Airing Pain

This edition is funded by Grünenthal. Almost 100 million EU citizens have chronic pain, but there is still much progress to be made in improving diagnosis and treatment. Pain Concern’s Rowena Jacobs attended the fifth Societal Impact of Pain symposium to find out how patient groups, healthcare professionals and policy makers are coming together to push pain up the agenda. We hear about a successfu...

This edition has been funded by Pfizer. Physiotherapy, exercise, medications and clinical psychology all play an important role in pain management, but what happens if these treatments don’t give people the relief they need to get their lives back on track? For some patients, more invasive treatments can make a big difference, but there are often difficult decisions to be faced, as Paul Evans disc...

This edition has been funded by a grant from the Moffat Charitable Trust. How can people left disabled and housebound by chronic pain be supported to live independently? Producer Paul Evans visits two Edinburgh-based organisations with different approaches to transforming the lives of people in pain. The Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living (LCIL) is run by disabled people for disabled people with...

This edition has been funded by Pain Concern’s friends and supporters. In this edition of Airing Pain we hear about how people in pain can take an active role in their care through shared decision making and technological tools. ‘Being collaborative is fundamental’ for managing pain, says Dave Tomson, a GP working on the MAGIC Programme (Making good decisions in collaboration). He speaks to Produc...

This edition has been funded by the City of Edinburgh Council and NHS Lothian’s Self-directed Support Innovation Fund. In the second of our two programmes focusing on young carers for people in pain, we hear about the effect of pain on relationships between parents and children. Family therapist Liz Forbat explains how pain can disrupt transitions from childhood to independent adulthood, especiall...

This edition has been funded by the City of Edinburgh Council and NHS Lothian’s Self-directed Support Innovation Fund. Lost childhood, financial burden, emotional turmoil and guilt – these are some of the challenges facing young people who care for people in pain on top of the caring itself. They’re often left feeling invisible, going unrecognised and unsupported for years.  In the first of two pr...

This edition has been funded by a grant from the Scottish Government. 'You have to learn to live with it.’ Pete Moore’s GP told him after running out of treatment options for chronic pain. From his own experiences of learning how to live with pain, Pete Moore developed the Pain Toolkit (first a leaflet and now a multimedia web resource) to help kick-start other people’s efforts in self-management....

This edition has been funded by a grant from the Scottish Government. ‘Pain medicine isn’t good at dealing with the effect of pain on the person’, says Jonathan Bannister, head of the multidisciplinary pain team at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee. Paul Evans visits the clinic where Mr Bannister and some of his colleagues talk about how they care for people in pain. We hear about the difficulties of get...

This edition has been funded by a grant from the Scottish Government. If only pain were visible... Deborah Padfield talks to Presenter Paul Evans about her project collaborating with people with pain to produce works of art that represent their experiences. Her photographs are co-creations, using objects and ideas brought to the studio by the orofacial pain patients from University College Hospita...

This edition has been funded by a grant from the Scottish Government. We hear about two very different ways of giving people in pain the knowledge and power to help themselves. Will we soon be able to get a prescription of yoga on the NHS? Christine Johnson speaks to yoga teacher Anna Semlyen about a study that shows yoga can be an effective and cost-effective treatment for chronic low back pain....

Delving into the issues surrounding opioids and healthcare within prisons and investigating the relationship between memory and pain. This edition has been supported by a grant from the Scottish Government.  Paul Evans talks to Dr Cathy Stannard, a Consultant in Pain Medicine at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, who outlines the use and misuse of opioids in chronic pain management. She points out that...

This edition has been supported by a grant from the Scottish Government.  Paul Evans meets Dr Paul Davies, a Consultant Neurologist from Northampton General Hospital, who explains that whilst most headaches are benign and can be self-medicated, some headaches – those that are frequent and very painful – require medical attention. He outlines the different types of headaches, including migraines, t...

This edition has been funded by a grant from the Scottish Government. At the launch of a new guideline on treatment of chronic pain in Scotland, Paul Evans speaks to patients and healthcare professionals about how to raise awareness and improve care. Marion Beatson and Susan Scott describe the struggles they both endured in trying to get appropriate care after developing chronic pain. They both ho...

This edition has been funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All Programme in Wales. In the previous edition of Airing Pain we explored the pros and cons of taking pain management into the community. This time Paul Evans travels to Powys – the most sparsely populated county in Wales – to see how community pain management works in practice at the programme run by Ystradgynlais Community Hospit...

This edition has been funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All Programme in Wales. ‘Good pain services, based in the community will make a huge difference to the lives of individuals and the NHS’, says Sue Beckman, speaking on behalf of the NHS’s Delivery and Support Unit at the Welsh Pain Society Annual Scientific Meeting. But what does moving pain services into the community mean? Beckman...

This edition has been funded by a grant from the Scottish Government. Christine Johnston heads to Brussels to investigate the impact that pain has on society as a whole at the Societal Impact of Pain lobby group’s fourth annual event. Christine talks to Neil Betteridge of Neil Betteridge Associates which promotes a holistic approach to pain management. Betteridge explains that early intervention i...

This edition has been funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All Programme in Wales. 'Imagine how it feels like if you’re in pain and people won’t help you.' Like other healthcare professionals, nurses can sometimes struggle to understand the perspective of people living with pain. At a training day for student nurses devoted to chronic pain, Gareth Parsons impresses on his audience the impor...

This edition has been funded by a grant from the Scottish Government.  In this edition of Airing Pain Paul Evans explores the possibility of controlling pain through techniques that focus on the brain and the mind. Paul meets Aleksandra Vuckovic, a rehabilitation engineer at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow, who is conducting research into the use of neuro-engineering techniques to control...

This programme was funded by the Scottish Government. Migraine is not ‘just a headache’ – it’s a disabling condition that can cause major disruption to work and personal life. So says David Watson, a GP who specialises in treating patients with chronic headaches.  Dr Watson explains that the ‘migraine brain’ is extra sensitive to changes in the environment, how small changes to lifestyle can help...

This programme was funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards For All programme in Northern Ireland. Healthcare professionals and people with pain need to work together to manage chronic pain conditions, but how is this achieved in practice? Paul Evans speaks to a GP, physiotherapist and clinical psychologist to find out more. We begin by hearing from GP and pain specialist Neville McMullan about his...

This edition has been funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All Programme in Northern Ireland. In this edition of Airing Pain , Paul Evans speaks to experts from Belfast and London about the similarities, differences and challenges in treating pain in infants and the elderly. Maria Fitzgerald, Professor of Developmental Neurobiology at University College London, mentions the outdated theory...

This programme was funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards For All programme in Northern Ireland. In this edition of Airing Pain , Paul Evans travels to Northern Ireland to visit a patients’ organisation, the Patient and Client Council. The Council provides patients with an independent voice in the health and social care system by involving those who live with chronic pain in the decision-making p...

This programme was funded by the Big Lottery Fund's Awards For All programme in Northern Ireland. Paul Evans visits an endometriosis support group in Belfast, and interviews founder Anna Jaminson and guest speaker gynaecologist Dr David Hunter. Dr Hunter discusses the research about how endometriosis develops and people living with the condition describe their experience in depth, including the im...

Presenter Paul Evans travels to Northern Ireland to meet a multidisciplinary pain team at Craigavon Area Hopsital, including doctors, psychologists and physiotherapists, led by Dr Paul McConaghy. We find out how cases of chronic pain are discussed by experts of different disciplines and how management strategies are then put into place. The importance of educating GPs about chronic pain is discuss...

This programme focuses on pain in children and young people, including the different needs they have and the unique challenges that their care presents compared to adult patients. Paul Evans and Christine Johnston talk to experts at children’s hospitals in Edinburgh and Glasgow about the strategies they use for helping young people to cope with pain. Although there are obvious differences between...