Career Progression
I started my career in Physiotherapy by being interested in acute orthopaedic trauma, which brought me into contact with patients with complex regional pain syndromes (CRPS). I then developed an interest in various chronic pain conditions from different aetiologies that included neoropathic pain and found myself in the realm of pain management.
From my earliest experiences of treating patients, I realised that the addition of specific electrical currents and acupuncture expedited treatment and was more effective than physiotherapy alone. I then investigated and studied various types of electrical currents, specifically transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, functional electrical stimulation and more recently developed currents that produced positive changes in inflammation, mobility and oedema and those currents that had a consistently positive impact on hyperaesthesias.
I joined Prof E A Shipton’s Rand Multidisciplinary Pain Clinic in 1997 and gained more experience in treating many types of pain conditions often not normally encountered in general practice. On Prof Shipton’s advice, I joined the International Association for the Study of Pain to increase my knowledge of pain management and then commenced a period of self-study from 1996 to the present day, attending many international courses and congresses.
I was invited in 1996 to join the Council of the South African Pain Society as it was then known and published many articles and two studies (one full research and one pilot study) in the SA Journal of Anaesthetics and Analgesia (including other SA journals) and in international journals (Pain Reviews 1999, Pain 2007).
I attended a meeting in Bad Aibling, Germany with Professor Christian Barnard, among others to present my research on modified direct current and in Freibourg, Germany at a pre-congress course of the International Association for the Study of Pain, Vienna 1999.
I have represented South Africa and presented lectures as the sole physiotherapist among clinicians at the First Pain in Africa Congress in Alexandria, Egypt 2000 and in Tripoli, Libya 2006 at the Second Pain in Africa Congress. I have also presented a workshop for the International Association of Acupuncture for Physical Therapists (IAAPT) in Hong Kong 2005 and then continued into China with a group of physiotherapists from different countries to visit hospitals and universities from Guangzhou to Shanghai to increase my experience in this field.
I have presented courses on pain management at the Pretoria Academic Hospital and in Johannesburg for physiotherapists. I was selected in 2007 to be on an International Task Force for the International Association for the Study of Pain for the Global Year against Pain in Women until October 2008 and have subsequently published a Fact sheet and co-authored a review article on Pain in Women with HIV/AIDS, in the journal, Pain and had an article published on this subject on the World Confederation of Physical Therapists website, among other activities to publicise this project.
I have published four books, the first, Action Potential Currents 1999. The second, the Journey to Pain Relief (JPR) was first published in South Africa 2003 and then revised and published in the USA 2007 and more recently, Introducing the Stimpod - a non interventional pulsed radiofrequency current in 2014. The Journey to Pain Relief was written to help both patients and physiotherapists as pain management is a team approach and I intended the book to support courses on pain management and provide physiotherapists with a useful tool that assists them in managing many types of pain conditions. I knew that the book would also become a great source of comfort to pain sufferers and enable them apply self-help techniques and also assist their care givers/therapists in providing the best treatment options.
I have also presented lectures and workshops in Australia, USA, Israel, Germany, Egypt, Libya and New Zealand from 1999 to the present day.
I presented lectures, three times a year for Hospice, South Africa to educate Palliative Care Nurses with non-pharmacological pain management. I also provide lectures for patients on pain education and coping strategies for Cancer Support Groups, the Arthritis Foundation and other Chronic Pain Support Groups.
Since 2009 and ongoing, I have continued research into non-interventional pulsed radiotherapy treatment to reduce neuropathic, neurogenic and nociceptive pain and symptoms and I have been encouraged by results that have demonstrated improvement in gene expression that ameliorates chronic pain conditions. I have lectured internationally and published case histories on this subject, including a case series on patients who had post operative elbow repair and a single blind randomised placebo controlled trial on patients with diabetic neuropathy.
I continue to educate at the University of the Witwatersrand University on pain management as an associate lecturer in the Physiotherapy Department.