Well luckily the people that come to look after me as it were, they know that I can get – it does, it makes you irritable because it’s painful and it’s – it’s uncomfortable and you want to go to the loo but you know that simply just by getting up and shuffling to the loo, it’s like going to be a main thing to do. And it’s going to be painful to do. So people do come and I am ratchety, but they know it’s because I’m in pain.

It’s very sharp, which is quite for me inflammation doesn’t mean sharp, but particularly if theres any contact. I mean, you couldn’t I used to have it on my big toe joint was the inflamed bit. You couldn’t lie turned on your side in bed, or anything like that. You know, I had a pillow under my knees and I kept my foot off the, off the bed because even that level of pain was was fairly excruciating when it was a bad bout.

So did it affect your sleeping as well?

Yes, yes, because when you turned over.

So was the pain there sort of all the time, but it was worse if you moved it?

If you tried to walk, or, or anything touched it. I was very wary of folk were moving around me, Don’t come near. When you see these old, you know, funnies about the old soldiers with well, the old boozers really, with great bandages around their feet and what-not and yelping if anybody came near them. I’m not surprised, because you don’t want anybody near it.

I think most people are, like family, theres a lot of ignorance about gout and most people don’t understand what it’s about. If you talk about a serious illness like cancer, just as an instance, most people when you mention that know sort of the implications that that has. When you talk about gout, most people haven’t got a clue as to what it is, and the impact it’s having on you, and I found that obviously with family. It’s not until you sit down and talk to them about it and say, Right, this is what I’m going through at the moment or they come round and your knees swollen or your foot’s swollen and they say, God, what’s the matter with you? It’s gout, this is what it does. That’s the sort of impact. It’s more of me educating them as to what the problem is because they don’t know, as I said, what gout is all about.

It really affects my life, not only my job but inside the house as well with my family, with my kids and with my wife. I can’t really perform the duties of a father and a husband, because I only lie down in the bed, I can’t even go to the toilet, I really have to ask my wife to assist me, and just a little bit things like – I’m quite irritable, or just like I – because of the pain that I can’t handle really.

I can’t do the usual way that I was doing it with my kids, I can’t – I can’t play with them, I can’t teach them, with their studies, you know. And with my wife I cannot do the usual husband what they are doing, you know what I’m saying, then you see you can really just only a useless person inside of the house, yeah. That’s what I can say if I have an attack. Yeah.

You feel like a useless person?

Yeah, yeah. A useless person really because you can’t do anything. Yeah. And you know all the people inside the house are really affected as well because they can’t – they can’t – what I mean they can’t do anything in their usual ways as well because they have a sick person inside the house. Yeah. Because the pain that you’re experiencing during the attack of gout is really, really worst