Jo Waters

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...

The Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine is currently denied to those aged over 80 in the UK, but new evidence shows that it is effective for them too.
A study of RSV vaccine effectiveness among US veterans (which included the over-80s) published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal has found that the vaccine reduced hospitalisations associated with RSV by 80.3% and was 78.1% effective against documented RSV infection. And in the over-80s, the vaccine efficiency rate against RSV inf...

Cauda equina is an emergency condition - here's how to spot the symptoms

Sitting paddling in her kayak, Mandy Smith grimaced as she felt another agonising twinge of back pain.
She was also alarmed by new shooting pains now running down the front of both her legs.
‘When I got out of the kayak, I couldn’t stand up straight – I was doubled over with the pain, which quite literally took my breath away,’ recalls Mandy, now 51.
Mandy had been back and forth to her GP three times in late 2021 and early 2022, and went to two physiotherapy sessions. They didn’t really help...

Sitting paddling in her kayak, Mandy Smith grimaced as she felt another agonising twinge of back pain.
She was also alarmed by new shooting pains now running down the front of both her legs.
‘When I got out of the kayak, I couldn’t stand up straight – I was doubled over with the pain, which quite literally took my breath away,’ recalls Mandy, now 51.
Mandy had been back and forth to her GP three times in late 2021 and early 2022, and went to two physiotherapy sessions. They didn’t really help...

Heartbreaking testimonies from young people who were turned away from services and not taken seriously when they were feeling suicidal, were aired during a recent high-profile MP-led inquiry. MPs from the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Suicide and Self-Harm Prevention wanted to hear the young voices behind the worrying suicide figures.
In 2023, 547 young people aged 10 to 24 in England and Wales sadly took their own lives (Samaritans, 2023a). In Scotland, 82 young people died by suic...

Tony Courtney Brown was a far-from-well man when he was taking 24 tablets a day for half a dozen complaints.
Then in his early 60s, he was being treated for depression with three antidepressants, and was given higher and higher doses of the opioid painkiller tramadol, along with gabapentin, both for back pain.
‘I was also taking medication for an enlarged prostate, for constipation [caused by the tramadol], omeprazole [for acid reflux caused by the antidepressants] and Cialis for libido probl...

Whether it’s a creaking noise when you bend them, stiffness when you get up in the morning, or a painful twinge when tackling the stairs, almost half (47%) of the over-50s report suffering from some sort of knee pain.
Around 100,000 knee replacements are done every year in the UK. Hardly surprising when you think that the knee joints are the largest in the body and bear up to three times your body weight when walking, six times your weight when running and ten times more when going up or down...

First came what Jade O’Saye thought was a stye – a blister on the eyelid, although in her case it was on the white of her eye – then pain when she blinked. Within months, her right eye was so swollen and sore it was bulging out the socket.
‘My eye was protruding and really red and angry,’ says Jade, 40, a procurement manager for a travel company. She struggled even to close the eye to sleep.
Not only was it painful, ‘it was completely disfiguring’, she adds.
‘I wore sunglasses to hide it, but...