GREAT PAINS

Laying on my bed in my Bath uni flat, I was filled with dread in the dark as the excruciating pain flooded through my back, legs, feet and arms.

I hadn’t slept for more than 20 minutes at a time since I was eight years old because of the pain, and now I could feel it gradually getting worse again.

I was 18 at the time, and it had been ten years since I first started getting symptoms of CRPS, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.

It began with unbearable pain in my left foot which came out of nowhere.

‘It’s a sharp stabbing pain all over,’ I cried to my parents, Lucy, 57, and David, 56, as a child.

Struggling to walk and unable to sleep without waking up in agony after 20 minutes, I went to the doctors.

‘It seems like it’s