Ok, where were we?

It's time to start book 2!

⚡ Welcome back to The Sciatica Newsletter!

This newsletter tracks my research as I write a book about lumbar radicular pain! If you are a new subscriber and want to catch up, click here to look at the most popular of the previous editions, or click here to read/listen to some of my other stuff

📖 It's been two months since I last emailed to tell you that I have finished book one of two of Sciatica: The Clinician's Guide.

After putting the book out there, I took a few weeks off working on anything sciatica-related (I had really been burning the candle at both ends). In the last week or two, I've slowly but steadily been working on the second book. So I think it's time to finally get this newsletter going again! In this edition, I'm just going to catch up on a few things and then we can get clinical again next time.

🚀 The book launch went pretty well! In the run up to the launch, I was genuinely really worried that no one except my mates would buy it. Somewhere along the line I had gone from blogging as a hobby to going 'all in' and making as high-quality a product as I could. It was nerve-wracking to put myself on the hook like that.

As it turned out, quite a lot of people did buy the book! 745 people, so far. Not a life-changing amount, but enough for me to justify spending plenty of time on the next one!

And the feedback has been amazing. I really appreciate every email and message. A lot of people have said the book makes the chaos feel more clear to them. That's really gratifying as that's exactly what I was going for.

🚧 Now it's time for the next one!

I'd love to get the second book finished by the Autumn, when... something else is happening (see below). I think that's a tough but realistic goal. But the thing that would really slow me down would be making the paperback version look good.

Another exciting project!

🚩 I'll also be working on a second big project at the same time. I'm working with my friend and clinical mentor Rob Tyer to build a course on 'red flags' i.e. picking up serious pathology in the MSK clinic. At the moment the working title is 'Real World Red Flags' because we're specifically going to tackle all the complexity, uncertainty and anxiety that comes with the topic. (Submissions for catchier titles are welcome).

Rob is the teacher on this and I'm very much just helping him to put together all his knowledge and wisdom!

🚩 There's a newsletter for the course, too: click here to subscribe. 🚩

Personal news

🟢 After ~3 years of form-filling, bureau-visiting and thumb-twiddling, I've finally got my green card, i.e. been approved for permenent residence in the US! It's nice to be out of limbo and to be allowed to leave the country again. And the card is very cool:

👶 I don't really know how to put into words how happy I am that we are expecting our first child in October. Reckon I'll get the second book done by then...?

Til next time,
Tom

P.S. Take a look at this patient information leaflet, written by the excellent Tina Price, "If Only I Had Known These Things About Sciatica"!