'I kept falling over and my friends laughed - then I got my diagnosis'

'I kept falling over and my friends laughed - then I got my diagnosis' Liam Jefferies, 34, from Essex was a healthy and active man - but he kept on experiencing a tingling in his leg A man whose friends laughed at his unusual symptoms had no idea it would result in a devastating diagnosis that will dramatically reduce his life expectancy. Liam Jefferies initially experienced a tingling feeling and mild weakness in his feet back in May 2025. Previously fit and healthy, he at first brushed off the symptoms as nothing serious. However, the weakness deteriorated rapidly, and he started stumbling over his feet. "It was sort of tingling down my leg and I was catching my foot a lot," the 34 year old says. "And from there, it quite relatively quickly progressed to my left leg being, like, really hard to use." Last summer he was out walking with mates when he mentioned the tingling, and explained how he kept losing his footing. "Naturally we laughed at him, like true friends would," says Faye Couret-Wilson, who launched a GoFundMe for Liam once the devastating reality behind his strange symptoms emerged. Liam, who resides in Essex and was employed in an office on Savile Row, quickly realised the tingling feeling was moving into his arms and hands, while his mobility declined at a worrying speed. "And it was a matter of months before I was having to use a stick, then a walking frame, and then eventually a wheelchair because it was sort of compounded by the fact that I'm fairly tall," he says, reports Essex Live. Before long, everyday movements he had once taken for granted became enormous challenges. "It was a matter of not being able to get up from a seated position and it very much affected my legs, which you don't really realise, being an able-bodied person, how big an impact something like that can have," he says. "Something as simple as getting the train into London to go to work was really quite fraught with peril." The effect on Liam's life was almost instantaneous. Shortly after noticing the symptoms, he sought medical advice, embarking on a gruelling 10-month struggle to find answers - which ultimately led to a diagnosis of motor neurone disease (MND), a rare and life-shortening condition affecting the nervous system. As there is no single definitive test for MND, doctors spent months eliminating other potential conditions before arriving at a conclusion. "They have to sort of run through a process of elimination and for quite a while, there was a glimmer of hope that it was a different thing called MMN, which is mono neuropathy, which is can mimic the effects of the symptoms of motor neuron disease, but is actually treatable," he says. Liam underwent two rounds of treatment for MMN, but when these proved ineffective, doctors were able to confirm their diagnosis. In March 2026, at just 34 years old, Liam was told he had MND. "I went into the hospital in London and when I was going in that day, I knew that I would have an answer," he says. Although the diagnosis was shattering, Liam says that finally understanding what he was up against brought a measure of certainty following months of unanswered questions. "In a way, it was... I'm very reluctant to use the word relief, but it gave you a sort of an almost like a sense of closure, because it's the hope that will kill you," he says. "And it gave me something to focus on and then move on and be like, okay, we know what it is now, now we can finally start to sort of address it and see it for what it is rather than sort of praying and hoping and living on faith." In a bid to slow the advancement of the disease, Liam's neurologist prescribed the drug Riluzole. Yet he swiftly suffered severe side effects, amongst them extreme fatigue and increased weakness. "And this was still at a point where I could stand and, and having that sort of weakness already, and then the weakness from the drugs was putting me in quite an unsafe position," he says. While his neurologist recommended lowering the dosage, she was candid that the medication was no cure. "She had quite a frank conversation where she said, it's not a miracle drug by any means, and it's not like turning down chemotherapy," Liam says. "It's something that can be proven to extend your lifespan, but not by a great amount. I think the average that they said was something like three to six months." Liam chose to pause the medication briefly to restore some energy before slowly reintroducing it. Three months following his diagnosis, Liam continues working and has been permitted to work entirely from home, describing his job as a "great distraction" from what he is experiencing. He has also become part of a support group, where he has connected with others living with motor neurone disease and encountering many of the same difficulties. But at only 34, Liam is the youngest member in the group by a considerable margin, and he has witnessed his condition advance more rapidly than anyone else's. "I go to meetings with other people with motor neuron disease," he says. "And aside from being the youngest one there by, like, quite a quite a large amount, it also seems that mine has progressed quite a lot quicker than others. "I have spoken to people who have been diagnosed for, like, six years, and they can still sort of get about, and mine seems to have come on quite quickly and across my whole body." Together with support from his group, Liam has received substantial assistance from the NHS and MND charities, allowing him to access equipment including a wheelchair. Despite the diagnosis, he and his girlfriend Kate have carried on making the most of life together. Speaking about his greatest pillar of strength, Liam says Kate has been his rock throughout everything. "Without my girlfriend, I wouldn't be in the same place that I am today," he says. "She's been like, not only a rock through this but, you know, she does so much for me and still manages to make life worth living." The couple, who have been an item for 16 years, particularly love exploring the world together and initially feared the diagnosis would bring an end to their adventures. However, Kate recently arranged a cruise through the Norwegian Fjords for them both, enabling them to tick off the final Scandinavian country they'd yet to discover. "We did it through a company called Limitless Travel, which is all set up to help people in wheelchairs, go on these sorts of holidays and cruisers, and that was absolutely fantastic," Liam says. Recently, Liam's closest mates launched a GoFundMe campaign to support him and Kate in continuing to live as normally as possible following his diagnosis. At the time of writing, the fundraiser had accumulated £9,198 towards its £10,000 goal. "I've been absolutely blown away," Liam says of the response. "I was always quite active on Instagram, but when I first started getting symptoms, I was posting hardly at all and it led to a lot of confusion with friends and co-workers." Once he felt prepared, Liam chose to share his diagnosis with the public. "I received a massive amount of support and comments and messages from people that I hadn't spoken to for years, and that was really, really lovely." You can find the fundraiser here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/LiamMND.