I’ve got the haggard face, the croaky voice, and the hunchback to go with it. I’ll be the perfect witch this Halloween.

Not many people believe me when I tell them I’m suffering my first ever bad back.

“You’ve never had a bad back?” they said when, at the height of the pain, I hobbled towards them, writhing in agony with every step.

I went to bed one night a fit, healthy person, I woke up with backache. And how awful it was. I couldn’t get dressed without shrieking, squealing and begging for someone to come along and put me out of my misery.

“Hard drugs, soft drugs, drugs with purple spots on – I’ll take anything,” I yelled as my daughter bent down to tie my shoelaces.

I assumed that, like most ailments, it would disappear in a couple of days. But a week later, it was still there and I grew used to the feeling that my bottom was on fire as I added heat pads to my daily dressing routine. For anyone who has so far avoided these sticky-backed squares coated with volcanic lava, my advice is to carry on avoiding them.

Deep Heat, Ibuprofen gel, Arnica, chiropractors, physiotherapists – everyone has a bad back remedy to offer. One suggestion, which I quickly passed up, involved hanging by one arm from a banister rail. Being both medication and massage-phobic, I was up for that one, until the words ‘mask’ and ‘suspenders’ were also mentioned.

At least there’s no shortage of information – I don’t know whether it’s because I’m looking, but the papers suddenly seem full of stuff on bad backs. Apparently, there’s been a rise in the number of sufferers due to the country’s financial crisis, with overworked, stressed-out workers hunched for hours over desks.

There’s even a national Back Show – sadly my affliction didn’t come on until afterwards, otherwise I may have donned a surgical truss – and shuffled down to Olympia.

Having written off a string of suggestions before opting for the Nurofen/Zimmer frame solution, it thankfully began to subside – though getting out of bed is still a nightmare.

I know if it returns – which I’ve been told it probably will – I may have to opt for a better remedy. Jujitsushi or fujiyama or something with an oriental-sounding name that involves knuckles, hot coals and lumps of quartz.

I’ve been desperately trying to look on the bright side. As someone obviously unaccustomed to life as most of us know it once said, ‘every cloud has a silver lining’. And, after wracking my brain, I realised that I can at least be a proper, twisted old crone this Friday.