CARNAL NATION

After a breast reconstruction surgery, Janice, a 51-year-old mother of two, had blood flow to her new right breast cut off. With the right breast turning black and the flesh dying in front of her eyes, the learning support assistant, drifted in and out of consciousness.

Janice had already had a second seven-hour one in an attempt to restore blood flow, and had lost so much blood she had to undergo an emergency transfusion. Her consultant, a plastic surgery specialist, said leeches were the last hope of saving her breast. This would be the first time such a treatment had been conducted in a breast reconstruction procedure at her hospital, The Lister, in Stevenage, UK.

Over the next ten hours leeches were placed in threes on Janice's breast. As these blood-sucking creatures fed on the wound, their powerful suction started to draw blood back through the tissue. And it worked!

The leeches saved Janice from becoming permanently disfigured. Biopharm Leeches - a leech farm in Swansea and the only UK supplier of medical leeches - send around 25,000 leeches a year to UK hospitals. Don’t worry about being leeched next time you go the hospital – it may save your life.