I was born just after the war and I became a charter surveyor. My history of heart problems started in 2004. I just got back from helping move my mother from her house that she just sold into an old people's home.
I got back having sort of delivered the van back to the van hire company and sitting on the sofa watching a game of football I seem to remember and then all of a sudden got a pain in my chest.
Not a particularly crushing pain but a pain accompanied by nausea and a bit of dizziness and somehow something inside me told me I was having a heart attack.
I was not referred by my GP I just saw an advert which talked about people being sought for such a trial and I seemed to tick most of the boxes so heart attacks but also they were talking about peripheral artery disease
and for about three years I had quite severe problems in my right leg which led me to have a shorter and shorter ability to actually walk and do any exercise involving the right leg.
I think those two, the heart attacks and the peripheral artery disease seemed to make me a prime candidate for this particular trial.
The medical side of it was fine. I came up every 12 weeks I think and collected a batch of syringes and took them home, put them in the fridge, popped them in the fridge and took them. I mean I've been quite used to needles for the last few years as you can imagine.
So it wasn't an issue for me to sort of self-inject and it was enjoyable but it certainly wasn't too much of an inconvenience.
My feeling is, call it a sixth sense, that I was actually on the drug and not on the placebo.
So I suppose it would be quite nice to have that confirmed, it would be quite nice to have it confirmed to the contrary I suppose because in a way personally although it doesn't help obviously the drug company
but it would be nice to know that I've kept my level of cholesterol under check anyway so I don't think I'm not really looking and I'm not going to be celebrating however it's found that I did in terms of whether I took the placebo or the drug.
It's the first trial I've ever done. I willingly participated and I'm glad that I did and if my little contribution has helped and will enable other people to benefit from a new drug for the purpose that it's designed then that's great and I shall be very pleased about that.
