How Britain got hooked on pills that may be making us MORE ill
. . . and how one pioneering GP proves it — by finding out the true cause of his patients’ illnesses
WHAT happens when the pills don’t work? Despite repeated attention from doctors and endless prescriptions, many people don’t respond to treatment, which means their illnesses can blight their lives for years.
It’s these kinds of patients who are at the centre of a compelling new series of the BBC show Doctor In The House, in which Manchester-based GP Dr Rangan Chatterjee lives with them and suggests some remarkably simple lifestyle changes and alternative approaches (from supplements to meditation) to help them.
‘All the time I see patients who don’t need a pill, they need a change of lifestyle,’ says Dr Chatterjee.
‘We doctors are really good at treating acute problems you can get rid of with a drug — infections, pneumonia, for example. But outside acute cases, too often we provide a treatment that suppresses symptoms without looking for a root cause, and so people take pills long term for an issue that a small change of lifestyle might have solved.
‘We need to recognise that lifestyle can cause conditions — take type 2 diabetes, for example — but lifestyle can cure conditions, too.
‘We need to use the lifestyle approach first in more cases, before we start trying pills.’
Usually we’re told GPs don’t have time to tackle lifestyle problems. ‘But we can’t keep putting sticking plasters on people’s problems because we have only ten minutes — that argument has to stop,’ adds Dr Chatterjee, author of the forthcoming book The Power Of Balance: The Revolutionary Four Step Plan For A Longer And Healthier Life.
His concerns are backed up by figures. In 2015, GPs dispensed more than a billion prescriptions — that’s over 50 per cent more than the number a decade ago — and it costs the NHS almost £10 billion a year, according to NHS Digital. And Dr Chatterjee is not a lone voice. Last year, health charity The King’s Fund called for patients to have access to a wider range of options through ‘social prescribing’ — i.e., non-medical referral options.
So can the simple approach Dr Chatterjee advocates really make a difference?
In an exclusive preview of the series, we reveal what happened . . .
I’M NO LONGER TIRED ALL THE TIME
Nicola SiNgletoN, 40, from Bolton, had been diagnosed with an underactive thyroid gland, iBS, chronic fatigue syndrome (Me) and fibromyalgia, and was taking 16 tablets a day to help with pain and fatigue. She is married to ian, 42, a teacher, and they have three children, cameron, 18, logan, 13, and Zachary, seven.
NICOLA SAYS: This time last year, I thought there was every chance I’d be bed-bound by now. I had become a heavily medicated zombie — but the pills weren’t making me any better.
I was on massive doses of painkillers. Every day, I took eight co- codamol tablets, four naproxen and two 300mg pregabalin tablets, as well as pills for my thyroid.
I felt foggy-headed, as if I were a spectator in life: I wasn’t contributing and wasn’t the mum or wife I wanted to be. I was always utterly exhausted. Think of your most tired day and times it by ten. That’s how I felt.
It started during my last pregnancy. I was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid and also felt bloated after every meal. Two years on, in 2014, I was exhausted and was diagnosed with ME, too. Then, a year ago, every joint started hurting, even those in my fingers. My GP said I had fibromyalgia and gave me the painkillers.
I couldn’t string a sentence together at times and everything was an effort. I tried to make myself walk every day and go to the gym three times a week, but I would be so tired afterwards I couldn’t think straight.
I had no great expectations about what Dr Chatterjee might do.
He gave me a breath test for something called SIBO, an overgrowth of bacteria in the small part of your bowel that can cause bloating. I tested positive so he gave me antibiotics, and the bloating improved.
He also gave me 17 supplements — probiotics and vitamin D (as my levels were low) as well as others such as B vitamins to help with energy. And he suggested a new diet — I called it the no-fun diet: no gluten, no wheat, no added sugar, no alcohol.
He advised me to stop going to the gym and, for a short while, to stop my walks, too — I needed to allow my body to heal.
I began to make the changes in October last year and by the third week of November, I was feeling much better — less pain, more energy.
The hardest thing was coming off pregabalin. I had been taking it for six months and when I stopped, even with a tapering dose, I had constant headaches for a week every time I cut down. I’ll never take it again.
I’ve lost 2 st 5 lb and am sticking to the diet. I walk every evening without problems, as well as doing meditation and yoga. Over Easter, I managed to walk up Rivington Pike, a hill in the Pennines. It’s hard to explain how happy that made me feel.
I take co-codamol once a day and naproxen occasionally. I now have the pieces of the jigsaw I need to make myself better.
DR CHATTERJEE SAYS: One of the best moments of my career was receiving a text from Nicola from the top of Rivington Pike. It had been a distant dream for her. I was tearful telling my wife the story.
Nicola had a suitcase full of diagnoses and pills but they weren’t really helping and instead contributed to her problems.
The first day I met her, we went for a 30-minute walk. About two-thirds of the way through, she could no longer speak. Her body’s ability to generate energy had gone. That’s why I told her to stop going to the gym.
I started by looking at her gut. A cardinal feature of SIBO is bloating within 30 minutes of eating — also, some studies are connecting the condition with fibromyalgia. Refined carbohydrates may cause the bacteria linked with SIBO to grow.
I put her on supplements such as CoQ10 and B12, as these have a role in generating energy.
I really think if she keeps going with it all she can be cured.
90 HEADACHES A WEEK CUT TO TEN
For years, gemma BulliventHughes, 35, suffered around 17 cluster headaches a day. She lives in Macclesfield with her husband Simon, 46, an aircraft engineer, and their two children, ethan, nine, and Sienna, two.
GEMMA SAYS: Over the past two months since seeing Dr Chatterjee, I have sometimes gone a whole day without a headache. It’s amazing.
Until late last year, I would have 80 to 90 a week — day and night. I hadn’t slept through the night since I was 21, which is when my headaches began.
Cluster headaches are also called suicide headaches because they are so excruciatingly painful. I have given birth twice but these headaches beat that. The pain spreads from the back of my head across to above my left eye, which starts watering. I can’t move or open my eyes and can barely speak. In the past I’d have to lie down for anything from five to 45 minutes and then they’d stop abruptly.
As soon as one ended, I would spend the next hour rushing around trying to get everything done before the next one hit.
Doctors tried me on three or four painkillers, including prescriptionstrength codeine. I even had intravenous painkillers (an opium painkiller) and steroid injections in my head, but they didn’t touch it. Dr Chatterjee sent me to a chiropractor to try to get to the bottom of it. She sent me for an X-ray of my neck, which showed that it was curving the wrong way.
The chiropractor thought it was due to an injury — I was in a car crash when I was 15.
I saw her 12 times and she worked at gently changing the curve with manipulation. It was so subtle that sometimes I thought it couldn’t be doing anything — but it did. Dr Chatterjee also sent me to an osteopath who found some stiffness in my back and treated that. ( Osteopaths focus on muscle and soft tissue work, while a chiropractor looks after the spine). I took supplements which he said might help and he tried to reduce my stress with meditation, but I think the chiropractor had the biggest effect. Now I have ten headaches a week at most. It’s lifechanging, not just for me but also for my kids. Before, Ethan would be late for school because I’d have to lie down and he’d have to look after his sister. Now I can watch him play a whole football match without having to lie down in the car. It sounds so ordinary, but now I can be a normal mum. DR CHATTERJEE SAYS: I’ve never seen someone who has headaches as bad as Gemma’s. She’s been under the care of her GP and neurologist for ten years, but no one has investigated the root cause. There was no single problem — she had a mechanical issue with her neck, which we thought might be putting pressure on nerves and contributing to her head pain, but other things played a part, too. I took several approaches: supplements including CoQ10, a vitamin-like pill that may help reduce headaches, meditation to help with stress and I sent her to an osteopath and chiropractor. Some doctors might regard using a chiropractor as controversial because it’s alternative, but I sent her to one who has specific training in neurology and experience in treating this kind of problem. It’s impossible to say which approach helped most, but I’m so happy that she is much better. DoCtor in the house starts on May 15 at 9pm on BBC one.