poledriver
Bluelighter
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- Jul 21, 2005
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'I got sweats and chills': Girl, 16, who started taking OPIOIDS at age 12 to deal with pain is now immune to them - and gets withdrawal symptoms when she tries to stop
A sixteen-year-old girl who started taking opioids at age 12 to deal with chronic pain has described the unbearable withdrawal symptoms she experiences as she tries to stop taking the drug.
Brooke Peterson, who is from Toongabbie in New South Wales, has Freiberg's infraction disease and has been taking the drugs since she was 12 years old to manage the chronic pain, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.
But after four years she has become immune to the drugs' effects and has been trying to wean herself off - amid growing concerns children who are given the drugs from a young age could develop a life-long dependence.
'In the process of trying to slowly withdraw from them I got bad stomach pains, sweats and chills, really bad withdrawal symptoms,' she said.
One in three children who present to pain specialists are being prescribed opioids and almost one in five take this medication on a daily or regular basis.
Opioids are drugs that act on the central nervous system to reduce pain and include heroin, morphine, methadone, pethidine and oxycodone (OxyContin and Endone).
The data in question covers 628 children with the average age for girls sitting at 12.6 years and 12 years for boys, focusing on those who had been referred to a pain clinic in the past six months.
Pain Australia chief executive Lesley Brydon told the Sydney Morning Herald the figures were 'extremely worrying'.
She said using opioids to treat pain in children carried huge risks as it was against all clinical guidelines.
'We believe GPs are prescribing medications like opioids rather than referring to non-pharmaceutical therapies, which there's very good evidence to show can be more helpful than drugs in managing chronic pain,' Ms Brydon said.
The data was released by the Electronic Pain Persistent Outcomes Collaboration, a pain program which aims to help improve services and outcomes for patients suffering with chronic pain through benchmarking of care and treatment.
The program is a collaboration between the University of Wollongong Australia's Faculty of Pain Medicine, Pain Australia and other organisations in the pain sector.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Pain Australia for a comment.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...al-symptoms-tries-wean-off.html#ixzz4ObU7GUWI
A sixteen-year-old girl who started taking opioids at age 12 to deal with chronic pain has described the unbearable withdrawal symptoms she experiences as she tries to stop taking the drug.
Brooke Peterson, who is from Toongabbie in New South Wales, has Freiberg's infraction disease and has been taking the drugs since she was 12 years old to manage the chronic pain, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.
But after four years she has become immune to the drugs' effects and has been trying to wean herself off - amid growing concerns children who are given the drugs from a young age could develop a life-long dependence.
'In the process of trying to slowly withdraw from them I got bad stomach pains, sweats and chills, really bad withdrawal symptoms,' she said.
One in three children who present to pain specialists are being prescribed opioids and almost one in five take this medication on a daily or regular basis.
Opioids are drugs that act on the central nervous system to reduce pain and include heroin, morphine, methadone, pethidine and oxycodone (OxyContin and Endone).
The data in question covers 628 children with the average age for girls sitting at 12.6 years and 12 years for boys, focusing on those who had been referred to a pain clinic in the past six months.
Pain Australia chief executive Lesley Brydon told the Sydney Morning Herald the figures were 'extremely worrying'.
She said using opioids to treat pain in children carried huge risks as it was against all clinical guidelines.
'We believe GPs are prescribing medications like opioids rather than referring to non-pharmaceutical therapies, which there's very good evidence to show can be more helpful than drugs in managing chronic pain,' Ms Brydon said.
The data was released by the Electronic Pain Persistent Outcomes Collaboration, a pain program which aims to help improve services and outcomes for patients suffering with chronic pain through benchmarking of care and treatment.
The program is a collaboration between the University of Wollongong Australia's Faculty of Pain Medicine, Pain Australia and other organisations in the pain sector.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Pain Australia for a comment.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...al-symptoms-tries-wean-off.html#ixzz4ObU7GUWI
