Amy Pohl, 33, who lives in northeast England, was 24 when a doctor searched for a vein in her arm and could not find one. Instead of asking for a new needle, the doctor reused the same cannula in different parts of her body until finally inserting it through her left hand.
At first, nothing seemed serious. But the area began to swell, her fever rose, and within hours a huge abscess had formed. Doctors drew the edges of the infection with a marker to monitor whether it was spreading. It spread. Then came surgeries to drain and clean the tissue, increasingly stronger antibiotics, and laboratory cultures searching for which bacteria was winning the battle.
When the infection finally subsided, the pain remained. Pohl developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: her wrist became permanently bent, unable to fully straighten, and even a breeze causes pain she describes as ten times worse than anything imaginable. Today, with 3.7 million followers on TikTok, she shows every day how her hand changes color, swells without warning, and yet keeps moving, a little more each time.
