180: The Relaxback UK Show with Mike Dilke - Episode 180180: The Relaxback UK Show with Mike Dilke - Episode 180
UK Health Radio Podcast
Mike Dilk talks with Dr Simon Thompson about how acute and chronic pain differ, the effects of weather and sleep, and the role of neuromodulation implants in treating persistent spinal pain. The discussion also touches on opioids, cannabis-based medicines, and the emotional side of living with long-term pain.
40:12•1 Sept 2026
Turning Down Pain: Hot Weather, Chronic Conditions and High-Tech Implants
Episode Overview
- Chronic pain is usually defined as pain lasting more than three months and often involves complex changes in the nervous system.
- Pain can be helpful as a warning signal, but long-term pain may continue even after tissues have healed, offering little protective benefit.
- Hot weather can worsen chronic pain by disrupting already fragile sleep and affecting mood, although cold and damp effects remain uncertain.
- Strong opioids for non-cancer pain carry serious risks, including addiction and withdrawal, and often stop working well over time.
- Neuromodulation uses electrical stimulation via implanted devices to reduce certain types of chronic pain and has been shown to be cost-effective in the NHS.
“Pain is a good thing and a bad thing.”
How do people cope with pain that just refuses to go away? That’s the question running through this Relaxback UK Show, where health-focused chat meets straight-talking science. Hosted by Mike Dilk, the conversation centres on pain in its many forms, from the quick sting of hitting your thumb with a hammer to long-term conditions that can dominate daily life.
His guest, Dr Simon Thompson, consultant in pain management and neuromodulation, breaks things down in plain language, mixing clinical detail with everyday examples. You’ll hear why pain can be both “a good thing and a bad thing” – helpful when it stops you putting your finger in the fire, far less helpful when it hangs around for months with no real purpose.
Dr Thompson explains the difference between acute and chronic pain, talks about phantom limb pain where “your brain projects a body image” even after an amputation, and touches on widespread conditions such as fibromyalgia that affect around 2% of the population. Hot weather and mood come up too. Many people with chronic pain already struggle with sleep, and as Dr Thompson bluntly puts it, “Most patients who suffer chronic pain have very poor and refreshing sleep.
And if you’re compounding that with hot nights, then that becomes more of a problem.” He also addresses common beliefs about cold, damp weather and arthritis, and why the evidence is still mixed. For those living with severe, persistent pain, the most eye-catching part of the conversation is neuromodulation: an implant-based treatment using electrical stimulation to switch off abnormal pain signals.
It sounds high-tech, but the way it’s described makes it surprisingly approachable, from “piece of spaghetti” leads in the spine to a watch-sized battery that patients recharge at home. If you or someone close to you lives with long-term pain, this chat offers clear explanations, gentle humour and a realistic look at both the limits and possibilities of modern pain treatment. What could this kind of information change in how you think about your own pain story?
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