The Journal Archives

In this episode, I talk about fibromyalgia – one of my enduring interests and specialist subjects. As we all know, fibromyalgia is a very complex and difficult condition to understand from the perspective of many musculoskeletal physicians. There is a huge percentage of people with fibromyalgia who struggle with back pain, and often it is very important to understand the core issues within this poorly understood and often stigmatised condition so that you can institute a holistic and appropriate therapy for these patients. Indeed, I would argue that we need to be providing a very comprehensive strategy for patients with fibromyalgia who have back pain. In this episode, I discuss the most recent neuroscientific advances in our understanding of the pain in fibromyalgia. This was recorded way back before the pandemic in the ‘Before COVID’ (BC) era! 

I chat with Iwan and Ben about the Pain Free Mindset and why understanding and classifying the kind of pain in myelopathy is important so that we can create the appropriate treatment strategy for such patients. Myelopathy is a very difficult and extremely challenging condition often presenting with significant amounts of neuropathic pain– strategies for pain management, therefore, need to be holistic, integrated and comprehensive, embracing both the drug and the non–drug treatments equally. I hope you like this interview. 

In this podcast we discuss deeper about long COVID and the challenges we have in recognising, understanding, diagnosing and then managing patients who were presenting with long COVID symptoms. David spends a lot of time in the US and it was enlightening to understand how the North American continent was viewing long haul COVID with regards to managing such patients, especially with the nature of the healthcare system and funding provisions. This was certainly a very thought-provoking conversation and I hope you enjoy.

Alicja Wypasek – a registered Nutritionist and fellow BSLM graduate Ian Taverner – Mr. Cookfulness himself join me for a session titled Pain-Less Nutrition – can food change your pain? 

I think nutrition is a very important strategy for pain management, one that is being better understood in the last 5 to 10 years, so I hope you see this and get not just an idea on why an anti-inflammatory diet is important but also how easy it is to do something about it for your good health. 

Penny Post and the 4LEGS radio is a very popular and well-regarded electronic newsletter and radio broadcast service covering the Berkshire West area.  

As well as running his own podcast channel Paul also runs a community radio broadcast service for the Berkshire West area. He is one of my patients and it was a pleasure to talk to him about our new understanding of how to live well with pain – Paul himself is a shining example of keeping active despite being in pain.