Hi,

I am a bit of a House addict - I find it hard to watch television but I've really got into House. In one episode they think that someone has CRPS because he has such bad pain in his arms and they put an SCS in which doesn't work because it's something else. The ketamine issue was very interesting as it did work for a while - in the episodes following he is walking without the cane, skateboarding, running to work and building up the strength in his leg. A couple of months later the pain starts coming back (it is hinted that it's due to re-injury and over use from the running/ skate boarding/ general messing about).

Part of what I love about House is that a lot of the medical stuff is bull****, when do you see a doctor taking an x-ray? or a team for that matter! The only time I've had an x-ray by a doctor was when I dislocated my shoulder and the end of my humerus had moved onto my chest and the radiologists couldn't get a decent picture of it because we couldn't move my arm and as I have almost no movement anyway I couldn't move in the positions they wanted me. It is ridiculous when doctors are hanging IV's etc (although the patient almost always gets worse with the doctor in the room, I suppose it would spoil it otherwise).

It is also an interesting commentary on chronic pain. He regularly says that he has to work, but that to do that he has to take the tablets. The reaction of everyone around him to him taking vicodin and complaining that his pain is not being adequately controlled are met with derision and the assumption that he is an addict. In one episode he get placed on Methadone, and whilst it leaves him almost pain free, walking better and able to work everyone has a go at him, calls him a drug addict and he is nearly fired.

In my personal opinion I really enjoy the show although I realise that much of the show is perfectly ridiculous (it's even funnier if you live outside the US, my mum was amazed by some of the ways they treat patients as we are used to a socialised medical system where even an urgent MRI can take weeks).

At the moment I haven't found anything better to watch than House - but that just shows how rubbish the rest of the TV programs are - how can we have 300 channels and NOTHING on.

Love

Rosie xxxx