Disaster of docs’ pain pill culture
Rise of addiction to prescription medications
When a GP prints a prescription, you assume it will go some way to solving your problem. Ant McPartlin would have thought that when prescribed the painkiller Tramadol for chronic knee pain that began two years ago.
The Britain’s Got Talent and I’m A Celebrity host would have struggled to work without something to ease it, and few would question a medical professional’s conclusion that the opiate-based painkiller was a reasonable solution.
But this week a broken Ant checked into rehab, addicted to the painkiller. The solution had become a terrifying problem.
Across the Atlantic, golf legend Tiger Woods has also admitted checking into rehab, again because of addiction to painkillers – in his case Vicodin, a US opiate. A mix of paracetamol and hydrocodone, it was prescribed for a back injury.
But the prescription sheet is a great leveller, and these celebrities’ stories have simply highlighted a widespread problem.
More and more readily, we are being prescribed powerful drugs which, without proper monitoring and support, can lead to addiction and, in extreme cases, overdose.
Opiate-based painkillers used to be reserved for post-surgery and cancer treatment. But last month, NHS Digital figures revealed prescriptions for them doubled in the past decade, from 12 million in 2006 to 24 million in 2016.
For Tramadol, they almost doubled between 2006 and 2012 from 5.9 million to 11.1 million.
Campaigners claim the nation is being over-medicated and no one is dealing with the fallout. Speaking as part of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependents, Harry Shapiro, of DrugWise, calls it “public health disaster hidden in plain sight”.
He says: “The percentage increases of prescriptions of these types of opiate-based painkillers have been going up hugely in the last decade or so. GPs have increasingly less time to spend with patients. People are in pain, they want pills and it’s easy to write a script and job done.
“The problem is they don’t have time to do proper assessments before prescriptions are written, there is little or no monitoring of prescriptions once they have been written and, over and above what people can get from doctors, you can buy what you like online.” Harry continues: “This is not a GP bashing, they are under huge pressures, but it is a public health disaster not being addressed.
“With these drugs, the more you take, the less effective they are. That’s why people end up taking higher doses, and why people end up with dependency problems and potentially overdose.”
Eytan Alexander, of UK Addiction Treatment Centres, runs six residential rehabilitation centres in the UK. He estimates around 15% of his clients now come to him with an addiction to prescribed medication. He says: “We had a lady recently who came in who we had to detox off Zopiclone, a sleeping drug.
“Taken as prescribed it is OK, but for extended use you find it doesn’t work particularly well and you might take some more.
“It’s when people take it into their own hands and they are unaware of the addictive potential, that’s the problem.
“They think, but the doctor has given it to me, can it be that bad?”
Eytan adds: “Families can be shattered by this. The person is not present all of a sudden, and also the secrecy. You’re not going to tell if you know you’re taking four tablets when you’ve been told to take one.”