Maurice Gleeson feared he would need an operation

Dr Maurice Gleeson, 42, a psychiatrist and former A&E doctor, was one of three doctors who followed the controversial Atkins diet for BBC One's Real Story. Here, he describes his negative experiences on the high protein, low carb weight loss programme.

One of the reasons why I wanted to go on the diet was to see if I could reduce my midrift to what I would deem to be acceptable proportions.

I also wanted to diet for health purposes as my triglyceride levels - that is the fat in the blood - are quite high. I wanted to reduce them because of the increased risk of heart disease.

However, I did have concerns about nausea, headaches, bloatedness, diarrhoea and fatigue before going on the programme.

Diet broken

I also found it quite worrying that, regardless of what would happen with the fats in our blood, we were actually removing from our diet the kinds of foods that protect us from heart disease.

I had several transgressions during the diet. At one point, I ate ten chocolate biscuits in one go.

Another time, on a flight to the States, I had three glasses of champagne, a glass of red wine and two glasses of Port.

Crying with pain

I had minor stomach pain on and off for the entire diet. But thirty days into the programme, I suddenly developed stomach pain which lasted all night and which I awoke with the following morning.

I went to work as usual but at lunchtime I decided it must be constipation due to the diet and ate some high fibre foods. I had some bread and mango juice.

I thought anything with a lot of fibre in it would help move things along. Unfortunately, I vomited half an hour later andf had to go home.

The pain just started getting worse and worse. I was literally talking to the pain, willing it to go away.

Morphine

I was very, very, very cold because I was sweating profusely and then shivering. I was very, very shut down and my fingers were blue.

I was concerned that I would need an operation to unblock the bowel - if there is complete obstruction of the bowel it can lead to death. I was almost crying on several occasions because I had never felt pain like this before.

It got so bad I had to call an ambulance and at the hospital they actually had to give me morphine. I was completely convinced my illness was caused by the Atkins diet.