The worst pain I’ve ever had. I’ve broken bones that haven’t hurt as much. At its worst you can’t bear anything on it, not even a bed sheet. You have to kick off that end of the bed. So even in the freezing cold, that foot has got to be out of the blankets. Quite often, when it spreads up the leg, it’s very difficult to find a position where you can actually lay, that it doesn’t hurt. Even if it’s not touching anything, it’s still got to lay on something. It does tend to, pulse with the heartbeat, and so you don’t need to take your pulse, you can feel it. Yeah, that’s it. For a man I don’t think theres a description, like the woman saying that, it was worse than childbirth.

It’s painful. I mean I would get out of bed, and literally stand there, just working up the courage to take a step. Once you start taking the steps, after a few, it’s down to a level where you can carry on then, but that first two or three steps are you think that if you put your foot down you’re going to fall over, because you can’t, you can’t stand it.

I could just barely stand up and I couldn’t wear the shoes I always wear. I had to borrow a pair of giant flip flops because that was the only that would be comfortable around my foot, and it was a shuffle movement which – because it was so painful I shuffle and wobble, which means I bang into doors, and to – and my legs get bruised because I’m banging into things because I’m not walking straight. So I get lots of bruises with gout and very painful gout. Like I say the shoe, can’t wear any shoes of my own, they have to be transferred to – it’s actually a friend of mines – what do you call them now, toethe flipper type shoes, so they’re wide open.

At that point wherein, you’re almost going to get better after you’ve done your – I’ve done two rounds of the colchicine eight a day, or six a day or whatever, then when, when the diarrhoea will start. Diarrhoea starts but actually you’re still much in pain. How do you run to the toilet? Because you really, really, really have to go. That’s what colchicine does. You, you run and in pain and, and you just collapse there and, and you deal with it, or you just stay there for a long time, because then it might come again, don’t know how I can walk back to the toilet, sort of thing.

I try to hide the fact that I’ve got it. I will try to walk normally. I might be in excruciating pain, but because I regard myself as being fairly fit, when I’ve got it I tend to feel embarrassed that people might be looking at me and think, Oh what’s the matter with him? That’s not the problem, it’s when they say, What’s the matter with you and you say, I’ve got gout, you know, theres stigma to it. It seems to roll onto the sort of how it looks and socially is it accept not acceptable but how do other people, going back to some of those questions you asked earlier about how do people regard you and whatnot, there is a stigma to it without a doubt.

Has it had an impact on your day-to-day life?

Well, it’s just, you know, damned annoying, and painful. I suppose I get about a bit more slowly. I tend to sit down more, with my feet up, you know. But, it hasn’t stopped me working, I mean it hasn’t stopped me going out and walking up the road and walking down the road, but it’s been painful, you know.

So, is there anything it has prevented you from doing?

I don’t think so, no.

Theres nothing you can do and at times you just at times you don’t sleep. You can’t put your foot down. You have to find some way of walking. You can’t tolerate anybody being there. You can’t tolerate, you know, to put a sock on is can be excruciating. I mean I remember at times I just couldn’t even put a sock on and I just came to work with no socks once, but I managed to get a shoe on. Having to buy I remember once, this is the most extreme example; that I bought shoes that were about three sizes too big so I could get a shoe on.

Well the main thing with me has been shoes. I can’t couldn’t get many of my shoes on and I kept thinking, Oh it’ll go down, it’ll go down. But I did get sent for an x-ray and they said that I had arthritis in both big toe joints. And so I thought, Well if I’ve got arthritis and this gout’s come along to add a bit more to it, I probably am never going to get those shoes on again. Which in fact was true, I couldn’t get the shoes on again. And that, because they were girlie shoes, that really was a disappointment. I know it might sound a bit trivial to people but it’s like your image of who you are isn’t it? And I felt very old as well. You know that kind of feeling, Oh dear I’ve joined the old age pensioners now, you know.

Because of the shoes?

No, no the shoes and the gout, you know, the fact that in fact I haven’t told many people I’ve got gout.

Why do you think that is?

Because it feels so old I think. It feels as though it’s something that people sort of in their dotage have, not young people. Or young I mean I’m not young, but in my head I’m young, yeah.