A NORTHWICH mother-of-three who suffers from a debilitating pelvic disorder wants to raise awareness to help others get the treatment they need.

Amy Ashbrook, of Roberts Street, in Castle, first started suffering with discomfort 11 years ago during her pregnancy with first born Emma.

But it took almost a decade of ever-increasing pain for the 28-year-old to be diagnosed with Pelvic Girdle Pain (PGP) – a condition in which the three joints of the pelvis do not function properly.

Unable to work, she has to walk with a stick and even struggles to get out of bed some days, but feels if her diagnosis had been made earlier, she could have lived a much more normal life.

She said: “You can’t get out of bed, you can’t lift one leg up and put it in front of the other to walk.

“It stings, stabs and throbs.

“If I had been diagnosed straight away then I would have stood a chance of leading a normal life.

“There’s nothing else that can be done for me now, it’s just a case of managing the pain. Physio helps a little, it keeps me going.”

At one point she was prescribed morphine which led to dependency and eventually an overdose, landing her in rehab for a week.

She said: “I just needed the pain to be gone but what I was taking wasn’t even touching the sides. It was awful.

“I was ill with it for about 18 months, it was my family who noticed that the morphine was making me sick and helped me get it sorted.”

She added: “The pain will never go away but now I’ve finally been diagnosed there is a lot of support, but the issue is getting that diagnosis in the first place.

“There are not enough people who know about it.

“It doesn’t have to be about pregnancy.

“If people just get help in the beginning then they can avoid being stuck at home on benefits because it’s awful.”