'A cold sore became so unbearably painful I considered assisted suicide'

An award-winning author has told how she considered assisted suicide after a childhood cold sore turned out to stem from a rare condition so painful it felt like her head was stuck in a 'mechanical vice'. Christie Newport was thinking of ending her life in a Switzerland clinic after what started as a cold sore on her bottom lip age seven turned into years of hospital appointments and 'unbearable pain'.

The 41-year-old's health took a turn for the worse after finishing university, which meant even just standing up sent 'shockwaves of pain' through her entire body and she could no longer read or write. But her wife, Amy Newport, 34, and family convinced her to keep fighting and she was able to regain her 'mental clarity' after being diagnosed with a rare condition, orofacial granulomatosis, which causes swelling around her body.

Christie did not want to die without achieving what she wanted and after trying many treatment options, including a £15,000 stem cell replacement therapy in the US, has been awarded the Joffe Books Prize for her first crime novel, The Raven’s Mark, for which she is already working on a sequel.

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Christie, from Preston, Lancs, said: “It felt like there was a clamp around my head that was being tightened, tightened and tightened, the pain was just unbelievable. Even though the medication is working for me now, it won’t forever, and I can already feel that it’s starting to weaken.”

Christie’s health nightmare began age seven, when her mother, Dawn Newport, 65, spotted a persistent cold sore on her lip.

“My mum kept taking me to GP over and over,” she said. “Then my bottom lip started swelling up and I was