When I was 4 years old, I suffered a head injury which resulted in the placement of several steel clips on my hard brain membrane on the right side. There were no complications to the operation and I appeared to recover perfectly.

Several years later, in 2004, I began to suffer various inexplicable symptoms including fainting, hearing loss in my right ear and vomiting. These symptoms persisted for 3 years and worsened upon becoming pregnant with my second child, accompanied by fatigue and severe bowel problems.
While some respite was found following the birth, by 2008 the symptoms had returned accompanied by a feverish malaise, muscle pain and stiffness and extreme headaches. During this period, I also developed a myriad of food allergies. These symptoms continued to worsen but no one appeared to be able to diagnose me.

After discovering that I was allergic to Candida, I decided to take the MELISA test.
I tested positive for both nickel and silver, which were both components of the steel alloy clips in my head. My doctor was convinced that the clips were to blame for my debilitating symptoms and so wrote a letter to Rikshospitalet in Oslo, requesting an operation for them to be removed. However, this request was refused, as the surgical team ‘did not believe’ in metal allergies.

Fortunately, MELISA Diagnostics in the United Kingdom put me in contact with a hospital in Southampton that had performed a similar operation on a metal allergic patient before, and they agreed to remove the clips. 3 weeks later I underwent surgery to have them removed.

My symptoms subsided over a period of a few months, until now a year after the operation, the headaches have almost entirely faded and my other symptoms have ceased. While I still have health problems which I attribute to the build up of mercury in my system due to amalgam fillings (now removed), the virtually unbearable symptoms I suffered due to the clips are now a distant memory.