Patient blasts ‘barbaric’ new painkiller guidelines
A WOMAN who relies on heavy duty painkillers just to get out of bed says new health guidelines may kill her.
Heather, from Huddersfield, has suffered with excruciating ‘10 out of 10’ pain on a daily basis for decades.
She takes drugs normally reserved for the most severe accident victims – morphine and fentanyl – just to get out bed.
She has dubbed new guidance by NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) to deprive chronic pain sufferers from getting the drugs as “barbaric”.
NICE has advised clinicians to stop giving any painkillers, even paracetamol, to people diagnosed with chronic pain.
Heather told Yorkshire Live: “They changed it so GPs and doctors can’t prescribe ANY painkiller for chronic pain. They are suggesting just exercise, therapy or antidepressants for chronic pain.
“If you are on painkillers already, they are telling doctors to talk about it with patients so your doctor can take you off them unless you have a doctor that understands.
“They made draft guidelines about this last year and hundreds, maybe thousands, of patients filled their feedback forms in to say that opioids help them when nothing else works.
“NICE ignored all this and published the guidelines anyway
“I myself have severe chronic pain. Severe being 10 out of 10, as bad as it can be. I tried everything, all medications from mild to strong. The doctor started me on mild items and gradually increased.
“Opioids got me out of bed and lowered my pain. I am still housebound but not anything like I was. I can get up, sit downstairs without crying constantly and without screaming all the time.
“I would be dead without them!” Heather says cannabis has helped her pain but she can’t afford the private prescriptions required to get it.
Dr Paul Chrisp, director of the Centre for Guidelines at NICE, said: “This guideline is very clear in highlighting that, based on the evidence, for most people it’s unlikely that any drug treatments for chronic primary pain, other than antidepressants, provide an adequate balance between any benefits they might provide and the risks associated with them.
“But people shouldn’t be worried that we’re asking them to simply stop taking their medicines without providing them with alternative, safer and more effective options.”
Kirklees Clinical Commissioning Group was approached for comment.