11 Feb 2010
Pain kept her awake at night
She was in so much pain that she would sometimes cry in bed at night.
Retired schools clerical officer Aberdeen Sng, 73, suffered a gamut of pain from arthritic knees to shingles to a bulging spinal disc.
Her knee problem was the first to show up over a decade ago, when she began finding it difficult to squat. Walking caused her pain too.
Doctors told her she had 'water on the knee', a condition where arthritis leads to fluid accumulation in the knee joint.
It got so bad that she eventually needed knee replacement surgery in 2008 for her right knee, followed by a few months of physiotherapy and rest.
Now, she can sweep the floor and climb the stairs to get to her third-storey apartment if the lift breaks down.
However, that was not the end of her pains. Towards the end of 2008, she developed shingles.
While the rashes were mainly in her upper abdomen and back, the pain seemed to be all over, said Madam Sng. At the time, she did not know she had shingles and tried to soothe the pain by applying Chinese medicinal oil.
'It was very painful. I would cry at night as I could not sleep,' she recalled. Her ordeal went on for nearly two months before she finally saw a doctor and was given medication.
Unfortunately, there was more suffering in store for Madam Sng.
Since last year, she has been having pain in her spine that she can only describe as 'nervy' and which radiates from her lower back all the way down to her calves.
After a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan at a hospital, she was diagnosed with a bulging spinal disc, with the protrusion pinching the nerves. She was given tablets to suppress the pain but they did not help after a while.
Doctors then recommended a steroid jab, which she resisted taking as she was worried about the procedure.
However, the pain, which strikes suddenly, has become unbearable and she has decided to have the injection after Chinese New Year.
Her pain doctor, Dr Tan Kian Hian, Singapore General Hospital's Pain Management Centre director, said that if the steroid shot does not work, the next option is a nucleoplasty procedure to shrink the swollen disc.
This works by subjecting the nucleus of the affected disc to radio waves via a catheter to break down the disc tissue.
Despite her years of pain, the wife, mother of one son and grandmother of three teenagers is upbeat. She continues with her household chores and takes part in social activities such as choral singing at her church.
'I take it one day at a time now,' she said with a grin.
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