Olympic sprinter Beth Dobbin now bedbound for more than 22 hours a day
Beth Dobbin, the 32-year-old former Olympic sprinter, says she now spends more than 22 hours a day in bed at her family home in Doncaster and has gone public about her condition despite knowing the interview could worsen her health. Five years ago she ran for Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympics; she is speaking out to raise awareness after being diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).
Dobbin traces the onset of her illness to back-to-back Covid and glandular fever infections in the winter of 2021-22, discovered only retrospectively, and says her symptoms worsened through a condensed season when she qualified for the World Championships, Commonwealth Games and European Championships. She describes progressive deterioration at those events — a painful throat and disrupted sleep at the Worlds, dizziness while running at the Commonwealths, and a false start at the Europeans after losing feeling in her legs — and has previously characterised that period as a "year of hell."
She has been diagnosed with ME, or myalgic encephalomyelitis, which the article describes as "a chronic, fluctuating disease, causing symptoms such as sleep problems, problems with thinking and memory, pain and severe, persistent fatigue that does not improve with rest, and more." Dobbin says a simple conversation, bright light or loud sound can trigger a "crash" lasting from 24 hours to months, and she rejects the label chronic fatigue syndrome, arguing it fails to capture the severity of her symptoms: "I wish it was just fatigue, that would be a walk in the park. It's so much more than that. If I thought of fatigue in my top 20 symptoms it might just make the cut."
Her day-to-day life is severely restricted: she now only gets out of bed to eat and use the bathroom and has left the house on just five occasions this year. She says even small efforts have long consequences — "I've done little things like attend a blood test at the doctors and been in bed for months after. So doing this interview, chatting away for 30 minutes, that could have an impact on me in 2027," — and that she often feels too unwell to sleep without medication.
Dobbin and her family describe the impact on their lives. "It's life-decimating like I can't even put into words," she says. "I feel like I've lost everything. I have still got my family, but I've lost my independence, my health, the ability to work, the ability to exercise." Her father Jim, a former footballer who played for Barnsley, Grimsby and Doncaster Rovers, said: "I'm just so desperate to help her but I can't because there is nothing. I'd take her anywhere, I'd take her to America if I had to, but there's nothing." Her mother Jean added: "You wake up every day and just feel sad. She should be building her life, living her best life."
Dobbin describes difficulties with medical care and diagnosis: British Athletics doctors ran tests that produced no answers, she saw "four or five different specialists" and reports that all suggested "this is ME' and we don't want it to be that because there's nothing out there for it." After her British Athletics funding ended she waited 22 months before obtaining a face-to-face appointment with a private specialist she sourced herself. Her younger sister Faye is raising funds: "You just feel so helpless and we've been saying this for years now, what can we do?" Faye says, and will run the Yorkshire Marathon on Sunday to raise money for ME Research UK.
The article cites broader prevalence estimates, saying more than 400,000 people in the UK are thought to have ME and that the true figure could exceed one million, with severity ranging from people able to work or study to those requiring round-the-clock care and tube feeding. Dobbin says the Covid pandemic has increased attention on conditions with overlapping symptoms: "It's very bleak, unfortunately. The only positive thing really to say is that Covid happened six years ago now and it's like the whole medical community has woken up."
On Sunday, Dobbin's younger sister Faye will run the Yorkshire Marathon to raise money for ME Research UK.