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Active mum left unable to remember wedding day, walk or bath herself after chronic pain turned her life into ‘a car crash’

A mum-of-three trapped in chronic pain says her life has turned into ‘a car crash’ after being left her unable to walk, climb stairs and bathe herself.

Paula Wildman had enjoyed an active lifestyle until thee years ago by swimming and surfing. The 51-year-old, from Southport, now struggles to get out of bed in the morning due to agonizing chronic pain and ‘can’t even remember the day of her wedding’ due to the drugs she must take to numb the pain.

It first developed after she suffered a foot infection during the first Covid-19 lockdown of 2020. She told the ECHO: “It all started just as Covid hit in March.

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“The best way I can describe it is that it was like a green spot. It spread all over my foot to the point where I couldn’t walk properly. I had to walk on my tip-toes because it was so painful. I I only managed to speak to them over the phone, they prescribed me a cream and that was it – and it did get slightly better.

“Then a few weeks later I started having pain all over my body. I thought it was due to walking on my toes for so long. I was in so much pain I couldn’t even go to the toilet by myself.”

Paula says she and her family tried several times to arrange appointments at her GP practice, St Mark’s Medical Center on Derby Road, but that she was only able to see her doctor face-to-face on one occasion in the past two years. Otherwise, she was given phone consultations, in which she was prescribed a laundry list of strong painkillers.

She said: “I phoned the doctors twice last week and every time the phone cut off on me. They have been saying they have an issue with their phone lines for three years now. On my third try I finally got through and I was in so much pain I said I didn’t even need to see the doctor, I just needed to speak to someone.But the lady said ‘you’re too late, there aren’t any appointments left’, and told me to call 111 .”

She was told to go to Southport A&E, where she was given even more morphine with instructions to take it four times a day, as well as her existing medication. She continued: “After getting the morphine, I panicked. I thought ‘I can’t take this any more’. I thought ‘I’m going to end up dying without knowing what’s wrong with me’. They have just given me drug after-drug.”

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She added drugs she must take each day to numb her pain has resulted in constant memory problems – and that she ‘can’t even remember the day of her wedding’.

Paul said: “I’m normally a happy-go-lucky, mobile person. I used to swim and surf. Now I’m trapped and housebound. Even things like going shopping, I can no longer do. My life has gone from Amazing to a car crash in three years.I have three children and a husband and it affects them too.

“My 14-year-old daughter has to help me wash, and she shouldn’t have to do that. That’s something you expect when you’re 80, not 51. I’ve had to buy a new car because I’m more comfortable with just the one pedal, and now we’re looking at selling our house because I can’t get up and down the stairs.”

A spokesman for NHS Cheshire and Merseyside in Sefton said: “We do not comment on individual patients but would ask her to contact us to discuss her concerns.”

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