A mum who was fainting whenever she stood up owes her new found freedom to a to a dog who warns her whenever she is about to collapse.

Candy Adams, from Istead Rise, in Gravesend saw her world turned upside down eight years ago when she became unwell suddenly while on a family holiday in Disneyland, Paris.

“It was supposed to be this holiday of a lifetime but I felt so ill and I couldn’t stay upright,” she said.

When she got back home Candy, who was a senior manager in the NHS, went to hospital to find out what was wrong and was kept in for weeks.

Unable to stand without collapsing, the mum-of-two, who once “did everything at 100 miles an hour” said she was bed-bound.

With doctors unable to diagnose what was wrong, the 47-year-old said it was a terrifying time.

“They thought it was epilepsy, then ruled that out. They did tests on my heart.

“They even did a lumbar puncture to look for meningitis.”

Eventually she was diagnosed with postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTs).

According to doctors, a virus had attacked Candy’s nervous system and instead of her brain telling her heart to pump the blood round her body faster when she stood up it would tell it to slow down, causing her blood pressure to drop and her to collapse.

It also meant she could not regulate her body temperature so she could overheat and collapse. If she is stressed, her body would have the same reaction as it affects the fight and flight responses.

She was forced to hand childcare over to her parents, give up her job and sell the horses she’d had for more than 30 years.

She could no longer even walk her children to school, as she never knew when she was going to collapse.

“I’d gone from someone who never sat in the house, to being somebody who couldn’t even get out of the house.

“I lost my driving licence, so if I wanted to go anywhere I had to walk.

“But I was nervous to walk anywhere. I had two children, who were just four and five, and I was collapsing all the time.

“I was terrified they would be left on the side of the road with me collapsed.”

To give herself some company, and “fill the void” left by her horses, Candy looked into getting a dog and came across the Medical Detection Dogs charity.

She bought a goldendoodle puppy and then went about training him with the charity’s help.

She said: “I was on medication for my blood pressure but still couldn’t be upright for too long.

“We started to do basic training.

“My mum or mother-in-law would drive me up to the field. I noticed he never, ever left me. He was always checking back on me and it felt like he would be a good medical detection dog.”

Ali, a spokesperson for the charity, explained how the dogs work.

‘He gave me my life back and he gave my children their life back’

“Every disease has its own odour, so Candy’s smell changes when her blood pressure drops,” she said.

“We train mainly gun dogs as their instinct is to use their nose and they can notice the tiniest change in smell.

“The dogs are then trained to pair the odour they need to pick up on with a treat. They pick up on it, they perform the alert behaviour and they get the reward.”

The charity gets puppies from breeders or kind donations and trains them, before pairing them up with a client, but it says people can bring their own dog to be trained if they fit the right criteria such as temperament and age.

“They have to have the right personality to cope with the pressure of going into different environments and still do the job,” Ali added. “Teddy was perfect.”

Candy explained how Teddy alerts her.

“If I am at home he will come and stare at me or sit in front of me so I can’t move,” she said.

“If we are out he will sit on the floor and point-blank refuse to move until I sit down and rest.

“By doing that it prevents me from collapsing.”

And if she doesn’t notice his signals, she said: “He just ramps them up. He has a lovely stubborn streak and he will just keep going until I pay attention.”

Candy said having Teddy has saved her life: “He gave me my life back and he gave my children their life back because he gave me the confidence to go out of the house again.”

At the same time as Candy was adapting to her changing health, her daughter, Maisie, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

Candy said the added pressure increased the number of times she was collapsing and she would even pass out while administering her daughter’s injections at night.

But the family discovered Teddy was helpful with this condition too.

“When she was first diagnosed and her sugars were high he did not want to be near her because she smelt funny,” Candy said.

Candy said not worrying about collapsing has also reduced the times it happens because of the link to stress.

Teddy has full assistance dogs rights and can go into shops and restaurants just like a guide dog.