I really think it's a cocktail - I tick lots of boxes. I come from a cold climate, with lots of heavy metals in the atmosphere, I have a family history of autoimmune diseases (that is my brother - Bell's Palsy, sister and niece -Lupus/SLE and myself - MS and thrombocytopenia), I have always had lousy circulation and I also had a BAD case of adult chicken pox and teenage mono to boot.

I had lots of annoying, but transient symptoms for a number of years, but when I crashed and burned my way to a very speedy diagnosis I was in the grips of the most stressful event of my life - nursing my beloved mum through the last weeks of end stage cancer and then losing my job on top of that.

I think it's like a perfect storm - when all of the conditions are right BAM it happens.

Just my very humble opinion.