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Back pain cured with cement
Courtesy of Lanashire Evening Post
A woman who suffered agonising back pain has been cured – after Preston surgeons injected cement into her bones.
Dorothy Moody, 62, of Fulwood, Preston, had such intense back pain she could barely do anything. Even sitting down was painful.
But the innovative procedure to shore up her fractured back, carried out by surgeons at the Royal Preston Hospital, means she now has her life back.
Dorothy's pain was so severe painkillers didn't work and she needed morphine patches. But after having special cement injected into her bones she was amazed by the instantaneous effect.
She said: "I noticed the difference straight away as I was walking out of hospital. I felt like a new woman. It was marvellous."
Dorothy, who is married to Ken, first experienced problems with her back in May last year. She was moving a small chest of drawers at home when she experienced a searing pain.
She went to see a physiotherapist who feared the injury could be osteoporosis-related rather than muscular and advised her to see her GP.
Dorothy was referred to hospital and a scan revealed a partial wedge fracture and showed a disc had collapsed on one side of her back.
A couple of months later, the couple, who have three children and five grandchildren, went on holiday to Spain. But while Dorothy was having a shower she slipped on a mat and jerked her body. A further scan revealed this had caused another fracture and that Dorothy did indeed have osteoporosis.
Dorothy, who used to work in catering, underwent a new procedure at Royal Preston Hospital called vertebroplasty, which involves injecting bone cement into a fracture to stabilise it and reduce pain.
Dorothy says the procedure has changed her life. She said: "To go from being in so much pain to how I am now in just a few hours is amazing.
"I was in such pain it would take my breath away and I couldn't bend down at all. Getting out of bed in the morning was an ordeal as it was like trying to get two parts of my body together. Now I have got my life back and it feels brilliant."
Dr Syed Ali, consultant radiologist at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Vertebroplasty is a new and very important development for patients suffering from osteoporosis related vertebral fractures.
"These fractures can be painful and this treatment provides a new method of pain relief. The treatment involves placing a needle into the fractured vertebra under X-ray guidance and injecting bone cement to heal the fracture. The treatment is done under local anaesthetic and sedation."