#8 - October Newsletter

A summary of the month's insights, stories and a flavour of what's to come

🍂🎃 [Diwali isn’t a readily available emoji - so, let’s use 🕯️] It's that cosy, transitional season—jackets are out, but hand warmers can wait a bit longer.

Traditional decorations for Diwali, Hindu festival of lights. Photo by Sonika Agarwal on Unsplash

For me, it’s a perfect time to observe how my meds hold up as the temperature drops and food temptations rise. Between chillier evenings, busier social calendars, and seasonal treats, I tend to notice an uptick in my inflammation. But with the cold masking the usual signs, I have to remind myself to keep an eye on those flare-ups.

This past month has been a quieter one for InflamMed—less posting, more reflecting. We’re building up fresh content, and I’m excited to share some teasers soon!

What Caught My Attention This Past Month?

• Assisted Dying Debate - Law Change in the UK. The Reuters article offers a broad overview, but leaves much room for reflection. Notably, the report suggests that two-thirds of Britons favour the proposal without delving deeply into why. This statistic begs the question of how societal views on chronic illness and disability shape the broader public’s perception of assisted dying, especially when inclusion in life for disabled people is limited by systemic barriers. If life itself is inaccessible, how might this bias extend to death?

• The New Almodovar film: The Room Next Door. It’s beautifully shot, topical and features two great actresses - Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore. It tackles the complex issue of euthanasia from the perspective of an ex-war journalist who lives in New York and is having no luck with a novel immune treatment for her cancer. 

• Kirsty Young interviews Gabor Maté on her Young Again podcast (BBC Sounds) who shows how trauma can affect the immune system. If you are interested in learning more about Gabor Maté’s work, I recommend reading a well-balanced view in The Conversation: Gabor Maté claims trauma contributes to everything: from cancer to ADHD. But what does the evidence say?

Kirsty Young interviews physician Gabor Maté on Young Again. Photo credit: BBC.

• The Inflamed Mind on BBC Radio 4 exploring the mental health-inflammation connection, thanks to one of our community members for recommending it!

• Dr Chris Wincup, a Consultant Rheumatologist at King’s College Hospital was interviewed on Kuma Health - He talks about Lupus, Digital Health and novel treatment. You can also check out my full interview with Kuma Health here.

• I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Madelleine Müller (she/her) substack (The Bed Perspective), where she talks about navigating her chronic illness from an anti-ableism perspective. I especially enjoyed her recent article on entering and embracing ‘crip time’. 

What We’ve Been Up To

What we’ve presented this October has been that bit more challenging, from lived experience of institutionalisation and dehumanisation in the name of health and care to baby loss. Taking a slower pace this month felt right for everyone involved.

• We’re proud to bring you Ebony Gregg’s voice, supported by Kate Alger’s artwork—a true team effort. Kate will be sharing her final print inspired by Ebony’s story soon, along with insights on using art to calm the fires in our minds and bodies.

• A heartfelt but also practical conversation with Dr Hannah Coysh on the Invisible Insights podcast series showed us that our doctors are also just humans and face miscarriage and grief as well. This is the last of the series, we’ve hoped you’ve enjoyed it! We are gearing up to release a new series in the new year, more focused on inflammation and as always, lead by your personal stories.

• With Sad Blob, our editor contributed a short piece about her own take on Sertraline and depression management.

  

What We Are Excited About

I will be reuniting with Roi Shternin to share our favourite health tech gizmos and engage in an honest conversation on digital health challenges and opportunities for monitoring and guiding care for chronic inflammation.

Listen back to my first InflamMed conversation with Roi. If you are a bit pressed for time, have a look at the bitesize series¹ produced by our editor. 

Finally, I’ll leave you with an autumnal Haiku (with help from ChatGPT):

Silent fire within,

cells whisper of battles fought,

strength blooms through the ache.

Until next time,

Natasha and The InflamMed Team

1. Natasha on “How to Build a Patient Community” with Roi Shternin from Chronically: #1 The Mindset Shift, #2 What’s in a name? #3 A different way for entrepreneurship.