I had shingles a few months ago and was given tablets. The blisters have gone but I still have pain across the side of my ribs where they were. Will it go away? Something I noticed, during lockdown was a larger-than-usual number of my patients getting shingles. It’s a nasty …...Read More

Advertisement I have made it my life’s mission to search out the most perfect lakes to swim in – and Britain is blessed with remote and bracing bodies of water that cry out to be enjoyed. From Lake District classics to distant Welsh wonders and bracing lochs in Scotland’s wildest …...Read More

Summerland Cert: 12A, 1hr 39mins Rating: Proxima Cert: 12A, 1hr 47mins Rating: Cinemas – at least in England – have been open for three weeks now, sustained by a mix of popular classics, more recent films that had their original cinema run curtailed by the pandemic and one or two …...Read More

BBC iPLAYER, ITV HUB & ALL 4 Fort Salem Three American teenagers (Ashley Nicole Williams, Taylor Hickson and Jessica Sutton) are off to do their basic training on a prestigious military course. But it’s not West Point. It’s Fort Salem – and this is special forces with spells. Ashley Nicole …...Read More

Taylor Swift Folklore Out now Rating: Taylor Swift’s Instagram is quite something. While following nobody herself, she has 137 million followers. Even if half of those accounts were fake, she would still have a vast audience, hanging on her every selfie. On Thursday she had news for them: at midnight …...Read More

A 3D-printed ‘cage’ could spare hundreds of Britons disabled by agonising bone fractures from limb amputation. The new metal implant, available on the NHS, replaces bone in the shin and encourages new bone cells to fuse against it. Unlike traditional last-ditch attempts to save crumbling bones in the lower leg, …...Read More

Of all the ways I imagined spending my 37th birthday, crying in the rain outside a London hospital was not one of them. But there was a good reason. I’d just found out that my second round of IVF, and final chance of NHS-funded treatment, appeared most likely to have …...Read More

It's a life-saving procedure I’ve witnessed – and carried out myself – dozens of times in the almost two decades I’ve worked as a doctor: a patient’s heart being shocked by a defibrillator. I watch as the body of the man in front of me, surrounded by highly skilled A&E …...Read More

eart rate variability (HRV) determines time between each beat and how it varies If, like a third of Britons, you own a fitness tracker, you may already count your steps, track your sleep quality and keep a tally of calories consumed and expended. And, reasonably, you might also think that …...Read More

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article about bananas. Specifically, whether eating one was ‘the same as’ consuming six teaspoons of pure sugar. It might seem like an odd thing to wonder – but I’d seen detailed charts online that suggested as much. In fact, these infographics, as they’re called, …...Read More