Help Linn to pay her medical bills

"Hi, my name is Linn Hege Langrekken and I'm creating a fundraiser for myself as a chronically ill person with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, ME/CFS.

I don't get any public health care whatsoever. I have written this myself because it's difficult for other people to understand and comprehend my complex illness.

It's been one year since I got severely ill and bedridden due to a severe infection in June 2023.

I have had health problems ever since I got a neck injury in 2011 and treatment with antibiotics (Cipro) that I didn't tolerate in Vietnam in 2015. Additionally I have become permanently chronically ill after my pneumonia, lung inflammation, in Thailand in 2018.

After the infection in 2023 I was completely bedbound for several months afterwards. I couldn't eat for a month. I'm still 95% bedridden, without any official support.

I haven't been outside since June 2023, other than when I have had to attend diagnostics or treatments, which I have mostly paid myself.

I'm not functioning well during daytime, especially cognitively, and I cannot get up from bed before around 14-15:00. As I cannot sleep more than a couple of hours every night and because of all of my earlier infections, I have chronic fatigue including PEM (post-exertional malaise), which in particular includes my brain capacity. The extent of my illness, easily explained, is that I'm bedridden 22 hours a day. In reality I have very low levels of functioning and many symptoms, especially neurologically and cognitively, in addition to stomach-related.

I don't have capacity for being outside, because it results in me getting PEM. Which means that I get more fatigued and bedridden for days afterwards, as a result of extending my limits. In order to avoid getting PEM, I need to be indoors at home. Even then I can get PEM if I do too much, even watching a movie or read a book can result in PEM for me.

I can do one thing per day at most.

If I want to wash my hair, that's the only thing I can do that day. I cook once a week and freeze portions of it. I don't have energy to prepare meals every day. I order food and other things I need online, with home delivery to my door. I struggle to sit upright and to walk, after being bedridden for so long. I usually cannot get up or down the stairs to my apartment on the second floor.

This text that you're reading right now has taken me 5 months to write.

A big part of my difficulties is the extreme brain fog, I cannot arrange help as in apply for governmental subsidies or mobility devices for my home. To make a phone call means that I cannot do anything else at all that day. It's limited how much my friends are able to help me with these things as well.

I want to raise money that will specifically go to:

- Neurologist appointments Aleris: €500

- IV antibiotics in Germany incl. Travel expenses: €1700

- Private Doctor Reinhardt Germany: €1300

- Antibodies-tests Redlabs and Vibrant: €1400

- Gezonde darmflora FMT 4 rounds: €2800

- Tveitanklinikken FMT 1 round: €800

Diagnostics and treatment details

I have yet to visit a neurologist after the infection I got last year that ended me up in hospital. I have had 8 general practitioners (PCP) since 2022, yet no help has been offered. I'm not getting help because my health issues cannot be measured by standard blood samples and they don't want to refer me to specialists because of that. Therefore I'm being left on my own without any help whatsoever.

For that reason I want to raise money for full diagnostics at a neurologist, in order to exclude that I have a neurodegenerative illness. I should have gotten this in public health care, but I have waited 15 months already and I cannot wait any longer.

I want to travel to Germany for treatment with IV antibiotics at a private clinic. There are many other Norwegians with ME/CFS who do the same. Unfortunately, I'm too ill to fly since last year. I'm knackered for many days afterwards after a short taxi trip to Oslo that lasts for an hour. Still, I can get help from the private doctor in Germany through video calls and they can prescribe medicine that I can take out in Norway. They offer extensive treatments and they have a lot of knowledge about my immune problems.

I don't tolerate oral antibiotics whatsoever anymore because of bacterial dysbiosis after previous antibiotic rounds. I have become worse after every round of oral antibiotics that were supposed to kill the infections in my stomach (among others Heliobacter Pylori), due to my immune system deteriorating as well. My private doctor in Germany can help me with this so I hope to be able to travel there some day. I have realized that I have no other choice seeing as I'm never going to get sufficient health care in Norway.

My best chance for getting better is to go to Germany.

I also want to take a lab test from Redlabs and one from Vibrant in order to confirm my chronic infections and antibodies as a part of the diagnostics I'm doing with my private doctor in Germany.

These tests can help him to determine which IV antibiotics I need and to suggest other future treatment options such as IVIG (immune therapy) or stem cell therapy.

Additionally I would like to do fecal transplantation (FMT) which helps to rebuild my gut microbiome. I did a round at a local clinic earlier this year. I noticed some improvement, but I couldn't afford more rounds. Recently I did a different type of FMT (capsules) from Gezonde darmflora and my symptoms improved a lot. Within a couple of days I was on moderate severity (ME) again and I could eat normally. My brain functioned much better and I had less fatigue. Unfortunately the effect lasted only for a little while and I have to do more rounds, which is expensive.

I'm struggling to eat and to consume enough food. It has become worse the past 3-4 months and it's difficult for me to keep my weight. I'm already malnourished. I don't absorb vitamins and minerals well according to tests. It's starting to become urgent to get help, I'm not going to get better on my own by just resting.

I don't have any family left except my little sister because I lost my parents to brain hemorrhage when I was a child. I don't have family who can show up and take care of me, in the absence of ME/CFS-friendly governmental health assistants. I wouldn't have survived without my neighbors and I will die if I get worse than what I am right now.

I can't be admitted to a hospital because public health care workers don't understand the mechanisms behind ME/CFS. I was admitted to my local hospital for 3 days during my acute infection last year. I was unfortunately mistreated before I was sent home without any health care or help whatsoever. I would have reported the case to the government if I could, but I'm too ill to spend energy on that. I have to focus on survival and to find private health care diagnostics and treatment, so that I can one day hope to get better.

I received donations last year right after my infection and this was crucial to getting important diagnostics so I could eat again at that point. Still I have no life quality and it's been several years, although it got significantly worse after my infection in 2023.

I live in Norway but the country of this fundraiser is set to Germany because I used to live there and I can't change countries on Gofundme. I still have a bank account in Germany and I will do the treatment in Germany so to receive euros is anyways the best option for me.

Sharing of the gofundme is as important as donations. Please feel free to share."

Linn is a 34 year old woman who lives in Hurdal, Norway. She hasn't worked for 3,5 years. Linn is very grateful for the help she has received from neighbors and friends nearby.

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