JANICE Tunnicliffe is so allergic to modern technology that even her neighbours cannot have wireless internet.
Mum-of-two Janice cannot use a electric kettle, keeps her washing machine in a concrete outhouse and spends every night playing board games by candlelight with her husband.
This is because she believes she has a rare condition called electrosensitivity (ES) meaning she cannot bear to be anywhere near electromagnetic fields of any kind.
As a result, she cannot watch TV, listen to the radio, or talk on a mobile phone.
The 55-year-old says she was struck down with the illness after receiving chemotherapy for bowel cancer three years ago.
Since then she has suffered constant headaches, chest pains, nausea and tingling in her arms and legs whenever she is near electrical devices or items that emit a signal.
Her only relief in this time was when her village of Wellow suffered a temporary power cut.
She said: "Different things give me different feelings but it's mostly headaches and nausea. iPhones make feel really sick within about 20 minutes of being near one so even though I might not realise someone has one straightaway, I soon find out.
"Wi-fi makes me feel like I have a clamp at the back of my head which is squeezing the life out of me. It's completely draining."
Janice, whose two children Naomi, 34, and Darren, 29, have both worked in the telecommunications industry, lives with her second husband contracts manager Carl, 43.
Carl has had to ask the neighbours if they would revert to cabled internet, and Janice, who moved to Wellow from central Nottingham, has even had to cover her windows with a special metallic material to deflect electromagnetic waves.
She said: "I'm lucky because I live in a fairly rural area but I could never live in a town again. We are hoping to sell our house soon and move somewhere even more remote, but it's difficult because of the state of the housing market at the moment.
"I would happily live without electricity for the rest of my life and I don't miss it at all.
"I go for a lot of long walks and we take our camper van out to the middle of nowhere every weekend – even in the winter – where I can get some relief. I read a lot of books and most nights Carl and I sit in and play board games by candlelight."
Electromagnetic fields are created by all items which use electricity or are electrically charged, for example mobile phones. There are differing views on the problems created by these fields, however.
Graham Lamburn, technical manager at Powerwatch – a group which researches the effects of electromagnetic fields on health – said the medical profession has been slow to recognise electrosensitivity as an illness, as its causes are as yet unknown.
He said more research was needed into the effects of electromagnetic fields on the human body, adding: "Around three to four per cent of people report suffering some form of electrosensitivity, but only about half a per cent from that group will suffer so severely that it has a significant effect on their day-to-day lives. This kind of case is rare, but certainly there have been some people who have had to give up their houses and jobs because of ES.
"In the UK, it's recognised as an unknown condition with an unknown cause and most other countries have not done anything other than recognise that it exists.
"With wireless internet and mobile phones, we've got something here that no one really knows about and no one has considered it might be a problem. More research needs to be done into the risks these things might pose - and sooner rather than later."
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