Kayleigh Henning suffered such extreme bloating that people thought she was pregnant, but now, after finding a cure, she is happily pregnant with her first child

A woman who was so bloated by a mystery illness that people thought she was pregnant is now expecting her first child after beating illness by avoiding six common foods .

Kayleigh Henning suffered from bloating, constipation and agonising abdominal cramps for more than 10 years. Her condition was so bad she could only go to the toilet once a week.

Sleepless nights were spent curled up on the bathroom floor in agony while multiple doctors failed to correctly diagnose her problem.

Kayleigh said: "It was so annoying because everyone just assumed I was pregnant and wouldn't leave that alone - I was definitely not pregnant!

"I'd wear tights or anything like that which normally fit me for the whole day. By the end of the day, I'd be very uncomfortable and I'd have pressure marks from my trousers or tights imprinted on my skin.It was pretty painful, which affects you mentally. You feel like you just don't want to go out anywhere.

"I'd often find I'd experience diarrhoea on nights out and that is obviously pretty embarrassing. So many times I wouldn't feel like going out.

"Because I was constipated, I'd be going to the toilet only once a week. That in itself is disconcerting because you're thinking in the back of your head 'why haven't I been to the toilet?'.

"I probably endured the problems all through my 20s, even at university. I'd been to see my GP mainly because of constipation problems and I'd get given fibre gel drinks," she says.

Kayleigh's situation "came to a head" when she graduated from Heriot-Watt University, in Edinburgh, and moved from Scotland to Northern Ireland that week.