Woman, 30, who shed 10st in a year died after rapid weight loss ’caused her body to shut down’
A WOMAN who shed 10st in just one year died because of the “turmoil” the rapid weight loss caused her body, a coroner has found.
Kaylee Cox had “ballooned” in size during her life and clocked 21.5st (137kg) by early 2021, an inquest into her death heard.
The 30-year-old may have become determined to slim down and began to lose an “extraordinary” number of pounds.
Her mum Christine Cox told the court that her daughter had always been a “crazy, funny, bubbly person”, but said she changed after the death of her grandmother in May 2021.
“Kay lost her spark, like we all did,” she said.
“Kay started to have problems with food. She kept slapping the top of her chest as if food was not going down.”
After Kaylee, of Thatcham, Berkshire, was unable to keep down food or drink, she had gastroscopy – but medics were unable to find anything wrong with her.
The family became concerned that she was seriously ill and appealed to doctors for her to be admitted to hospital as an emergency patient, but again, they were not believed, they told the coroner.
Christine said: “The doctor even tried telling me she was anorexic, she was not eating properly.
“She kept on thinking Kaylee put her hands down her throat.”
Ian Wade KC, assistant coroner for Berkshire, said staff had genuinely been unable to find anything which would have justified admitting her.
“I think Kaylee has always had problems with her weight and there were times where she ballooned,” he said.
Aged seven, Kaylee weighed 5st (31kg), the inquest heard. The UK average for a girl that age is about 3.5st (22kg).
She weighed 15st (95kg) by 14, and 21.5st (137kg) by early 2021 when she was in her late 20s.
“That is very, very worrying,” Mr Wade said, explaining that Kaylee had reached a body mass index (BMI) of 48, with the healthy range being 20 to 25.
He added: “There are real issues when you are a heavy person and the issues will express themselves in lots of different ways.”
On August 30 last year, while she was at home with her family, Kaylee suddenly needed to use the toilet, where her relatives later found her dead.
A post mortem examination could not determine what had caused her death, but said it was likely as a result of a cardiac arrhythmia – an irregular heartbeat.
She weighed 11.6st (74kg) at the time.
Concluding the inquest at Reading coroner’s court, Mr Wade said: “I think the rapid nature of that weight loss has got a lot to do with why we have lost her.
“We know that Kay had been struggling with excess weight for a long time and she either addressed that by being determined or nature, in some way, helped her by creating a circumstance where she found it difficult to keep things down.
“That kind of rate of weight loss creates real turmoil in the body and my feeling is that this was what was going on and there were difficulties in her body being able to cope with her see-sawing.”