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Aged 46 - 55

Andy - Interview 04

Andy - Interview 04

Age at Interview: 52
Sex: Male
Age at Diagnosis: 52
Background: Andy is a supply manager in IT and is married with two adult children (twins aged 24). Ethnic background/Nationality: White British.

Brief outline:Andy has chronic pain as well as diabetes which was diagnosed six months ago. His medication includes Avandamet [rosiglitazone + metformin], simvastatin, Xenical, perindopril, amlodipine and doxazosin.

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Andy has chronic pain as well as diabetes so found blood testing painful at first.
Print One of the most difficult things for me was doing my blood tests every two hours. I absolutely hate doing that because I am needle phobic and deliberately stabbing myself to make blood come out is something I find difficult to do. And after about two weeks of doing it every two hours, my fingers were so full of little scar tissues, that I was actually having struggling getting blood out. Getting the machine out and the blood would drain from my arm - 'You're not having any of me'. So how do you manage that now? Well I don't have to do it so often now, I only do it now when I feel a bit, something doesn't feel right and I have to check what my blood is. Right. And did you, did they teach you how to do that? Oh yes. The diabetic nurse at the, when I first saw her, the first time I saw her a few days after I was diagnosed… She said, “Oh I'll give you a machine and you test your blood and this is what you put the sharp thing in here, and you put it on there and you press this button and it stabs you.” I mean they're all very matter of fact. “You know, you have a go”. And it hurt [laughs]. You see, one of the problems with chronic pain, is that little pains become big pains. People don't always understand that. So the little tiny scratch is actually a very sharp pain for me. Because my brain can focus on that compared to the pain in my back. And so it does. It's just one of the problems you have if you're a sufferer of chronic pain.

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