In this report, Mik rails against NICE’s (the National Institute for Health Care Excellence) recommendations that people manage chronic (long term) pain through exercise, mindfulness, acupuncture and psychological therapies instead of medications like opioids. Mik says the severe pain he’s lived with for 40 years is often so bad he can’t even get out of bed, let alone do yoga or eat ‘mung beans’.
“When you have a kind of pain that is so intense that it takes all your effort to make sure you don’t bite down so hard your teeth shatter – and I know this because I have already done it and have had to have my teeth replaced – you can’t focus on meditation,” says Mik.
Listen to Mik’s story here.
Click below to get a sense of how bad Mik’s pain is.