For 16 years, Kerry Whyman secretly thought she had bone cancer and was dying – "secretly" because she'd stopped telling doctors how much pain she was in.

"I'd wake up and my ankles were swollen and bruised, like they were sprained," says Ms Whyman, 55. "The doctor would ask 'what have you done?' I'd say 'nothing.' He'd send me for ultrasounds and they'd come back normal ... I decided to shut up because I felt I looked stupid."

Kerry Whyman suffers from complex regional pain syndrome, which makes her highly sensitive to noise. Credit:Paul Jeffers

If the pain wasn't in her ankles, it was somewhere else, sometimes in her organs. It seemed to move around Whyman's body at will. And it became more intense when she was exposed to noise. "My television is turned down to the lowest volume possible, and it's still too loud."

She got by all those years on paracetamol, anti-inflammatories and lot of drinking.