We’re still working on the cover design for our upcoming book Understanding Sciatica - a frustratingly long back-and-forth process with the designer that I wish I’d started much earlier… In the meantime, I thought I’d re-send this podcast that Annina and I recorded in September 2020. It’s still the most popular episode of the pod. Might nerve pain …

Thanks for reading the 38th edition of my newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research as I write a book about lumbar radicular pain! EDIT - The sound quality of this podcast is quite poor - you have been warned. I will try to transcribe it one day. This edition, it’s my pleasure to bring you my conversation with Ash, a project manager from Chenn…

Thanks for reading the 31st edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research as I write a book about lumbar radicular pain! Hi from San Jose, California, where I’m visiting the in-laws! Here’s part two of my chat with Adam Dobson, where we discuss neuropathic pain, nerve assessment, exercise and rehab for sciatica, and more! Fi…

Thanks for reading the 30th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research as I write a book about lumbar radicular pain! I must say things have been pretty quiet on the book front this week! In the time I’ve had to work on it, I’ve mostly just been wading through the literature. It seems like on any topic there’s really only…

Thanks for reading the 25th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research as I write a book about lumbar radicular pain! This week I spoke to Kate Charlton again! When we spoke last year, she was recovering from her second bout of radicular pain, getting back into her training and everything was going well. Since then, Kate’…

Thanks for reading the 19th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research into all things lumbar radicular pain! This week I spoke to Professor Raymond Ostelo! Raymond recently published a fantastic review of the evidence behind the treatment options for sciatica (link should be open access). In our conversation, we talk abo…

Thanks for reading the 17th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research into all things lumbar radicular pain! For this week’s podcast I spoke to Mark Laslett! Here’s the timestamps for our conversation, with some links to one or two papers Mark mentions: 1:38: On somatic referred pain. 2:40: “Do you have a theory of what'…

Thanks for reading the 15th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research into all things lumbar radicular pain! Today I was up bright and early to attend Annina Schmid's online course on assessment of entrapment neuropathies. Annina was kind enough to talk with me afterwards for a podcast! Our conversation mostly focused on…

Thanks for reading the 13th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research into all things lumbar radicular pain! This week I’m talking to Giacomo Carta. Giacomo is a basic science researcher in neuromechanics, neurorepair and neuroplasticity. He’s also a physical therapist! We discussed his research and his hopes for the fut…

Thanks for reading the 11th edition of my sciatica newsletter. This newsletter tracks my research into all things lumbar radicular pain! This week's podcast is a Sciatica Story with Drew Jordan Drew got sciatica about one year ago. He was on holiday and tried surfing for the first time which seems to have triggered it, and he spent a lot of time si…

This is a repost from 2018, an article caled Wired Into Pain: a history of the science of pain. I hope you enjoy it. I’ve also recorded an audio version to go with it! [2024 AUTHOR’S NOTE: I think this piece (from 2018) is still a hugely valuable introduction to the history of pain science, rich in detail. But there are some mis-steps towards the e…

Welcome to the eighth edition of my sciatica newsletter! This week’s podcast In this week’s podcast, I talk to Michelle Angus. Michelle is a consultant physiotherapist working for the Complex Spinal Team in the Emergency Village of a tertiary spinal referral centre at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. In this podcast, she tells me about: * Managi…

Hi and welcome to the seventh edition of my sciatica newsletter! This week's conversation is with Kate Charlton, a physiotherapist and triathlete from Northumberland, England. Kate has had two nasty episodes of sciatica and in this podcast she tells me about what it was like, what did and didn't work for her, and how she graded her return to sport.…

Hello and welcome to the sixth copy of the newsletter! In my TherapyLive talk I pitched that when we treat radicular pain we should think in terms of nerve health and sensitivity rather than nerve compression (although the former includes the latter!). To illustrate what I mean by "nerve health" I showed pictures from a study by Albrecht et al. in …

Hello everyone! Welcome to the fifth copy of the newsletter. I was delighted to speak with David Butler a couple of weeks ago about nerve root pain. With his permission, I recorded our chat so everyone could listen. And then I realised I’d started a podcast! I’ve avoided the temptation to give it a cringey pun title and just gone with “The Sciatica…