A 5-year-old boy who had been fed through tubes his whole life can finally eat solid food thanks to specialized medical treatment he received in Austria, it is reported by the Daily Mail.
At just 5-days-old, Leo Coning refused to be breastfed, forcing his baffled parents to take the baby back to the hospital.
Although he was diagnosed with an unrelated hole in his heart, doctors were unable to figure out why the boy refused to eat. As a result, Leo was fed through tubes in his nose and stomach for five years, according to the report.
At age 3, Leo was diagnosed with serious swelling of the spine which specialists thought could be preventing messages getting from his brain to his stomach to tell him to eat. He was also found to have a hole in his skull, according to the report.
After seeing a television program on a young girl with a similar problem who was cured after special treatment in Austria, the family decided to take action, the Daily Mail reported.
With the help of a community fund-raiser in their hometown of Norton, North Yorks, England, the family was able to take the boy for surgery in Austria, as well as pay for the subsequent controlled-starvation therapy he needed to help him learn to eat, it is reported.
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