I sat down in an armchair in our new house – we’d moved in a few days earlier – and realised that my thumb was aching, painfully.

That was seven years ago. Over the next days and weeks, the aches spread. I couldn’t use my hands as normal. Getting lids off jars was impossible.

I put it down to the stress of moving home and business – my husband and I co-run a yacht design business, and had just relocated from London to Lymington in Hampshire. I was exhausted.

Two weeks later, I suffered what I now know was a full-blown rheumatoid attack. Every joint in my body ached, I couldn’t get up from my chair or drive, as raising my arms to steer was impossible. I climbed stairs like an old woman.