Ilivedfor 3yearswith thefearof dyingfrom African sleeping sickness
DOCTOR’S BRUSH WITH DEATH AFTER FLY BITE
Medicine working on controlling diseases like malaria, zika and dengue, said: “I had all sorts of investigations, I had a barium meal and an X-ray, an endoscopy and a biopsy. I had pretty much anything and everything you can think of.
“I was talking to the guys at the Hospital of Tropical Diseases and told them I travelled a lot and that this could be something tropical in nature.
“Eventually, I did some tests there and that’s when it came back positive for trypanosomiasis, which is also known as sleeping sickness.”
Dad-of-one James, who is married to fellow Scot Kirsty, recalled the day he got the news. He said: “I was sitting in the living room with my wife and there was a letter. I knew it was the results from the hospital and I just thought it would say the test was negative.
“Then I read I had tested positive for the two forms of the disease. Kirsty said, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said I had tested positive for sleeping sickness. And she replied, ‘That’s good. We can get it treated now.’
“But I said this could mean I am going to die. We were in shock. The treatments are horrendous and based on arsenic and a lot of people die from the treatment itself. It is not the disease you want to get. It is very unusual in this country but it was a really worrying time.” He added: “I had to be tested at the hospital every few months. I kept testing positive for it.
“It mainly affects your neurological system, it passes your blood/brain barrier and goes into the central nervous system. Then it keeps you awake at night and makes you very sleepy during the day. That is why it is a called sleeping sickness. As it progresses, all your senses are messed up and disturbed, you can’t walk, you have seizures and it ultimately ends in a coma and you die. It’s very nasty.
“It either kills you within a year or within about three years. It can lay dormant. I had some symptoms but not all of them so they were a bit unsure.
“It went on for months and months. The one year point passed and I was thinking, ‘Great, I am still alive.’ Then as the three-year point approached I was thinking ‘Oh God.’
“It was a nerve-wracking time thinking, ‘Is it going to appear? Have I got it?’ But luckily the three-year mark came and went. Either I’m a superhero that is not susceptible to that disease or I didn’t have it.
“I think what happened was I probably had the animal form of the disease. Tests aren’t always foolproof so you sometimes get false positives. “There are lots of different forms of that disease, lots of parasites and some affect humans and some affect animals and the tests sometimes cross react.” He added: “I suspect that there are a lot of things we pick up when we travel overseas and we either don’t know we have them, or we have them, and feel a little bit ill and our body gets rid of them. “I am sure there are things that haven’t even been discovered by science yet that don’t affect us too badly but make us a little ill when we’re in the country. “That is the thing about travelling. You are inevitably going to end up with an upset stomach or some sort of parasite. You have to be careful in terms of washing food, and not walking around barefoot and that sort of thing.” When he’s not travelling around the world and appearing on TV, James is a big supporter of The Stroke Association. Stroke is the third most common cause of death in Scotland and the leading cause of disability and James is mindful of his future risk of stroke. He completed the Edinburgh Marathon in 2015 and does regular fun runs for the charity, and is one of their ambassadors.
He said: “Both my grandmothers have suffered from strokes and my dad’s mum Jen died from a stroke at 84 caused by a blood clot.
“My grandmother Margaret on my mum’s side had a serious stroke about four years ago and was in hospital for about eight months. She lived for another three years before dying last year.
“And my dad had one at 60 but made a full recovery. It is in the family. I am conscious of that link. I run twice a week, go to the gym and eat healthily. But I let my hair down and I do have a burger too.”
James says he enjoys his work on Embarrassing Bodies and is unfazed by some of the more weird ailments featured of the popular show. He added: “People go on the show because they are at the end of their tether. They are trying to get a resolution to a problem.
“They’ve spoken to their GP and they can’t get anywhere with it. Luckily for me, I just do the parasite and the bugs, and the nasty critters that live in us or on us.” Dr James Logan supports The Stroke Association. Donate to fund stroke research and change the story for stroke survivors: stroke.org.uk/change
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