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Karen's husband says she was "a zombie", if You know on opioids

We all what it is to feel Pain . Acute Pain , that is, such as slamming fingers in the door, or You graze your knee.

Chronic Pain is different. It could be triggered by arthritis, injury to your back or through an operation that You never fully recover.

Chronic Pain affects More Than two-fifths of the adult population in the UK, approximately 28 million adults living with Pain that has lasted for three months or longer.

And every year about five million prescribed opioids - Pain relievers that are as powerful as Class A drugs.

In fact, suggests patients are prescribed More Than twice the amount of opioids they were 20 years ago.

There is No Doubt that opioids have an important role in cancer Pain , end-of-life care, or for the relief of Pain After surgery. But don't start the increase in the prescription that we have seen in the last few years.

However, if You don't stop taking opioids, You certainly should have, without consulting with your doctor.

decades-old convictions

So, what are opioids? They originally came from the juice of the poppy plant which has been used for thousands of years, both as a party drug and for the treatment of Pain .

morphine and heroin are opioids. They act on the opioid receptors in The Brain , blocking The Pain signals from the rest of The Body .

In fact, they are probably the best tool to have the doctors for numbing the acute Pain , like a broken bone or an infected tooth.

The downside of long-term opioid use is it puts You at an increased risk for constipation, memory loss, addiction, and even in case of accidental death by Overdose .

Michael Mosley says he was incorrectly taught at the Medical School , that people would feel Pain , are not addicted to opioids

One reason for The Massive increase in opioid prescribing is a mistaken belief, people in Pain are very unlikely to be addictive. This is certainly what I was taught at the Medical School in the 1980s.

But according to Dr Jane Quinlan, consultant in Pain therapy at the Oxford University Hospitals Trust, this widespread belief was based on deception, the keep took in the 80s.

"are Two things," she says. "One of them was that the evidence came from palliative care, looking at patients with end-of-life and was in Pain to say that the patients, the high doses of opioids was safe, because they are non-addictive.

"at the same time a letter was published in the New England Journal of Medicine claimed that patients were in the hospital and given opioids for a Short Time only rarely were addictive. "

This 100-word letter was not peer-reviewed Research - it was simply an observation.

But his preliminary conclusions were inflated by the pharmaceutical companies, the use of the promotion of the opioid began aggressively as a safe and effective way to treat all types of Pain .

'Red-hot poker'

Unfortunately, many patients soon discovered that to be true.

Karen, in the year 2014, a disc slipped in her back a book bends over to pick up was one of them.

"It was like a red-hot poker between your vertebrae," she says. "Painful, very painful. "

Over the next five years, the Karen opioids was getting stronger - starting with tramadol and ending with morphine. But they failed to sort out The Pain .

What You actually did, according to Karen ' s husband, Ray, was, in turn, "my beautiful, pretty, active woman into a zombie".

Karen s case is not uncommon. GPs were encouraged to hold national guidelines, upping the dose, until the patient was Pain -free.

The Problem is, when It Comes to Chronic Pain , opioids are often not as effective.

In fact, another leading Pain expert, Dr Cathy Stannard, estimates less than one in 10 people opioids are given for long-term Pain will benefit from them.

they are also "dangerous and often expensive," says Dr Stannard,

"You should only start to be mild with caution and with the upper dosage limits and continue only with demonstrably less Pain - ideal or no Pain ," she says.

"If the opioid is not working, After a decent trial of Six Weeks should be Enough - it should be stopped.

"people who are already on opioids often uncertain whether to opioids that are working or not, but they are certainly still in a lot of Pain .

"You should be encouraged to slowly and safely reduce the dose in order to get a better idea of how helpful the drug is for their Pain .

"If I were a drug for blood pressure and your blood pressure is high, no one would claim that it works.

"But if I give You a painkiller and You come back and say: 'I'm still in Pain ,' what do we do? We double.

"You come back and say, 'I'm still in Pain ,' and we'll double it again.

"If You give it to, and it doesn't work to stop it. This is not what You would with any other drug, so why we are doing with opioids?"

The good news is that GPs are increasingly aware of the dangers and there is now a large push to help patients reduce high-dose opioids, or even come out of their medicines.

to wear The starts the fruits of continued growth, opioid After 20 years prescription has flattened nationally.

And since 2017, in most places it is, in fact, begun to, although there are still large regional differences in the level of prescription.

And there are alternatives for the management of Chronic Pain .

For Karen, group therapy and support from her family has enabled her to opioids. Now, You have nothing stronger as paracetamol.

Horizon: Addicted to painkillers? The UK, the Opioid crisis is on Bbc Two on Thursday, 16. January, at 21:00 And Then on the Bbc Iplayer .

opioids, pain

Source of news: bbc.com