Kate Maciver, RGN, BScHons, PG Dip Counselling, MSc

The BBC article Pain “linked with low vitamin D” said

Low levels of the sunshine vitamin, vitamin D, may contribute to chronic pain among women, scientists believe.
 
The link does not apply to men, suggesting hormones may be involved, according to a study published in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases said.
 
Kate MacIver of the Pain Research Institute at Liverpool University cautioned: “Taking too high a dose of Vitamin D supplements as a means of preventing or treating chronic pain could result in Vitamin D toxicity and high blood calcium levels.”

Kate Maciver, RGN, BScHons, PG Dip Counselling, MSc is Research Fellow, School of Clinical Sciences, University of Liverpool.
 
Kate has worked in the field of nursing and pain management for over 30 years. For the past 13 years she has worked exclusively in the field of chronic pain, first as a clinical nurse specialist at the Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery Pain Management clinic in Liverpool, using a variety of techniques to help people in pain, from neuromodulation to cognitive behavioral therapy.
 
For the past 4 years she has worked as a Research Fellow at the Pain Research Institute in Liverpool. Her research interests include quantitative sensory testing and mechanisms of neuropathic pain, working towards developing a standard clinical quantitative sensory testing programme to help clinicians make a more accurate diagnosis in people with neuropathic pain. In addition she works within a programme of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to investigate the cause/effect of brain activation in chronic pain conditions.
 
She has investigated how amputation changes activation patterns in the brain, which are linked to phantom limb pain, and how these abnormal patterns and the pain can be reduced by mental imagery phantom limb pain. She is also investigating brain changes after spinal cord injury, and the effect of spinal cord stimulation on central pain in Multiple Sclerosis and spinal cord injury.
 
Kate coauthored Phantom limb pain, cortical reorganization, and the therapeutic effect of mental imagery. Read Phantom Limb Cure: Retraining the Brain.