Anorexia: Shropshire runner's battle led to broken sternum and curvature of the spine

Aimee Woosnam, from Shropshire, was diagnosed with osteoporosis when she was 21

"I need to choose either anorexia or running and I'm choosing running".

The words of Aimee Woosnam, who had realised the eating disorder - which began in her teens - might kill her if she didn't turn to pulling on her training shoes in earnest.

At the age of just 21 however, anorexia had taken such a toll that while taking part in a race for life challenge she broke her sternum because her bones had become so brittle.

Aimee, from Shropshire, said she had been half way through a race at RAF Shawbury, where she suddenly had "one almighty pain in my chest" and thought she was having a heart attack.

"I was in absolute agony," she said. "And, it turned out that I had actually fractured my sternum."

"That was the point I realised just how weak I was."

But it was also a turning point for Aimee.

She said she told her coach: "I don't want to be anorexic anymore, I want to be a good runner."

'Stress and pressure'

Her anorexia symptoms had earlier emerged as a teenager amid the stress of starting her GCSEs a year early.

As a high achieving pupil she had got good grades and was put forward to do one exam 12 months early, followed by an AS Level in French while still in school.

"When you've got stress and pressure in one area of your life, you start to focus on other areas of your life which aren't so helpful and for me that was dieting and healthy eating," Aimee said.

Her decision had been partly inspired by growing up in Bomere Heath, where she was surrounded by confectionery because her parents ran the local sweet shop, she told BBC Radio Shropshire.

"As a kid it was brilliant, because I had all the sweets, all the chocolates that I ever wanted," she said.

"I did have a really happy childhood."

Left hunched

Despite the temptation though, Aimee says she maintained a healthy diet and was very active playing in fields and jumping off corn bales.

Her problems had started emerging though when she was 14-years-old, she recalled.

She said teachers had started to recognise she was achieving high grades, but she had started to feel the pressure.

In the following years, the condition steadily worsened and she suffered a series of fractures in her back and was left hunched over and permanently facing the ground.

A series of fractures left her with a curvature in her spine

As time went on, her friends and family began to notice her eating habits had changed and how she had started to isolate herself.

Seven years into her battle with the eating disorder, at the age of 21, she was diagnosed as osteoporotic, having weak and brittle bones that had led to the sternum fracture.

Determined not to given up running, she had joined a running club five years earlier, before suffering a series of compression fractures in her spine, the first whilst walking her dog.

The fracture left her with a curvature in her spine, leaving her unable to hold her upper body up.

Aimee only acknowledged the problem in 2020, after visiting a walk-in centre at a hospital with a really bad cold, where she was told by a doctor her real problem was her spine.

As part of a procedure to straighten her spine, she wore a weight tied tied to a halo which was attached to her head

On the road to recovery, she underwent the first procedure to straighten her spine at the Robert Jones and Agnus Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Gobowen.

For more than eight weeks, she spent 15 hours a day sitting down with a big weight tied to a halo that was attached to her head.

She would have a break only to use the toilet, eat, and sleep.

'I could see fields'

The surgery though was a success, with surgeons completing the final part of the procedure by inserting two titanium rods into her spine, to pull her back as far as possible to straighten her back.

"All of a sudden I could see things in front of me," she said, recalling the moment she first stood up after the surgery.

"I wasn't just seeing the floor and that was just amazing, because even in the years that I'd been running I was seeing these grey pavements, and all of a sudden I could see fields around me," she said.

The 37-year-old also had two titanium rods inserted into her spine to help straighten her back

Now 37, Aimee has not looked back following that decision 16 years ago, and she is still running.

She is now studying for a masters degree and hopes to become a sports lecturer in the future.

She said running "feels so much easier now," adding the feeling of it is "just the best ever."

'Whole new wardrobe'

"I can run, I don't have to stop to have a rest, I'm not getting out of breath," she said.

"I'm 7cm taller now and I've had to buy a whole new wardrobe."

If you have been affected by themes raised in this article, help is available from the BBC Action Line.

Additional reporting by Oprah Flash and Shehnaz Khan.