Twitter buddies
I arrived at Glenelg at 8.20 am for an 8.30 start- yes that meant a 4.30am rise as I was baby stalking in Melbourne – and so was feeling pretty pleased with myself that the timing was so perfect. Walked into a crowded room, looked for a seat closish to the front (old ears, old eyes), spotted one spare seat, sat down, turned to my neighbor and introduced myself. Teresa was from Spain (so exciting to meet people who travel so far to catch this amazing pain conference and feeling pleased with myself for a second time today that I had decided to attend a long time ago last year). Sarah next to Teresa was from Seattle (get out of here- more amazement!) Sarah was a physical therapist. Started talking to Teresa- she is an anaesthetist working in private practice managing pain. She suddenly said to me- I think I follow you on Twitter- she checked and yes she did and I already followed her!!! Now how freaking amazing is that. To everyone out there who carries on about Facebook and Twitter, grumbling about the woes of society being due to social media- just stop and think about how social media is shrinking the world. Without even knowing it, we know each other because of the pain info and other incredible things we post through our Facebook and Twitter accounts.  For the third time in a very short time I was feeling very pleased!
The usual stars were there Lorimer (Moseley) and David (Butler)- but there are other stars as well and for 3 and a half hours the incredible Professor Mark Hutchinson dazzled us with his neuroimmunology and neuroimmunopharmacology knowledge. I say to patients when I go through the education component of their consultation that adults may take in only 20% of what I have just said, which is why I give extensive handouts and my book to read. Well today I surmise I took in about .05%.  I know what Mark was saying was incredible, but to make sense of it will take me weeks I think to sort through.
As it is very late I have these little pearls of wisdom from the day.
GLIA IS VERY IMPORTANT!! (SHOUTY LETTERS ESSENTIAL)
Early life experiences primes the glial system – traumatic early life experiences leaves you with life long primed glia (begs the question- What are we doing to the children in detention?)
Be careful what you dismiss as nonsense when hearing new research or a new direction in thinking (so many papers presented from much earlier that were howled off the stage in their day and later found to be full of merit)
There is evidence that there is truth in the saying ‘the power of positive thinking’.
Exercise is very important- even a little bit. Elevate lactic acid level for 5 mins ONLY– distracted immune system is a happy immune system (not drugs and alcohol) activation and control muscles make the immune/nervous system highly resilient – if sedentary- immune system over responds. A very small amount made a difference -neuro protective.
Do exercise pre/post op to get a better outcome with surgery.
In Western culture- take a tablet is our solution- the best treatment could be small amount of exercise and education -simply by talking about it changes the immune response
Neuro immune system resilience needs building.
Talk based therapy +exercise early the answer. A little bit of exercise (maybe as little as 5 mins to disrupt the glia)and pain education do make an enormous difference.
Treating female and male pain is different.
Be careful with morphine.
TENS scrambles the precision of Neurotags at spinal cord 2016EP3
And bed beckons- I know its going to be heavy going tomorrow.

Tim Cocks, Teresa and Dave Butler 2016 EP3