‘I became addicted to painkillers as a teenager – mum had to hide the pills from me’
ON WHAT was meant to be a normal morning, Emily Williams woke up for school and realised she could not move her legs.
She was just 12 years old at the time and her mum assumed her daughter was trying to get out of going to school.
But, less than a year later, Emily would need complex spinal surgery after being diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).
“I literally woke up one day and I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t even move my legs to get out of bed,” Emily, now 24, recalls.
“That’s how it started. So many people say, ‘I had an aching wrist’ or ‘I had an aching hand,’ but I literally couldn’t walk. It came on really suddenly and aggressively.”
After multiple appointments with doctors where Emily says she and her mum were told she was suffering with growing pains, she was eventually diagnosed with the condition, which affects one in 1,000 under-16s, within five minutes of seeing a private rheumatologist.
“I thought arthritis was just something that affects the elderly, like a lot of people think. It was really scary to take in,” said Emily.
From then, Emily’s world was turned upside down.
Following her diagnosis she was put on steroids, which helped ease the pain for the most part.
But agonising pain in Emily’s neck continued.
“My neck was hurting me every time I sneezed; if my mum drove over a speed bump, it would kill me,” she said.
A subsequent scan revealed that the arthritis had affected her spine.
Emily, from Cardiff, received halogravity traction treatment – a method of gently stretching and straightening the spine where doctors attach a metal “halo” surrounding the head to a pulley system.
Weights are added over several weeks to slowly pull the head upwards.
“I was on my back for five weeks with it in hospital,” Emily said.
“It actually didn’t end up working so they had to fuse my spine in the end.”
Emily takes anti-inflammatories to deal with the daily pain of her arthritis, which she says now affects almost all of her joints and makes walking difficult.
Due to not being able to walk long distances, Emily uses a wheelchair and her mother drives her if she needs to leave the house.
“It’s had a big impact on my mental health, because I suffer mentally as well,” said Emily.
She added that she had suffered with her mental health since she was 16.
“When I was younger I didn’t really have time to process everything. When I was in hospital, I know I was lying on my back for five weeks, but I didn’t really have time to take it in.
“It just started coming out when I was 16. I was getting really angry at everything.”
Emily said she experienced suicidal thoughts and self-harmed, and that, while she was referred to CAMHS services, she wasn’t taken on.
She has been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and panic disorder, and now attends therapy.
When Emily was 19 she was prescribed co-codamol, a mixture of paracetamol and codeine, by her doctor to deal with severe pain caused by the arthritis.
Due to the severity of the pain, she was prescribed the highest strength of co-codamol.
However, she soon found herself becoming dependent on the prescription drug.
“It started off as, ‘I’ll take it now and again,’ and then I found it really helped. I started taking it every four hours, and then I was dosing up on it. It got to the point where I couldn’t stop dosing up on it, because it really helped my pain,” Emily said.
“I was quite mentally unwell at the time, and I found it helped that as well. It made me feel numb, physically and mentally. I just couldn’t stop taking it.”
Co-codamol is used to treat aches and pains, and comes in three strengths.
But taking too much can be harmful and the NHS advises people against considering increasing their dosage if they are in pain.
It is possible to become addicted to the codeine in co-codamol and, if you are prescribed it, doctors will explain how to reduce the risks of this happening.
Emily said her doctor informed her of the risk, but that she didn’t feel she had become addicted at the time.
Emily’s mother suggested that she had developed an addiction, but she says she was convinced she hadn’t.
“I was like, ‘Don’t be silly, I can’t be addicted to a prescription tablet,’” she said.
So she continued to regularly take co-codamol until, she said, her mother stepped in and began hiding it from her.
“It wasn’t until my mum started hiding them that I had to stop them altogether. I think if my mum hadn’t hidden them I would have continued taking them. It was hard because it’s such an awkward subject that a lot of people don’t want to talk about. People don’t realise how common it actually is – an addiction to prescription medication,” Emily said.
“Especially when you’re chronically ill, you’re relying on that medication to help you and you don’t realise it’s a problem until you’re dosing up and you’ve been taking it for a while.”
Co-codamol can cause constipation and nausea and Emily found herself experiencing stomach aches and sickness when taking it.
However, because she felt it was helping with her pain, Emily said she continued to take it.
After her mother began hiding the tablets, Emily said she took antiinflammatories instead, which have little addictive potential.
“Luckily, I haven’t taken co-codamol for a while now. When I go to the doctors I’m open and honest because I don’t want to get back on that,” she said.
Now Emily uses social media to raise awareness about her condition. She started a Facebook and Instagram page, Chronically Em, where she posts about living with JIA and, more recently, her experience with taking co-codamol.
Emily said it took months for her addiction to subside.
“I don’t think people realise it’s so easy to become addicted. It’s hard because when you’re chronically ill medication is one of the only things you can rely on to help you through it.
“A lot of people judge others for drug addiction, but it’s not until you actually become addicted that you realise how easy it is,” she said.