Healthy boy given 'life sentence' after waking up one morning in horrific pain
23.05.2022 - 11:17
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
A young boy begged his mum to get his leg amputated after he was diagnosed with a condition so excruciatingly painful it is nicknamed the ‘suicide disease’.
Dillon Wilford, 10, from Bolton, had been healthy before he woke up one morning limping and in horrific pain. His heartbroken family spent months trying to find a diagnosis before he was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) in late January. The syndrome can cause persistent severe and debilitating pain.
The condition is so sensitive that even the slightest touch to the affected area causes severe pain. The cause of CRPS is not known, but the rare condition can often be the result of the body’s abnormal reaction to an injury.
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Dillon first started showing symptoms back in November 2021 when he woke up with a limp – he spent the day at school but by the end of the day he was left in debilitating pain. After months of hospital visits and many stumped professional's, Dillion was finally diagnosed with CRPS by a doctor in his local Bolton Hospital.
Dillon’s mum, Melanie Wilford, is now trying to raise £100,000 to take Dillon to America to get specialised treatment that’s not available in the UK. Single mum-of-four Melanie, 47, and her daughter Maddison, 24, have been helping to care for the in-pain schoolboy. You can donate to Dillon's fundraiser here.
Melanie, a student nurse, said: “We’re raising 100k for him to send him to America, a clinic in Arkansas. It includes light therapy, oxygen treatment, they do things that they don’t in this country to look at his condition. It’s a 16-week treatment and it’s every single day. They do over a