Just Don't Be An Idiot.

Today I have read an article and watched a report on how the prescription painkiller Tramadol ‘claiming more lives than any other drug’. You can have a look at this yourself: http://www.itv.com/news/utv/update/2016-10-06/prescription-painkiller-claiming-more-lives-than-any-other-drug/. It’s no secret that I’ve been on this painkiller on and off for 3 years but for the past year have increased to every day or every other day to manage the pain that comes along with my health conditions.

First of I’d like to point out what tramadol does for me. Tramadol is a strong, opiate based drug, and it’s the only medication that I have taken to date that has had any effect on the amount of all over body pain I experience. Over the counter drugs such as paracetomol or ibuprofen don’t touch my pain in the slightest, I may as well have not taken any in the first place when it comes to them. I’ve tried psychical therapies, herbal remedies, physio… you name it, and nothing keeps my pain bearable on the day to day. The methods I have tried can help and have longer term benefits, but what am I supposed to do when all of my symptoms flare up ? What about when the weather changes effects my body and I have lectures or work to go to? Yes I can push through in agony, but when there’s a medication there that makes my day more bearable then I’m going to use it.

The drug (tramadol) is difficult to get hold of. Doctors are very hesitant to prescribe it, especially over a long period of time. I have had trouble getting my prescriptions due to doctors concerned about the addictive properties of tramadol and other health related risks that come along side taking it. I am assessed a couple times a year, so far, as to what my usage is like and whether or not it’s a viable option for me to keep receiving these prescriptions. I take my painkillers ‘as and when’. This means a month prescription can potentially last me 3 months. I understand the risks associated with the drug and frankly, I’m not too keen on the drowsy side effects so I literally ONLY take this medication when it’s absolutely necessary. The fact it’s difficult to get hold of a prescription is not great for me personally because I do rely on it for pain management but I also see why it is and should be difficult for the public to get their hands on. The drug is strong. It’s dangerous when misused and it’s highly addictive. It shouldn’t be taken lightly.

But going back to the article. It’s pissed me off. The kind of people the article are talking about have pissed me off. A lot of things have pissed me off. People are dying, fair enough. But they’re not dying because of tramadol, they are dying because of the misuse of a strong medication. On the video, the father clearly states ‘My son died from taking a cocktail of drugs that included tramadol’. A cocktail of drugs of any kind isn’t going to be great for you is it?! It was the mixture and amount of drugs that killed him, not the one prescription drug alone. Further on in the article, it states that people ‘take the drug by the handful around here’- again, misuse. Of course people are going to die if they take an overdose of a drug. Not to even mention taking drugs with other substances. Tramadol reacts with alcohol, tramadol reacts with other medications – why is that hard to grasp. If you don’t want something to go wrong when doing these kind of things, then don’t be an idiot. Why you would ever use prescription pain medication for a ‘high’ in the first is beyond me, especially with the shit side effects that come with it.

Pain management all over the world is difficult enough without trying to convince professional bodies that we should make it harder to obtain the drugs and methods of coping we sufferers need to live. Using scare tactics (that’s what I believe them to be) of news titles and articles about ‘pain relief kills more people’ is only going to make the people who rely on these medications suffer more. How about we look into the actual cause of the problem which is overdose and mixing drugs rather than pinpoint the one medication that a lot of people with chronic pain use as treatment. Tramadol its self is not the problem, yes it’s an incredibly strong prescription medication, but when taken correctly with the right monitoring, I don’t see the problem. Drug misuse of any kind is potentially lethal.