My Freedom Now

Iris van Diepen

At the beginning of October 2014, our daughter Iris broke her metatarsal bone because she stepped in the house, the process that followed was a real hell. As a result of the fracture, Iris was put in a plaster cast, the beginning of all the misery.

In October Iris was given a walking cast, but she was still in a lot of pain. After being fitted with a new cast several times, she was eventually given a wrap. In November she no longer had a cast or wrap on her foot, but her foot continued to be in severe pain. What follows are several visits to the GP, GP post and hospital, but the pain remains and that is why Iris is referred to the physiotherapist. The treatments with the physiotherapist went well and Iris improved in small steps, but she continues to have pain. At our insistence, we ordered an MRI scan, which showed that she had also had a tear in the ankle ligament. Because the pain persisted, we were referred to the pain center in December, but without success. Because we as parents could not settle for this, we made an appointment with an osteopath and he indicated that Iris had a mild form of dystrophy, something the physiotherapist had also mentioned. All practitioners involved had a consultation in which they concluded that Iris did not have dystrophy, but the pediatric physio indicated that this was indeed dystrophy.

What is unbearable as a parent is that you see your child slipping further and further and no one listens to your story. As a result of the persistent pain that spreads to the hip, Iris is admitted to the hospital where she spent 1 week, during which a whole team was called in: a pediatrician, psychologist, social work and physio. After this useless hospital admission, we went to the rehabilitation doctor in February, her conclusion was; it is not dystrophy but disuse (it is between the ears).

What follows cannot be described in words, your child is accused of lying by the rehabilitation doctor and as parents you don’t know what to believe and what to hold on to.

In the meantime, Iris is in excruciating pain and continues to deteriorate to the point that she is almost impossible to reach for us and a crisis team even visited one evening because Iris indicated that she no longer wanted to live. She also didn’t want to go to school anymore, kept screaming and was completely lost. According to the child psychologist, Iris should just go to school and we should just ignore the unwanted behavior. Our child had gone crazy from the pain.

Iris could no longer stand the pain, touching herself was unbearably painful, and we as parents did not know what to do either, we even considered the option of having your child admitted to a rehabilitation center (far away from us). We felt powerless. According to the scientists, psychiatric help would also be needed during this treatment.

Because we know our child best (and we know ourselves always felt unheard by the hospital) we were not satisfied with the doctors’ explanation and that is why we scoured the internet until we came across a story about a 10-year-old boy Sven. What we immediately noticed is that this story showed many similarities with our situation with Iris.

And so we eventually ended up at Wim Beek, Vrij van Pijn, via an email sent, with a cry for help from us to Wim.

Free from Pain was an unknown route for us, but we thought, if it doesn’t help, it won’t hurt, and we made an appointment for an intake interview. After the intake interview, we definitively broke with the hospital because we felt and still believe that they have no understanding or knowledge of matters surrounding dystrophy at all, what they mainly do is get stuck in procedures and protocols.

During the intake interview, Wim indicated that he could help Iris, and also explained exactly how the healing process would proceed, and that the choice was ours. Wim came across to us as a very honest and knowledgeable man and even offered to contact the parents of Sven, the 10-year-old boy he had previously treated. We took advantage of this offer and what we heard from Sven’s mother “if Wim says he can help then you should definitely do it” has strengthened our choice to go for Wim. What follows is a treatment plan of several months with physiotherapy (a new children’s physio) in addition to the treatments with Wim.

The story that follows is incredible, soon after the first treatments Iris indicates that she feels a change and what happened next cannot be described in words. The process that Wim outlined in advance appears to be coming true, every time we have an appointment with Wim, Iris is able to do more until she indicates on July 23 that the pain is completely gone. We celebrated this.

The joy you feel is indescribable. Iris is our cheerful daughter again, she does hip hop and running again, in short, you have your child back.

Our story just shows that the medical world does not have an answer for everything and that seeking alternative treatment methods is certainly advisable.

We would like to share our story with the whole world so that other people can also be helped!

Wim Thank you!