who he was for the first time. Joey Daley, 45, from Dublin, Ohio, has documented his mother Molly's battle with dementia through a weekly video. Molly was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia at the age of 65. She is now 67 and in a nursing home. She can no longer bathe herself or take her own medication. In the latest footage, he fights back tears as he started asking his mother questions about their family which she could not remember.

With stamina and energy needed for her all singing and dancing role in La La Land, Emma has trained with Jason Walsh, founder of Rise Nation, a popular celeb fitness studio. The personal trainer opened his studio last year, and the classes, focused on climbing movement, are popular with Hollywood stars, some of which he has trained one-to-one. His clients include Matt Damon, Jenifer Anniston, and ex-girlfriend Hilary Duff. What are the main principles of healthy living for Jason Walsh? He lets us in on some tips…

Chad and Stacey Baker, from Des Moines, Iowa, struggled for almost 10 years to have children. The couple suffered six miscarriages and two rounds of cancer that almost killed Chad. But thanks to two surrogates, the couple was finally able to fulfill their dream of having children and are parents to Gavin, 2, and Hadley, 4 months.

A veterinary nurse was 'dead for five minutes' after suffering a cardiac arrest at the age of just 24. Lora D'Alesio had just arrived home from work with a colleague when she collapsed. With her was revived by paramedics and placed in an induced coma for three days, before spending three weeks in hospital.

A US doctor diagnosed with late-stage cancer fears he will not get to see his family - since they are Syrian and barred by President Trump's travel ban. Morhaf Al Achkar, 33, emigrated to the United States from Syria in 2006, before becoming an esteemed primary care physician at Indiana University. In November, he was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer, which typically carries a life expectancy of four to 10 months.

Six years on, Viscount Hinchingbrooke still suffers the effects of his wrongly prescribed medication. Now he is launching a campaign to aid thousands trapped in the same nightmare. 'I have constant nerve pain all over my body, like a burning pins and needles sensation,' he writes. 'I also have tinnitus and can sometimes feel muscles twitching in different parts of my body. I can't have sugar, caffeine or alcohol, as these all intensify the symptoms.'

Photographer Natalie McCain, from Florida, said mothers who nurse their children past infancy, known as extended breastfeeding, are made to feel ashamed. The mother-of-two said she hoped the unretouched photographs, pictured, which show mothers nursing their children over two, would 'normalise' breastfeeding and end the 'taboo' that remains around the topic. She said nursing beyond infancy is both 'natural' and 'beautiful'.

Their comedy capers had fans crying with laughter. But the actors behind Hollywood's Laurel and Hardy (left) franchise likely shed real tears off-screen, an opthalmologist has concluded. Richard Zegers, who has treated patients in Amsterdam for five years, has predicted they suffered 88 eye injuries (bottom right) throughout their career. He analysed every optical trauma from the comedy duo's 92 films in the study published in the Scottish Medical Journal. Interestingly, Hardy was the primary victim and Laurel's finger (top right) was the most common cause - used 24 times in total.

Phil Kemp from Essex never got to marry the love of his life because Sarah died aged 27, just eight months before their wedding, of a blood clot thought to have been caused by the Pill. While blood clots are rare, experts say too many women, such as Sarah, aren't being warned of the risks — or that they are much higher with the newer forms of the Pill, which are taken by one million women in Britain, including Sarah.

Hayley, now seven, from Inverness, was born without a fully formed left hand. She became the first in the UK to have a cheap, 3D-printed prosthetic which lets her grip and hold things as normal. The 3D technique is now being widely used in healthcare to help make everything from new hands to replacement skulls. Last year, cosmetics giant L’Oreal announced it had developed technology that could lead to 3D printing of hair follicles capable of sprouting new hair.

College student Kiersten Miles, 22, from New Jersey, had been hired as a summer nanny for the Rosko family. Their youngest daughter, Talia, was diagnosed with a rare liver disease. Doctors said that she would need a transplant or likely die. Less than a month after Kiersten was hired, she was tested as a match for Talia and decided to donate part of her liver to her 16-month-old charge.

Three years ago, 77-year-old Stephen Metcalf (main) from Hampshire was diagnosed with heart failure. He became the first patient in the UK to have the new operation using a new pacemaker (inset), as he tells JO WILLEY. 'He said he'd been trialling a new tool to help place the pacemaker leads inside the left ventricle via a small incision in the chest, thereby avoiding open surgery,' Stephen says. 'A few weeks on, I don't have any noticeable symptoms, I'm back walking a couple of miles a day and I'm driving again.'

Stephanie Dickson (left and bottom right), 24, suffered from a sore neck, severe headaches and dizziness for around nine months. Despite having a gut feeling that something was wrong, doctors repeatedly prescribed her painkillers for stress-related headaches. She eventually went to A&E; at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh on April 5 2013 when her symptoms became so overwhelming. Doctors placed her on a drip, but she was discharged the following morning. However, the office worker (pictured top right with her brother Murray) was found dead in her bed by family just a matter of hours later. If she had been given the correct treatment up until the night she died, she would have had a 98 per cent chance of survival, an investigation concluded.