'My condition started with minor wrist ache - what followed was a nightmare'
manchestereveningnews.co.ukJohn Burns stared up at his ceiling, pain searing through every part of his body. It was 3am and the dad-of-one had to be up for his teaching job in just in a few hours.
But John knew he wasn’t going into work today. Calling in sick had become a habit for the dad-of-one – there were rarely days he wasn’t writhing in agony, every movement like shards of glass being stabbed into his joints.
It’s a scene all too familiar with those who suffer with arthritis. John, from Didsbury, was 44 when he received his official diagnosis – triggering the start of a six-year nightmare. READ MORE: 'Horrendous condition left me too embarrassed to go outside - I couldn't even use my hands' “My worst days were when I would have to get up for work,” he told the Manchester Evening News. “I’d have to be up for 6.40am, but I wouldn’t have woken up because I’d have been awake most of the night anyway. “I knew at 3am I wasn’t going to make work.
The following hours would just be horrendous because they would be so depressing. “I couldn't surface out of bed until my body warmed up, it would sometimes take up to three hours.
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