GHD doesn’t stand for Ghastly Horrific Disease, but it could do. It happens after a sixth of concussions, and roughly a quarter of more serious head injuries and it makes you want to kill yourself. Interestingly, suicide risk is tripled after concussion, and four times after worse injury.

There were over 100,000 people admitted to hospital with head injury last year, so roughly 15,000 of them must have GHD, or Growth Hormone Deficiency. And that’s just one year.

Wouldn’t you think that a disease that frequent, that saps your energy, damages your heart and bones, and makes you contemplate suicide, should get a mention in the NHS’s A-Z list of health conditions? Nope. The list moves smoothly on from Growing Pains to Guillain-Barre Syndrome with nothing in between. Though by contast, you can find everything you want to know about Dandruff under D!

I asked 10 people who have GHD to write to the NHS describing their experience. One of them, Robert Hunter, had remained undiagnosed for 10 years, losing energy, putting on weight, suffering brain fog and depression. He had to stop work. He tried to kill himself three times (“I wasn’t messing about, I meant to do the job”) but was saved by his mother. He was refused the right GHD test but had it done privately, his church funding him. Eventually after many obstacles he got treatment. “Don’t get me wrong, the growth hormone medicine didn’t turn me back into Superman, I knew I would never be like that again, but I say the difference it made in my quality of life was the difference between wanting to live and not wanting to die.”

Even he was beaten by Gary, in this gruesome competition. Gary was undiagnosed for thirty years and attempted suicide five times. His and Robert’s letter can be seen on my LinkedIn page here. And they aren’t the only ones. There was the person (also on my linkedin page) who was never told his heart disease could be caused by GHD, and after 10 years of suffering had made his plan involving a hot bath and a sharp knife – saved just in time by diagnosis.  And I remember a lady whispering to me on the phone that she’d tried to throw herself into moving traffic but had been saved by her companion. And there are more.

How did the NHS respond to all these heartrending emails from people they are there to heal and protect, not ignore?

For that, see my next blog.