This schoolboy beat cancer but a heavy dose of chemo left him with a bizarre addiction to GARLIC BREAD
Billy Turner was left only able to eat garlic bread after battling cancer but is still addicted eight years on
A BOY who beat cancer thanks to heavy doses of chemo has been left with an addiction to garlic bread.
Billy Turner, 11, from Middleton, Greater Manchester, had the treatment for Hodgkin's Lymphoma, but it left him only able to stomach the pongy snack.
When his treatment had finished Billy continued with his unusual diet because he’d got so used to it.
His mum Louise Blackshaw, 32, said: “When Billy was having his chemo, he said eating felt very strange, as the feeling of food moving down his throat felt very pronounced.
"The only thing that he said didn't make him feel funny was garlic bread - so that's what he ate.
“I was just happy he could eat something.
"But it's now eight years later and he still refuses to eat anything else.”
Louise is so concerned she is using a hypnotist to help Billy overcome his addiction.
Billy was diagnosed with cancer when he was three and had six months of chemotherapy in 2008.
He went into remission a year later, but his love of garlic bread has remained strong ever since.
Billy said: “I want to be able to go to a restaurant now and actually order food like everyone else.
"I could always feel the food moving down my throat when I tried to eat and that was really off-putting – but I could always eat the likes of garlic bread.
"Only being able to eat certain food makes me feel really self-conscious and I always try to make sure that my friends don't find out.”
Hypnotherapist Felix Economakis has been drafted in to help Billy, as he’s a specialist in Selective Eating Disorder.
Louise is hopeful he’ll be able to help her son as she worries about how restricted his diet is.
Although she was happy for him to eat whatever he could when he was having chemo, now she hates seeing the effect his restricted diet is having on him.
The mum is confident Billy will be able to beat his issue with the help of hypnotherapy.
Felix said: “SED as a phobia is confused with a natural phase in childhood which is fussy eating.
“In the presence of food people will start to panic or clam up.
“Some people will be able to get food near their mouth or even in it, but the food will not go down and their body refuses to swallow it.”