Jo Waters

We all know there are some medications you can’t drink alcohol with or can only take with food. But many of us don’t realise that many everyday foods can also affect how well our prescription drugs work.
Everything from bananas and grapefruit to smelly cheeses, salami and leafy greens can potentially have an impact on how medications work.
The interactions can be particularly hard to avoid if you are taking multiple meds – as do almost half of people aged 65 or over. The numbers taking more t...

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When Louise Mountford was blue-lighted to hospital in an ambulance with agonising pain just below her right ribs, she was convinced something in her stomach was about to burst.
‘I normally had a high pain threshold, but I was crying out with pain even though I was given morphine,’ says Louise, 66, who runs a farm in Shropshire with her husband David, 75.
The opinions and views expressed in the comments section are solely those of the individual users and do not represent or reflect the opinio...

Feeling exhausted every day became the norm for Brigitte Siefken, so much so that she’d have to go back to bed after breakfast or nap in the afternoon just to function.
‘It wasn’t just the tiredness and fatigue,’ recalls Brigitte, 55, a finance assistant, who is single and lives in Nottingham.

Grappling to open a jar or struggling to carry the weight of a heavy bag are all red flag warning signs that your grip strength is declining. It’s not just a minor annoyance either.
"Your grip strength should be taken seriously as it’s regarded as a powerful indicator of overall health and ageing," explains physiotherapist Sammy Margo, director of Smartphysio in London.
"It’s not just about how strong you are, or how good you are at grabbing something either, it’s a window into what’s going o...

Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath frontman, has died at the age of 76. He had suffered from numerous health problems and was diagnosed with a form of Parkinson’s disease in 2019. He had spoken publicly about suffering from the condition, suspecting for years that his shuffling gait and tremor were signs of the disease.
First described as “shaking palsy” by James Parkinson more than 200 years ago, Parkinson’s was once thought of as just a movement disorder, causing the classic triad of tremor, slow...

For the first time, tech companies are being made legally responsible for online harm against children. But do the new rules go far enough in protecting young people, and what do CPs and parents need to know? Journalist Jo Waters reports.
Protecting children and young people from dangerous and inappropriate online content is the ambitious aim of the Online Safety Act (OSA) (Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT), 2023). It’s a long-awaited government move to clamp down on tech...

There are more than 200,000 hip and knee replacements carried out in the UK every year, mostly because of so-called ‘wear and tear’ osteoarthritis, a long-term condition that causes joints to become painful, stiff and difficult to move.
The problem lies in the cartilage, the smooth-cushioning tissue that covers the ends of bones. When this is worn away, pain, stiffness, swelling, or a grinding sensation may kick in. This in turn restricts your movement.
Why joint replacements last longer thes...

A living kidney donor is a person who gives one of their healthy kidneys to someone with kidney failure who needs a kidney transplant (the recipient). Living kidney donors can donate to a family member or a friend, or to someone they do not know (this is known as non-directed altruistic donation). In most cases, a living-donor kidney transplant offers the best long-term health outcome for the recipient.
As a living donor, you are making a significant personal commitment by donating an organ t...

Hair loss in advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) is not uncommon. Although not everyone with CKD will experience it, for those who do, it can be extremely distressing.
People with CKD may lose hair more rapidly than they would otherwise. Kidney disease is a chronic inflammatory state and can affect the whole body including your hair, skin, and nails.
Around 10 per cent of people with end stage kidney disease (stage 5 CKD) experience significant premature hair loss (also known as alopecia).
...

What is conservative kidney management?
Conservative kidney management (also known as conservative care or supportive care) is care to keep your kidneys working for as long as possible without dialysis.
"Conservative kidney management aims to delay progression of kidney disease and treat symptoms, but without replacing kidney function with dialysis," explains Professor Lucy Selman, Professor of Palliative and End of Life Care at the University of Bristol.
"It is about deciding that you won’t ...

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Last year Tracey McMahon woke in the middle of the night with a blinding headache – 'at first I thought it was a bad migraine'.
But, as she recalls, 'when I got up to go to the bathroom, everything suddenly went black and I couldn't see anything. That had never happened before, so I was really worried'.
Tracey, 43, a mental health nurse, who lives with wife Deena, 58, a retired civil servant in Rossendale, Lancashire, adds: 'Deena saw me standing in the bedroom stock still but I couldn't move...

We’ve all been there – you feel a blinding headache kicking in or that itchy rash has flared again and you search your bathroom cabinet, only to find the medication has expired.
Most of us will have an impressive stash of pills and potions to hand too, if research from Co-op Health is anything to go by. Its research revealed a third of Brits (33%) never get rid of leftover medication and another third admitted they have used medication past its expiry date.
The packaging says it’s out of date...