With hindsight, the origins of my husband’s psoriatic arthritis goes back many years. He tells me that he had psoriasis as a child, but I wasn't around then, and it had long cleared when I met him. Both his father and his paternal grand-father suffered from arthritis. The latter's starting in his mid-40s. I don't know what type of arthritis they had.

It was about four years ago now when I was first hit with the devastating news that I had psoriasis. "Psoriasis" what's that?" was the first question that I asked only to discover later how common the condition was. Finding out what I had, in one sense, was a relief because it meant that there actually was a reason for the pain in my joints (mainly elbows, knees and feet at that time], the constant feeling of tiredness and the strange patches on my knees which weren't going away.

I was 18 when I first discovered psoriasis in my scalp, but, after treatment, this was not really a problem. About a year later three of my toes became swollen and were so painful that it was difficult to put any weight on them. My GP thought I had an infection and treated me with antibiotics.

I was twelve years old when I first noticed that my right knee was swollen and painful. My GP referred me to an orthopaedic specialist, who aspirated my knee and sent the fluid off for analysis; a procedure that I was to endure regularly for many months! My leg was put in a full plaster cast and soon after I was admitted to hospital for a tissue biopsy. I spent the next nine months having my knee aspirated weekly, and finally my parents were told that I had septic arthritis.