COULDNT SPEAK FOR 3 YEARS

An Essex model has learnt how to speak again for the first time in THREE years after a throat condition left her speechless. Pretty Sophie Whitlock was literally forced to 'shut up' - a phrase made famous by ITV's The Only Way is Essex - when she developed a throat condition. 24-year-old Sophie, of Romford, was silenced after she developed a mass of cysts on her throat and has only regained her voice in recent weeks.

A mum-of-two who has been morbidly obese since she was a toddler has has shed more than half her bodyweight. When Mary Burnett was six months old, doctors warned her parents she was so fat she wouldn't be able to WALK. But after half a century of living off takeaways and gorging on sweet treats, Mary, from Birmingham, West Mids, has broken the habit of a lifetime - after tipping the scales at 25 stone.

Meet Amy Knowles, the incredible teenager who is being kept alive by being fed through her HEART. Amy, 17, has Complex Neuromyopathic Intestinal Dismotility (CNID) which means her body cannot handle food. Amy's case of the rare condition is the most difficult doctors have ever seen in the UK and is so bad the teenager hasn't been able to put food in her mouth for more than six months.

Two brothers have developed a bizarre age-reversing disease which has caused them to behave like children again. Matthew, 39, and Michael Clark, 42, both had jobs and were able to have normal relationships until their mannerisms became more and more childlike - just like in the film the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Ex RAF regiment Michael is now estimated to have a mental age of 10 and is said to giggle constantly.

Meet little Abi Marshall who has been banned from playing a game of PEEK-A-BOO...because it could spark a fatal fit. Every time the bubbly tot has an unexpected shock or bump, her heart stops beating, she stops breathing and her body stiffens. The two-year-old suffers from a rare condition called Reflex Anoxic Seizures. Abi was just ten-months-old when she had a first fit and has even suffered FIVE in one day.