July/August 2016 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 13
More on painkiller addiction at
‘I THOUGHT I WAS TAKING CONTROL’
Cathryn Kemp took pain relief into her own hands, until she
realised her addiction was killing her. She talks to DDN
In 2004 I was literally hit overnight with acute
pancreatitis
, and over the next four years I was in
hospital about 40 times. As an inpatient I was
treated with IV morphine and tramadol and then as
an outpatient I was given oxycontin.
I was moved up to a London hospital at the end
of 2007, where they switched me onto IV fentanyl,
because the morphine had exacerbated my
condition, making me even more ill. I’d had lots of
surgery, lots of procedures, and was eventually
discharged in 2008 with a repeat prescription for
fentanyl lozenges [opioid analgesics], being told I
could have eight a day as a maximum.
It took me about three months before I took an
extra one – and I don’t know why I did. I’d had years
of being operated on, diagnosed, misdiagnosed,
and I had no control whatsoever over my journey.
So for some weird twisted reason I felt I had taken
back control of my life by taking an extra lozenge
for the pain. But actually it was the start of a
terrifying descent into drug addiction.
This was in 2008 and by the time I got to rehab in
2010 I was on 60 lozenges a day, all on prescription
frommy GP. He’d told me that he wouldn’t sign any
more prescriptions and I hit desperation.
I was refused NHS detox because I wasn’t
homeless and I wasn’t offending. There’s a massive
loophole in the system and I fell right through it.
My parents had to lend me lots of money, and I had
to sell my house.
I was lucky I had a house to sell, or I would be
dead. But how many people are there out there
suffering in silence, with GPs not taking the fact
they’re dependent seriously? GPs who feel that
taboo about having patients who are on long-term
opiates and having no other way of treating them,
but knowing they are dependent on them.
It’s a really complex issue – you get pain and you
get the denial of addiction, and when those two are
working together it’s incredibly difficult for anybody
to make any headway. That’s one reason we set up a
charity, the Pain Addiction Information Network
(PAIN), to say ‘if I can get off these, then almost
everybody else can’. It’s to raise awareness of OPD,
recognised by the World Health Organization and is
as much about stigma busting as saying ‘this is
something that can happen, so what are we going
to do about it?’
We’re campaigning to have specialised services
to help people who find themselves dependent on
their prescribed or over-the-counter medication, and
we want NHS England to provide specialised
treatment services for patients who come in via
pain, rather than via illicit drugs.
Find help at:
.
Cathryn Kemp’s book,
Painkiller Addict: From
Wreckage to Redemption
, is available from
Opioid Painkiller Addiction Awareness Day
(OPAAD) is on 22 September
‘I was refused
NHS detox
because
I wasn’t
homeless
and I wasn’t
offending.
There’s a massive
loophole in the
system and I fell
right through it.’
