Rotten Labour nanny state.....

[Alcazar]

Woke up this morning to the news that my painkiller, Co-Proxamol, is to be phased out over the next 18 months to stop people suiciding with it.

Whilst any effort to stop someone suiciding is laudable, it's just another example of Labour doing something for the minority, without thinking of the effect on the majority

Personally, I've used the drug for the last 15 years for chronic back pain after TWO slipped discs.

I've tried other stuff including Paracetamol, Ibuprofen and Co-Codamol, but nowt does what Co-Prox does.

I'm now looking forward to an old age, full of sleepless nites with no relief from pain.

Suicide, anyone??

Alcazar

[LesLauriers]

"I've tried other stuff including Paracetamol, Ibuprofen and Co-Codamol, but nowt does what Co-Prox does."

I used Co-Prox after an operation on my spine. Was great at the time (not as good as the morphine though!). Now it send me floatig on the ceiling!!

My sympathies to you, I know exactly how you must feel.

[Baz]

"Woke up this morning to the news that my painkiller, Co-Proxamol, is to be phased out over the next 18 months to stop people suiciding with it.
Whilst any effort to stop someone suiciding is laudable, it's just another example of Labour doing something for the minority, without thinking of the effect on the majority"

Let's get this right, the safety of Medicines is independent of all political parties. The problem was highlighted by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency because it is concerned about the number of accidental and intentional overdoses with this drug. For this reason the Committee on Safety of Medicines, an independent expert body that advises the government on medicines, is currently looking at the risks and benefits of co-proxamol. Currently the MHRA and CSM would like to consider any further evidence on the risks and benefits of co-proxamol to decide whether any further action is needed. So one should still be able to continue using Co-Proxamol whilst they establish whether the benefits of prescribing this pain killer outweighs the risks.  

Baz

[Iceni]

The timing is sick, having just stated that Cox 2 inhibitors (Celebrex etc) should not be used for painful conditions they are going to run out of options. Ah well, those that make the decisions don't have to have the pain do they????

[Miki]

[quote]The timing is sick, having just stated that Cox 2 inhibitors (Celebrex etc) should not be used for painful conditions they are going to run out of options. Ah well, those that make the decisions don't...[/quote]

It may well be true that people will suffer and I can't agree with that kind of decision but I also totally agree with Baz, you can't simply blame the political party in charge for a decision like this.

This would be taken by that committee, not in this case, by Tony Blair.

 

 

[Alcazar]

Yes, I understand that the group you state ADVISE the government, but the final decision will be, or has been, taken by government

Let's be straight: they CANNOT get away with saying "it's not our decision" It IS theirs to make, they ARE the government.

This does not sit easy with their release today of their "more choices in the NHS" document.

Where are my choices now??

I repeat: bl**dy Labour nanny state!

Alcazar

[Maddie]

Suicide?  If someone wants to commit suicide they will do it regardless of the availability of that particular drug, believe me! 

From what I saw on the TV this morning it was the combination of Co-proxy and alcohol that is the problem.  Are they going to ban booze too? 

I know what back pain is like (I had a compressed disk that had to be removed surgically before I became permanently incontinent and numb from the waist down).  Fortunately I can manage my pain with a combination of gentle exercise and "regular" ibuprofen but there are many I know who can't.

[SaligoBay]

Is this drug freely available in France?

[Russethouse]

I know suicide was mentioned in the report but isn't there also major concern that it is easy to unwittingly over dose ?

Are they actually going to stop manufacturing the drug or might you be able to get it on private prescription ? ( Yes, I know thats far from ideal, but if that is the only way....)

Of course if the government ignored the advice, that would be wrong for someone too.

[Miki]

How right Gay,

Damned if they do damned if they don't etc. It is the government that make the final decision, obviously but, they have to take advice from those that are more expert in that field. That is all they can do, to blame them on this kind of judgement, to my mind, is simply to make a political statement.

What are they meant to do ? Be told that this drug should be stopped for this or that reason and then say. "no, sorry we are carrying on with it" ?  A death happens through the drug and then, god forbid, Oh dear, open day for the tabloids and the opposition and all the we told you so, wise after the event brigade flood in.

Whether the decision is right or wrong, surely we have to leave it to the people who know, perhaps supposedly so but what is the real alternative ?

 

 

 

[Russethouse]

I hope Alcazar will find that there have been some development in pain relief for back pain in the last 15 years.

Perhaps someone will set up a 'user group' or similar ?

It really does seem to be a 'heads I win, tails you lose' situation.

[Dick Smith]

To say that this is a political decision is crass beyond belief.

There have been 300 deaths due to co-proxamol, and most were not suicides. Doubling the dose (to 4 tablets) can apparently be fatal. Paracetamol is as effective (I know, I've taken co-prox and it is not very good), especially paracetamol + caffeine.

Why do you have to make this a rant against the government? Do you think they did this to spite you personally?

<>

I quite like Tony Blair, but I don't think I could bear to go this far:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050131/140/fbh2r.html

[zeb]

.....ah, Alcazar always blames everything onto TB and Labour.

Just remember how life was with a Tory government: Poll Tax, hospital closures, millions of redundancies, housing slump, negative equity, repossessions, suicides etc etc.

Many of us wouldn't be in France if the Tories were still in power, would we?

[Alcazar]

 <<Doubling the dose (to 4 tablets) can apparently be fatal. Paracetamol is as effective (I know, I've taken co-prox and it is not very good), especially paracetamol + caffeine.>>

How arrogant, and not what I'd have expected of you! Just because something isn't good for you, or something else is better, it's OK to do away with a drug that many RELY on? I think NOT

Oh, and doubling the dose is NOT fatal, except in very rare circumstances when the patient is hyper sensitive to the drug. A fatal dose would be 8+, similar to paracetamol.........in fact, it's the paracetamol content which is the most dangerous, although I see no-one wants to ban that ?

<<Why do you have to make this a rant against the government? Do you think they did this to spite you personally?>>

Of course not, but I AM sure that once again, they will take/have taken a decision to protect the minority, without giving much thought to the majority.

Rather like you really: "it doesn't effect me, so it's OK"

Sorry if this response is a bit sharp, but the topic is a bit close to home

Alcazar

[Alcazar]

 

<<<.....ah, Alcazar always blames everything onto TB and Labour.

Just remember how life was with a Tory government: Poll Tax, hospital closures, millions of redundancies, housing slump, negative equity, repossessions, suicides etc etc.

Many of us wouldn't be in France if the Tories were still in power, would we?>>>

Hmmmm, yes, I'm well old enough to remember those things, and the miners' strike, and the rape of the steelworks and fishing industry, not to mention the manufacturing base of the country.

But I'm NOT naive enough to believe that all is rosey under Lying Labour:

Filthy hospitals, new initiatives in education with no funding, highest levels of taxation in Europe (not JUST income tax, all the stealth taxes), 68 stealth taxes since taking power, a government which can't afford to send our kids to university, but CAN afford to send them to die in Iraq, removal of traffic police and their replacement by cameras which can only see one "crime", the criminalisation of the motorist, the level of immmigration, the level of handouts for so-called asylum seekers, while kids and old people in our country live in poverty, the rules given to judges to LIMIT the number of people sent to prison, because there are no spaces, the soft aspproach to REAL criminals................I could go on.

Wake up and smell the coffee.

Alcazar

 

[Russethouse]

Alcazar, everything I read about this last night gives figures of 300 - 400 people A YEAR dying from overdoses of this drug and they are not all suicides by any means (looking at the comments of others)

One GP on the BBC 'comments' section said he had been trained NOT to prescribe it because of the dangers. Another says the dangerous dose is far too near to the safe dose, especially if mixed with alcohol.

I do sympathise, but an independent committee has identified a risk.....they have to do something to try to prevent the problem.

Good luck with finding a satisfactory alternative.

[SaligoBay]

<<a government which can't afford to send our kids to university, but CAN afford to send them to die in Iraq, removal of traffic police and their replacement by cameras which can only see one "crime", the criminalisation of the motorist, the level of immmigration, the level of handouts for so-called asylum seekers, while kids and old people in our country live in poverty, the rules given to judges to LIMIT the number of people sent to prison, because there are no spaces, the soft aspproach to REAL criminals................I could go on.>>

Apart from the Iraq bit, this all sounds pretty much like life in France, Alcazar, so there's no point wasting your energy ranting about it.   Immigration, overcrowded prisons, speed radars, we have it all........ 

If this drug is available in France, why not pick a load up the next time you're over?   You know it makes sense.     

[Alcazar]

Gay: yeah, I see your point, but that number has to be taken as a percentage of people who RELY on the drug. I bet more people than that die each year from smoking or drinking, but neither of those will be banned, ever, because both are a source of government revenue

Saligo Bay: sorry, didn't really think of my post as a rant, although it reads that way, doesn't it?

What I tried to do was to point at just a few of the things Labour have done to us over the last 7 years, to show that they are as bad, in their own way, if not worse than the conservatives.

I actually think the conservatives were more honest than Labour: at least they came out and said that monetarism was their God. Labour won't admit it! Having said that, camels will be skating before I could bring myself to vote for the cons again!

Alcazar

PS: if I've offended anyone on here with my sharp retorts/rants, I apologise. All I can think of is being stuck without painkillers once over a long weekend in France, getting up and walking round in circles for about 2 hours, in the awning, trying not to cry from the pain, and dosed up to the max on paracetamol, while I waited for the doctors to open

[Russethouse]

The BBC had a little about it on the news web site last night - in the comments after one of the articles a GP mentioned some alternatives, of course you may have tried them already.

Perhaps the withdrawal of this drug will hasten the marketing of a safer, effective solution. I hope so. Lets hope you have got some time to experiment with pain relief - I think the use of it is going to be 'tailed off' (no pun intended !)rather than just stopped.

PS Every sympathy with your views on TB etc, but is there much between the two main parties ?

[Maddie]

[quote]Gay: yeah, I see your point, but that number has to be taken as a percentage of people who RELY on the drug. I bet more people than that die each year from smoking or drinking, but neither of those wi...[/quote]

Bloody hell, Alcazar!  Being a fellow sufferer I know how you must have felt.  My problem is a double edged sword.  My nerves were damaged (at L5S1) so more often than not I do not feel pain (nor scalding when I sit in a bath of too hot water and standing with a nail through the bottom of my shoe being classic examples).  However, this means that I often do stuff I really should not do and THEN when I do get pain it's a bloody nightmare.  Like I said, I'm lucky to be able to control mine with gentle stretching exercises and ibuprofen.  Above all I try to keep moving.  Have you tried any alternative therapies?  I know they are not for everyone but sometimes when you're in extreme pain you'll try anything once.

[Alcazar]

<<<PS Every sympathy with your views on TB etc, but is there much between the two main parties ?>>>

Nah..........I hate them both with equal intensity!

Alcazar

[JohnM]

Party Politics! I hate them. The canvassers come round to my door to tell me just how lousy, evil, incapable, dishonest the "others" are and I should not have anything to do with them, yet when the elections are over, many of the winners of all parties get together and socialise.

Why aren't they a bit more honest? I'd love to hear them say "Oh, yes Fred from the Bringabottle party has his heart in the right place, if he gets in he'll work hard and it will not be the end of the world, but we happen to think our chap(ess)  just has the edge". (I know they can't because that would put a chink in the armour that Fred could use to his advantage, but I can hope).

 

[Russethouse]

Alcazar, The doctor on This Morning, did a piece about this today, firstly he said that patients would have to be weaned off the banned tablets gradually, so it may be worth going to your GP and making a plan (gradually increasing the ratio of other painkillers etc)

He also said that the GPs weekly journals are published at the weekend and he expects a lot of comment plus he thinks that it would not be surprising if 'user groups' were set up. It was clear he was far from happy.

There are 1.7 millions users in the Uk, apparently the number of accidental deaths is 80 per year, the others are suicides.

Good Luck !

[Tink]

IIRC the French Dafalgan Codéine is the equivalent of co-prox. Otherwise try Dicodin or Dextropropoxyphène Paracétamol EG. The last one is Paracetamol with a light opioid similar to methadone. Although not codeine it sometimes works as good for me. It is important when taking opioids like codeine that you blood maintains a constant level of opioids to achieve the highest relieve of pain.

Alternatively you could ask your French dr. to try Duragesic patches, the patch makes sure there's a constant level of medication and is easier on your stomach.

When I arrived in France I had to find substitutes for my American meds. That wasn't easy, I tried the one listed above. However the best pain medication I know is Oxycontin also available in France. If you do an internet search for either one medication I mentioned I'm sure you'll be able to find more information.

Hope this helps.

--

Tink (22)

[Alcazar]

Gay: thanks for that, heartening. I'll have to visit my doc and ask about these user groups, or how to set one up.

As for being "weaned off", well it's a good idea in theory, but it relies on there being something else actually available that works for me and doesn't bung me up solid like all codeine ones do

Tink: the one you mentioned with dextropropoxyphene, that's the one. Co-Prox is 325mg paracetamol, and 32.5mg dextropropoxyphene.

I guess I'll have to look into getting it in France............trouble is, once it's banned in the UK, it'll be illegal to bring it back, even for my own use!

I suppose they think someone will break into my house and accidentally overdose on it?

Alcazar