Airing Pain

This episode is produced in partnership with the British Pain Society. The interview with Sam Hughes was recorded at their 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting. Can nature and mindfulness help pain? This episode of Airing Pain looks at the interplay between nature and mindfulness, and how they can become part of the pain management toolkit.  Nature and neuroscience. Understand the science with Dr Sam Hu...

This episode is produced in partnership with the British Pain Society. These interviews were recorded at their 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting. The 2026 Annual Scientific Meeting is just weeks away – register here . Amongst other things, here we tackle the taboo subject of acute period pain, highlight how changes in primary care are improving the pain management landscape, and discuss common miscon...

‘if you’re treating people in pain, you’re treating autistic people in pain’ Do neurodivergent people experience pain differently? The simple answer – and the slightly more complicated one Why you, or your patients, aren’t recovering  Building relationships across neurotypes Pain thresholds, pain anxiety, pain communication… With Dr David Moore, Reader in Pain Psychology at Liverpool John Moores U...

This episode of Airing Pain explores how social factors impact the onset, experience and treatment of pain.  …understanding how things like your thoughts, your fears, your social interactions influence your biology can be really, really powerful…  …you're not just dealing with the pain, you're holding it in for everyone else… …we normalise, and even celebrate, different types of pain for different...

'Now I’m in control of the pain instead of the pain being in control of me' This episode explores the transformative impacts of pain education classes. Featuring excerpts from a live education session, here we look at how a brief, free course—delivered by trained volunteers with lived experience—is empowering people to navigate life with chronic pain.   Listen to hear how patients are learning mor...

Airing Pain #149: Why pain persists: from childhood trauma to faulty immunity This edition of Airing Pain looks at the research into why pain persists, how we can identify people at risk and whether we could prevent it happening. In this episode: How does acute short-term pain turn into chronic, persistent pain? Kathleen Sluka explains that people who experience psychological trauma at young ages...

This edition of Airing Pain focuses on advances in understanding and managing chronic pain, from neuroimmune mechanisms to new diagnostic and treatment approaches. In this trailer, listen to excerpts from the full program on: how does acute, short term pain turn into chronic, persistent pain? Why do early life experiences affect later life pain?  And why do existing tools for measuring pain fall s...

Full Episode available: 5/3/2025 This Airing Pain episode explores how neurodivergent individuals experience pain, potential links to hypermobility, and the need for better education to support conditions like autism and ADHD.  Neurodiversity refers to the different ways a person’s brain processes information.  It is an umbrella term used to describe a number of conditions including Autism or Auti...

Artist Jason Wilsher-Mills has lived with pain and chronic polyneuropathy since he was a child. In this interview he talks about his recent exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London called "Jason and the Adventure of the 254"

"Susan Birth, Chief Executive of Ehlers-Danlos Support UK, explores the challenges faced by individuals with Ehlers-Danlos syndromes and hypermobility spectrum disorders, touching on symptom management, NHS navigation, and promising new research."

"Simon Harvey, General Manager of Able in South Wales, discusses supporting adults with learning disabilities, autism, and neurodivergent conditions. He reflects on the podcast's relevance for families and individuals, sharing personal insights about pain management and raising autistic children with ADHD."

  Airing Pain 148: Links between hypermobility and neurodivergence Released on: 5/3/2025 This Airing Pain episode explores how neurodivergent individuals experience pain, potential links to hypermobility, and the need for better education to support conditions like autism and ADHD.  Neurodiversity refers to the different ways a person’s brain processes information.  It is an umbrella term used to...

This episode of Airing Pain focuses on person-centred care. Person-centred care is based on the individual rather than on a generic group of patients.   In this episode:  Vicky Sandy-Davis, Lead Nurse of Independent Health and Social Care, talks about the importance of recognizing the value of person-centred care, specifically for people with intellectual or learning disabilities  Ian Taverner and...

Airing Pain 146: Irritable Bowel Syndrome & Inflammatory Bowel Disease        This edition of Airing Pain focuses on two conditions affecting the gut: Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Both affect the digestive system, and both cause pain. In this episode we learn about what separates these outwardly similar sounding conditions, how they are diagnosed, and wh...

Coming 9th October:  This edition of Airing Pain focuses on Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) – two outwardly similar sounding conditions, but the devil is in the details.  Our contributors are experts on visceral pain, gastrointestinal disease, and psychological factors affecting chronic conditions; find out what they have to say in the latest edition of Airing P...

Airing Pain 145 Rethinking Pain: Pain Management in the Community   This edition of Airing Pain centres on rethinking the traditional clinician-patient relationship in pain management and exploring alternative approaches to bringing pain management back into the community.   Dr Barbara Phipps, GP and Lifestyle Medicine expert, discusses the development and benefits of group consultations for pain...

Coming 14th August: This edition of Airing Pain centres on rethinking the traditional clinician-patient relationship in pain management and exploring alternative approaches to bringing pain management back into the community.   Is the 1-to-1 doctor-patient consultation the best we can do? How can we help people to feel more empowered in managing their own pain? Our contributors are experts in pain...

Airing Pain 144: Dilemmas in Pain Research   This episode of Airing Pain focuses on the challenges that researchers must overcome when researching pain and developing new treatment approaches. Many questions remain unanswered in the field of pain research. For example, we might know that a treatment works for some people living with pain, but we might not know how it works or why some people benef...

Coming 12 June: This edition of Airing Pain focuses on the dilemmas and roadblocks that researchers encounter when researching pain and developing interventions, how they may overcome them, and why systematic reviews of research are so important. Our contributors for this edition are leaders in this field and they discuss some of the issues they have encountered whilst conducting their research in...

This edition of Airing Pain focuses on the treatment of pain, the importance of catering treatment to a person’s individual genetic makeup, and why addressing the psychological dimensions of pain is crucial in treating it effectively.  The process of finding a medication or treatment that works for a person often involves a lot of trial and error, which can be a frustrating process for someone to...

Coming 10 April: This edition of Airing Pain focuses on the treatment of pain, the importance of catering treatment to a person’s individual genetic makeup, and why addressing the psychological dimensions of pain is crucial in treating it effectively.   Our contributors for this edition discuss the ways in which the treatment of pain can be made more effective for people by incorporating personali...

Pain Concern would like to remind listeners that the topic of chronic pain can be uncomfortable for those with lived experience of chronic pain. Please read the description for information about this edition's content.  In a 2020 US study, it was found that ‘Implicit bias remains a contributor to healthcare disparities.’ This can be based on gender, ethnicity, disability or locality, and has the p...

This edition of Airing Pain sheds light on the unique challenges of living with cancer as a child or young adult, and the later impacts of the cancer treatment they underwent during the critical formative years. Airing Pain speaks to experts on the longitudinal impacts of cancer for these age groups; across medical, physical, and psychosocial.   Pain and fatigue are commonly reported as the most s...

This edition of Airing Pain is on the topic of early childhood experiences.   (Content warning: includes abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction)  The World Health Organisation states that ‘adverse childhood experiences (ACE) can have lifelong consequences on a person’s health, and well-being, and can lead to a person developing persistent pain in later life’. A lot of this research is conducted...