NO HELP FOR COMING OFF DRUGS PRESCRIBED BY DOCTORS

PAUL ALLEN, 42, a photographer from Brighton, was prescribed pregabalin for anxiety earlier this year.

‘I’ve been on it for nine months and have spent seven of them trying to get off it,’ he says. ‘After my first dose, I immediately felt dizzy and had panic attacks, and within hours I was having palpitations, but when I went back to my psychiatrist, he doubled the dose.’

Paul tried the higher dose but had to stop taking the pills because he felt so unwell.

However, a few weeks later, he restarted his pills after a period of intense stress and has been trying to come off them ever since. ‘My GP and psychiatrist haven’t really been helping me,’ says Paul. ‘I’ve experienced tinnitus, vertigo and electric shocks when I try to walk. It’s like all my nerves are on fire.

‘Most days I’m left curled up in bed unable to cook a meal.’

He’s now down to two tablets of 150mg ‘but I don’t know if I can get any further without help’.

An NHS rehab centre has recently offered him an outpatient withdrawal programme, where his dose will be gradually tapered down — the correct approach to reduce side-effects — and Paul is hopeful he may be able to come off the drugs completely.

But Harry Shapiro, director of the online drug information service Drugwise, says detox services for patients who’ve become dependent on their prescription pills are few and far between.

‘These people don’t see themselves as drug addicts and don’t want to go to a facility where illegal drug users are also being treated,’ he says. ‘We need the NHS to set up a dedicated helpline for these people and specialist services.’