NDPH's Starry Night

I very much hope you can join us in raising funds for those afflicted with NDPH this Christmas, at 7:30pm on 2nd December 2014, at St James' Church, Prebend Street, Islington.


PLEASE CLICK ON THE ICON ON THE RIGHT TO ENTER OUR WONDERFUL ONLINE AUCTION, OR ON THE TICKETSHOP LINK ABOVE TO MAKE A DONATION.


Start the festive season with a bang, and come and enjoy readings from everyone's favourite panto dame Christopher Biggins, newly-minted national treasure Clare Balding, the most badly behaved grumpy Doc on TV Martin Clunes, and the beauteous, TV-presenting, mastercheffing Jodie Kidd.


The night will be awash with general Christmas joy, not to mention some roof-raising carols, and I very much hope you can join us in raising funds for the treatment of those afflicted with NDPH, whilst enjoying a cheeky post service mulled-wine or two and a raffle and auction stuffed with goodies (that, conveniently, all make excellent Christmas presents!)


As most of you know, by December 2014, I will have been lucky enough to have been symptom free from NDPH for over a year, but every day I think of all the other people that haven’t been, that are still living with it, if indeed you can really call it ‘living’, as it is a life nearly entirely governed and usurped by pain.

There is still no definitive cure or treatment for NDPH – a term I heard too many times was “resistant to aggressive treatment programmes”. From my brief experience of it, it is a cruel, cruel condition. It invades every aspect of your life, and the daily pain, which I can only describe as feeling at times like you were having your face pressed into flames, makes a ‘normal’ existence nigh on impossible. As with so many illnesses, the havoc it wreaks on a patient’s daily ability to function filters down into wider problems with their job, finances and of course family and personal life.

NDPH is very rare and subsequently does not enjoy a high level of research funding. An aspect of my treatment that I found invaluable was seeing a pain psychologist. Heartbreakingly it very often takes years just to be diagnosed with NDPH, and waiting lists for the country’s few specialists are enormous. Hopelessness, isolation, fear and despair are words that feature all too frequently in the numerous online NDPH support forums.

Pain psychology sessions not only provide sufferers with essential coping and pain management tools, but also with equally vital help to understand and overcome the often significant psychological trauma of having lived with the condition for so long before diagnosis.

All monies raised through the carol service, raffle and auction will go to providing pain psychology treatment for a number of patients that can’t afford it.

We really do have the chance to give some patients and their families a little bit of hope this Christmas, so I very much hope you can join us in supporting them.

Thank you so much...