Endometriosis and opiate dependency

Coping with endometriosis pain is no mean feat. Opiates are often called for and prescribed by GPs, but what is the longer term downfall of powerful painkillers like these?

My endometriosis took 11 years to diagnose. After multiple missed diagnoses, and misdiagnosis, I was finally told I had severe endometriosis.

By then, my fertility was shot. I was 25 but had less than five per cent chance of ever conceiving naturally because since my periods had started aged 11, my endometriosis - a condition that sees cells similar to those found in the lining of the womb migrate elsewhere in the body - had been wreaking havoc on my reproductive organs (and my bowel and bladder too).

And in all that time I’d spent going back and forth between ignorant GPs and blinkered specialists, my back and abdominal pain, the non-stop sciatica down my legs, heavy periods with clotting, bloating and cramping that made me vomit had worn me down to the point I couldn’t function anymore. Without any answer for the cause of my pain, it was a choice between the powerful opiate painkiller tramadol, or me quitting my job on a magazine and crawling into bed forever.

I took the tramadol and welcomed the slight relief it brought. But then I needed more and more to do the same thing. Whenever I had surgery to laser away my endometriosis and free my stuck-together organs, I had relief from the pain and stopped taking the tramadol. I didn’t need it anymore for pain relief so I simply ditched the pills.

What followed were raging withdrawal symptoms, though I didn’t know it at the time. It was only after my fourth opiate withdrawal that I put two and two together and realised stopping tramadol was causing all of my symptoms: anxiety so bad I thought I’d die, diarrhoea, insomnia, body sweats, nausea, and twitching limbs.

Click here to read my full article in Metro, and what I learned (the hard way) about coping with opiate withdrawal, and how to get through opiate dependency and out the other side.