'I wish they could ease my pain'

By Jane Elliott
Health reporter, BBC News

Moira lives with daily pain

Pensioner Moira Wigglesworth has osteoporosis and is in almost constant pain.

She is dosed up with pain killers, but finds sitting and lying down to sleep excrutiating.

She now has a curvature of the spine and broke three vertebrae and cracked three ribs following a fall at home.

"The doctors say I must have a very high pain threshold, because I have had cracked ribs and not even known," said Moira, 77, from Lytham, Lancashire.

Recently though, things have got worse.

The pain is with me all the time - it is never ending Moira Wigglesworth

"Due to my shortened spine my lower ribs have started to rub against my pelvis when I am sitting down," she said.

"I use morphine patches and other painkillers. It is the relentlessness of the pain that gets you down."

Help needed

Now, because of her curvature of the spine she can no longer lie down properly in bed and sitting for long periods is becoming increasingly painful.

"I need help and have a carer three days a week for 20 minutes and I can't drive now so I have got to get someone to do the shopping," she said.

"The pain is with me all the time. It is never ending."

Doctors have told Moira that there is little they can do to ease her condition, as she left it so late to seek help.

But she is hopeful new research projects will provide help for others - and urges anyone with the condition to get help before their bones have deteriorated too much.

"Osteoporosis does leave you feeling bitter sometimes, because you know it is probably only going to get worse as you get older," she said.

"That's why research into this condition is important - it may be late for me, but if they can develop new treatments to stop it or to repair the damage it does, it will help others in the future."

Common condition

Osteoporosis affects about one in two women and one in five men over the age of 50.

VERTEBROPLASTY/KYPHOPLASTY Minimally invasive procedures performed to treat compression fractures of the vertebrae bones of the spine In both cases a needle is inserted into the broken bone In vertebroplasty, bone cement is injected into the fractured area In kyphoplasty, a balloon is first inserted and inflated to expand the compressed vertebra to its normal height before filling the space with bone cement The cement-strengthened vertebra should cut pain, prevent further fractures, and allow the patient to stand straight

It causes a reduction in bone density and increases the risk of broken bones.

Those with advanced osteoporosis can have severe and unremitting pain - and in cases like Moira's there is little doctors can do to halt or delay the condition.

Like many other scientists those funded by Action Medical Research are trying to make the lives of those with osteoporosis easier and to prevent their condition becoming as advanced as Moira's.

Treatments called vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty - where cement is injected into fractured vertebrae - are being increasingly used in the US to treat osteoporotic fractures in the spine.

Many patients treated with these procedures report almost immediate pain relief.

However, there is still considerable debate about the longer term benefits of these treatments, partly because of suggestions that they may increase fracture risks in nearby vertebrae.

Cement injections

Now a UK team run by Dr Patricia Dolan, based at the Bristol University and Queen's Medical Centre, in Nottingham are looking to see whether the effects of these procedures can be improved by using different types of cement injected into the vertebrae.

A previous study, by Dr Dolan's team, found no differences between vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty in terms of how they affect the mechanics and load bearing of the spine, so they are investigating the effects of vertebroplasty only.

Over the next two years Dr Dolan will study cadaver spines.

"One of the clinical problems with veterbroplasty is that, by strengthening the injected vertebra, it may increase the loading on adjacent vertebrae, and thereby increase their risk of fracture," she said.

"There is currently a lot of debate about this, because osteoporosis often affects many vertebrae in the spine.

"Therefore, once you have suffered a vertebral fracture you are more likely to sustain a second fracture at another level, whether or not you undergo vertebroplasty.

"We want to see whether the placement or the type of cement increases the risk of adjacent fractures."