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Airing Pain

Airing Pain

Written by: Airing Pain
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About this listen

 Airing Pain is the online radio programme and podcast from Pain Concern.

Each edition we bring together people with chronic pain and top specialists to talk about resources that can help.

You can listen to Airing Pain every Tuesday via Able Radio, with all episodes available on demand here and on our website.

Or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast app to get the latest podcasts delivered straight to your mobile or tablet.

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Pain Concern is a charity registered in Scotland SC023559. Hygiene & Healthy Living Physical Illness & Disease Political Science Politics & Government
Episodes
  • 150: Pain Education Classes: Learn to live well with pain

    150: Pain Education Classes: Learn to live well with pain
    Sep 16 2025
    Pain Education Classes – Learn to live well with pain

    “A life-changing experience” – Lindsay McLean, Airing Pain #150
    This episode of Airing Pain 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 more about their pain and the toolbox of techniques available to manage it.
    These sessions are the result of a unique collaboration between Pain Concern and the NHS. They are available both online and in person (in Glasgow, run by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s pain management team). Find out more in ‘Additional Resources’ below.
    “[The sessions] offer hope”
    “If you can learn to turn the volume of pain down, you can bring back joy and an ability to participate in life”
    “Now I’m in control of the pain instead of the pain being in control of me”
    Watch Lorimer Moseley’s ‘Why Things Hurt’, as highlighted by educator Joan Melville, here – https://youtu.be/gwd-wLdIHjs?si=ckR6O4CN7LPM9a9K.

    Contributors: Dr David Craig, Joan Melville, Georgina McDonald, Mairi McWilliams, Lindsay McLean, Heather Wallace.

    This podcast has been produced in collaboration with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

    Pain Concern thanks the following funders for their unrestricted educational grants: Richer Sound; NHS Lothian Charity, The National Lottery Community Fund; The Hugh Fraser Foundation; The Trades House of Glasgow Commonweal Fund.

    Additional Resources:

    Explore our free Pain Education Classes and sign up.

    If you have any feedback about Airing Pain, you can leave us a review via our Airing Pain survey
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    43 mins
  • 150: Trail - Airing Pain 150: Pain Education Classes - Learn to live well with pain

    150: Trail - Airing Pain 150: Pain Education Classes - Learn to live well with pain
    Sep 9 2025
    2 mins
  • 149: Why pain persists: from childhood trauma to faulty immunity

    149: Why pain persists: from childhood trauma to faulty immunity
    May 21 2025
    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 are more likely to have chronic pain later in life. What scientists think is happening is that psychological trauma or other stressful events actually change your immune system.
    • Shafiq Skikander adds that a lot of patients with fibromyalgia may have had early life stressors. In addition, when they come to clinic presenting with fibromyalgia, they usually have a history of depression.
    So how does this happen?

    • Gareth Hathway explains that slowly but surely, our understanding of the basic mechanisms is advancing. We now understand that babies do feel pain, young people do feel pain. It has a long-term consequence. We need a specialist approach to managing pain at every part of the life course. We need to think about how we measure that pain and how we treat that pain.
    The interviews were recorded at the British Pain Society’s Annual Scientific Meeting, 2024.

    Contributors:

    Shafiq Sikander, a professor of sensory neurophysiology at the William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University, London.

    Gareth Hathway, professor of neuroscience at the University of Nottingham’s’ school of life sciences.

    Kathleen Sluka, a professor in physical therapy and rehabilitation science at the University of Iowa in the United States.

    Thanks

    The interviews were recorded at the British Pain Society’s Annual Scientific Meeting, 2024.

    This programme describes research using laboratory animals that is consistent with Pain Concern’s Humane Care and Use of Animals in Medical Research Policy.

    Additional Resources:

    You can join our Airing Pain online community:

    Airing Pain online community

    If you have any feedback about Airing Pain, you can leave us a review via our Airing Pain survey


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    35 mins
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