An independent health journalist writes about Morag Thain and her daughter's experience of using the iolife equipment.

The day Morag Thain’s daughter Angela was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, the high school secretary handed in her notice and arranged to move house so that she could care for her.

Angela Thorpe, mother of two teenage daughters, was 35 when she was diagnosed in October 2003 and it took until the following spring for Morag and her husband Bill to move from their home near Perth in Scotland to Newcastle on Tyne.

“From that awful day when Angela was given the diagnosis, we never stopped researching ways of making her life more comfortable,” says Morag.

MND is a progressive neurodegenerative disease which leads to muscle wasting causing loss of mobility, difficulties with speech, swallowing and breathing. It affects around 5,000 people in the UK where at least five people die every day from the fatal disease.

As there is no known cure for the fatal disease, both mother and daughter were open-minded about alternative therapies. They arranged to travel to a complimentary therapy centre in Scotland, where Angela was first treated on an Iolife machine.

“After the first treatment, Angela slept for 12 hours,” says Morag. “But after the second and third, we were both convinced it had a part to play in making life as good as we could.”

Morag raised the money needed to buy an Iolife machine (known by some people as Cell Care) which works by stimulating the body’s natural defences by creating a minute current throughout the body.

“We realised it was not going to be a miracle cure but after regular treatments with Iolife at home, Angela said she did not feel ill any more even though her mobility continued to deteriorate,” says her mother.  “The treatments made her look well, vibrant even – people were shocked to learn she had MND.

“When she went to the clinic every six months, the doctor would tell us to carry on with whatever we were doing because Angela looked well.”

For Angela, the machine was a “high priority” in a package of treatments and lifestyle changes which included an organic diet, vitamin supplements, detoxification and hydrotherapy.” I believe that what we did lengthened her life by three years,” says Morag.

Angela was initially given only six months to live, which doctors revised to between three and five years. She died on November 6, 2007, leaving daughters Jessica, 18, and Alex, 15.

“Until the last few months, Angela remained well in herself, despite her lack of mobility,” says Morag. “A month before she died she went to my niece’s wedding reception and had a great night.”

But Morag did not restrict the use of the Iolife machine to treating Angela. “We all use Iolife for all kinds of minor ailments,” she says. “We have forgotten what it’s like to go to the chemist!

“If any of us have a sore throat, flu like symptoms or sickness we have one or two sessions on the machine and they are gone.”