'I've got the bones of a 100-year-old': 22-year-old with severe ME could break a rib by just sitting up too fast

• Jessica Taylor developed ME when she was just 14 years old
• She was so ill she had to be fed through a tube for two years and could not speak for 18 months - was unable to move anything other than her head
• As she has been in bed for so long, she has developed osteoporosis
• This means she could break her back or hip just by sitting up too fast
• She is now at home but has to have 24-hour a day care, can't leave her room and needs a hoist to move her from her bed to a chair
• She has launched a charity called Share A Star from her bed - aims to make sick children feel special and sends them packages of goodies in hospital
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By EMMA INNES PUBLISHED: 09:45 GMT, 25 December 2013: L

A 22-year-old former netball captain says she ‘lost everything’ when severe ME caused her to be bedridden and to develop the 'bones of a 100-year-old'.

Jessica Taylor, from Rochester, Kent, spent four continuous years in hospital and has not left her bed for seven years.

While she was in hospital, she was so ill she couldn't recognise her family, had to be tube-fed and was unable to move anything other than her head.

As she has been in bed for so long, Jessica has now developed severe osteoporosis and was told by doctors that she has ‘the bones of an 100-year-old’.

She remains so weak she is barely able to sit up and just moving from her bed to a chair requires the use of a hoist.

Jessica told MailOnline: ‘My life is a world of one room. The ME caused me to lose everything in the end.

‘I’ve got a fight on my hands and I believe I am going to get better.’

Jessica first fell ill when she was 14.

She suffered a bout of the flu which she never recovered from and, despite trying to push herself, her health rapidly deteriorated and within nine months she was bedridden.

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