Charlie Wilson, pictured in hospital, lost movement in both legs, her left arm and neck through a ra (Image: SWNS)
A woman considered having her legs amputated after horrendous muscle aches left her in crippling pain and facing sudden paralysis. The rare condition behind her life-changing diagnosis initially had doctors baffled.
Charlie Wilson, 38, was living a “completely normal” life working in Magaluf, Mallorca, before she lost movement in both legs, her left arm and neck. She broke out in lumps all over her body, but doctors did not know what was causing her pain.
After multiple tests and scans and a three-week stay in the hospital, Charlie was diagnosed with extrapulmonary sarcoidosis. This is a rare condition that causes small patches of swollen tissue to develop in the organs of the body.
In Charlie’s case, her condition is isolated and does not affect her lungs, which is the most common place for the condition to form. Instead, her condition affects the limbs, joints and bones.
Now, her condition has forced her to move back home to the UK, where she has moved into a bungalow with carers visiting four times a day. Charlie says her movement has returned, but she now uses a wheelchair for flare-ups, which leave her in pain.
Charlie, a former shot girl and social media manager from Darlington, said: “My life was completely normal. I woke up and my body felt like it would if you go to the gym and get that ache, but I don’t go to the gym.
“It got to the point where I literally could not move, so my friend took me to the doctors so she could translate as she speaks Spanish. At that point, if I had the option to amputate my legs [and] I would have had it, that was the level of pain I was in.”
Her twin sister flew to Spain to help look after her. She needed a wheelchair to get around, 24-hour care and had to be fed through a straw.
Blood tests showed her vitamin B12 was “dangerously low,” as were her folic acid, potassium, and iron levels. Her inflammation markers were high also, and Charlie was admitted to Son Espasas University Hospital as doctors said they “didn’t understand” what the cause of her pain was.
Charlie said: “They brought out two neurologists to do a brain scan. I had 33 blood tests, a chest scan, a brain scan, a CT scan and a PET scan.
Charlie was diagnosed with extrapulmonary sarcoidosis (Image: SWNS)
“They found something in the biopsy, and they thought it was sarcoidosis, but that comes up in your lungs. There was nothing wrong with my torso.”
Unable to return to work, she moved back to the UK in December 2025 and is still waiting for her medication to be prescribed, as it was in Spain. Charlie says that her life has completely changed as a result of the condition.
She said: “My life before, I travelled the world and was used to going from country to country. Now I’m lucky if I go into four different rooms every day.
“I don’t really tend to go out so much – I’m in a wheelchair now when I’m in a flare up, and I can’t get up and down kerbs by myself, so it’s not very often I go out in my wheelchair.
“The boredom is terrible, my sister and my friends have bought me colouring books, and I can only watch so much TV. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime illness I’m dealing with.”
