Excellent outcome of a patient with acute back pain and osteoporotic fracture- A case report

Rheumatoid arthritis is one of the common inflammatory diseases affecting predominantly women. Steroids and anti-inflammatory drugs have been used for decades in managing this condition. Long term steroids have potentially devastating consequences in any multisystem disease and commonly described side effects include Cushing’s syndrome, diabetes and osteoporosis. Fragility fractures are more common in these patients. We report a patient with back pain and osteoporotic vertebral collapse whose neurological weakness was diagnosed and surgical fixation was done to help the patient improve dramatically. Steroids cause an osteoporotic collapse of the vertebra i.e. fragility fracture and appropriate timely intervention would result in an excellent outcome. Collaboration with other specialists greatly helped to get the treatment early even during this covid pandemic.