SMA Syndrome news articles
Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome is rare, but it has appeared in some recent headlines. We’ve compiled SMA Syndrome news articles onto this page. If you have any to add, please submit using the form at the bottom of this page.
Note: In some of these SMA Syndrome news articles, Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome is referred to as “Wilkie’s Syndrome.”
Lviv doctors save 6-year-old girl from rare disease that prevented her from eating
November 6, 2024
Doctors diagnosed 6-year-old Polina Bidyuk from Starokostyantyniv, Ukraine, with rare Wilkie syndrome, a condition that affects one in a thousand people and prevented her from eating, the First Medical Association of Lviv reported on Nov. 6.
Seanna looks at food differently after over R200k surgery for a rare syndrome
September 21, 2024
The Fourways community raised over R200,000 to bring Dr Domingo Alvear to South Africa to perform his pioneering surgery on a teen who couldnt eat without severe pain.
Texas teen shares battle with rare digestive condition
July 13, 2024
Camilla Latshaw loves food, but she can’t enjoy a normal meal like most people.
“I’ve cried because I want to eat so bad,” Camilla said.
She says her family and doctors knew something was wrong ever since she was a baby.
Sick Falkirk teen heads to Germany for £90k illness ‘cure’
June 25, 2024
A Scots teen with a rare and potentially fatal condition which causes excruciating pain when she eats is heading to Germany for a £90,000 surgery which could finally cure her.
Emma Noble, 17, was diagnosed with multiple disorders including Wilkie’s Syndrome – where part of the blood supply to small intestine is obstructed – after visiting a world-renowned specialist in Leipzig earlier this year.
Nagoya hospital error results in high school student’s death
June 18, 2024
A medical error resulted in the death of a high school student at the Japanese Red Cross Aichi Medical Center Nagoya Daini Hospital, the institution revealed Monday…
…The hospital revealed that the student was later found to have suffered from superior mesenteric artery syndrome (SMA syndrome), which causes a narrowing of the duodenum that leads to intestinal obstruction and gastric dilation.
Timely intervention, such as decompression via the insertion of a gastric tube, could have potentially saved the student’s life, the hospital said.
Roscommon woman, 23, suffers for six years with rare stomach condition
May 11, 2024
Roscommon native Amy McNeill has been suffering from a set of rare stomach conditions for the past six years of her life.
The now 23-year-old was 17- years-old when she first started noticing symptoms of her illness, but after a number of operations, the young woman and her family still hadn’t received a proper diagnosis.
Amy eventually had to travel abroad to Germany to seek treatment for her conditions, which had significantly altered her life.
Joburg girl’s mealtime agony: ‘It’s like a heart attack in her belly when she eats’
April 30, 2024
Every bite of food, no matter how big or small, causes excruciating pain for Seanna Potgieter.
Every time she eats she needs to take pain medication to try to make meals bearable.
The thirteen-year-old from Johannesburg has been diagnosed with superior mecentric artery (SMA) syndrome, also known as Wilkie’s syndrome, and she can’t remember not being in pain when she eats.
Woman diagnosed with rare disease her doctors had never heard of
April 8, 2024
When Sydney woman Ruby Munsie lost her voice multiple times in a year, she didn’t think much of it.
But the 29-year-old was suffering from a rare disease – and losing your voice is a common among symptom for sufferers.
Ms. Munsie suffers from Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome (SMAS), it occurs when the small intestine is compressed between two arteries causing a partial blockage – making it incredibly painful to eat.
The condition affects less than 0.3 per cent of the world’s population.
Zach Bryan gifts Germantown teen guitar
March 22, 2024
Teen Megan Pederson uses the moment to spread awareness about her life-changing illness. As a high-schooler, doctors diagnosed her with superior mesenteric artery syndrome.
Baylor surgeon treats rare condition
November 22, 2023
Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome (SMAS) might not be as well-known as other medical conditions, but it can significantly impact a person’s quality of life.
SMAS is a rare but severe disorder when the third part of the duodenum (the small intestine) is squished between the abdominal aorta and the superior mesenteric artery. This compression leads to various gastrointestinal symptoms and can result in severe malnutrition if left untreated.
Insurance coverage battle leaves patient in surgery limbo
January 30, 2023
Brittany Atkinson suffers from three rare vascular compression syndromes. Median arcuate ligament syndrome. Superior mesenteric artery syndrome. Renal nutcracker syndrome and needs life-saving surgery.
Woman wants to raise awareness of rare disorder
January 13, 2023
Brantford resident Jayme Jones-Blue, who has superior mesenteric artery syndrome, a rare gastro-vascular disorder, is raising awareness about the little-known disorder.
Disabled Cotswold woman’s dream wedding after she nearly died
November 5, 2022
Even with living with a rare condition which leaves her bedridden, Rebecca Turton released a book too
Gloucestershire woman writes book on the rare condition that nearly killed her
April 28, 2022
Bedbound Rebecca Bostock has found solace from her life-threatening illness in her writing, which she hopes will help others.
Woman left in excruciating pain for 16 months by mystery condition
April 16, 2021
A woman was left in “excruciating” pain for 16 months after developing a rare medical condition that left doctors puzzled.
Rebecca Bostock’s stomach began to swell in January 2020, and she struggled to keep down food.
Over the next year and a half, she began a downward spiral, experiencing fever, sickness, diarrhoea and dizziness.
Doctors thought she was suffering from endometriosis or irritable bowel syndrome.
It was only after she was rushed to hospital on Good Friday, struggling to breathe from the swelling, that they realised she was suffering from Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome (SMAS).
Kiwi woman forced to fly to Germany for life-changing surgery after New Zealand doctors continually dismiss excruciating condition
August 14, 2022
Being able to eat and drink is a daily thing the majority of people take for granted. But for one Kiwi woman, they’re tasks that up until a recent operation caused her excruciating pain.
Sarah Wills, 20, spent nearly a decade trying to get a diagnosis and help for her misunderstood condition.
8-Year-Old With 4 Chronic Illnesses Struggles To Eat, Hopes To Visit Disneyland & Enjoy Macs Again
June 26, 2022
Since Tammie was in primary school, signs of her illnesses started popping up. She remembers facing stomach problems, which led to her being “in and out of the hospital from Primary 4”.
Indigenous woman’s screams for help before her death were ‘excruciating’, fellow inmate tells inquest
May 10, 2022
Veronica Nelson died in a Melbourne jail in early 2020 and a woman who was in a nearby cell has told an inquest authorities ‘let her die.’
An autopsy found Nelson, a Yorta Yorta woman, suffered complications from Wilkie’s syndrome, a rare condition characterised by abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. The court has heard the complications were in a setting of withdrawal from heroin.
Patients around the world seek out Ocala surgeon for procedure that treats rare disease [Archive]
March 30, 2022
If Heidi Moore ever has children, she says their middle names will be “Darwin” and “Ang.” That’s because a surgery invented and performed by Ocala’s Dr. Darwin Ang has made this a possibility for Moore, as well as other seemingly simple realities, like eating solid food.
Moore has a rare disease called Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome (SMAS), which affects 0.013% of the population by some estimates. The consequences are severe and eventually fatal if not resolved.
Ang, the trauma medical director at HCA Florida Ocala Hospital, hopes his findings will raise awareness about SMAS and save lives too.
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Kristina Bayus, of Hubbard, shares struggle with rare disorders
April 27, 2022
Details of celebration of life for Nicolette Baker in Porthleven
April 23, 2022
Friends of a woman who died just days before potentially lifesaving surgery have been invited to share their stories at a celebration of her life.
The 3stone woman who is starving to DEATH: Doctors wrongly branded 36-year-old anorexic… only to discover rare stomach condition was to blame for her ‘lifetime of sickness’ (now her only hope is a £50,000 op in Germany)
February 8, 2022
Nicolette Baker, from Cornwall, started complaining about stomach pain after eating when she was just four and began to skip meals.
Doctors diagnosed the now 36-year-old as anorexic, leading to her to undergo more than two decades of ‘traumatic’ treatments. It included force-feeding and being sent away to specialist clinics for months at a time.
But in 2015, Ms. Baker was then told she had superior mesenteric arterial syndrome (SMAS).
The condition is rare — affecting as few as one in 10,000 people — and leads to pain and nausea shortly after eating. It is caused by part of the small intestine being compressed by two arteries, blocking.
A mystery illness and one woman’s decade-long fight against misdiagnosis
July 26, 2019
It took Eser Toprak over a decade to find out what was wrong with her, as her body slowly withered away and she pleaded with doctors to look outside their narrow diagnosis.
When an Eating Disorder Is Not an Eating Disorder
November 7, 2017
For 16-year-old Gabrielle Risby, a student-athlete from Antioch, Tennessee, the symptoms that led her to Johns Hopkins Children’s Center were fatigue and nausea at basketball practice and emesis whenever she ate the slightest thing.
