“I became a dependent in Tramadol, I almost died”

It has been 19 years since Diane Wattrelos, mother of two, suffered from a vascular algia of the chronic face. This disease caused by compression of the trigeminal nerve in the brain manifests itself by pain that is difficult to bear. “”This pain is located in the eye. I have the impression that I am planted with a screwdriver with an impression of brief and hammer blows. The eyelid swells and edema appears. My face becomes scarlet, my eyes drop and my nose runs. The pain begins in the eye and then extends throughout the face“tells us the 33 -year -old young woman.

The first years, Diane managed to live with the disease, except during crises, but the more the years pass, the more the pain increases. 9 years ago, his doctor advised him to take tramadol, the most prescribed opioid analgesic in France. Diane trusts her without realizing that this medication has very heavy side effects as she tells in the book “Addict on prescription. The fight of a mother like the others “ (Ed. Leduc). “”No one really supports this medication that has side effects that do not fade over time. We are not good when we take tramadol even if he gives The impression of being in cotton“.

This medication has, in fact, a long list of side effects such as vomiting, nausea, sensations of vertigo, headache, drowsiness, etc. “”They are so important that some people stop taking it, fortunately. But that was not my case. My successive doctors prescribed this medication to me, I trusted them. I was sick, I was treated. But day after day, I increased the doses, until reach the maximum daily dosage“. It’s an episode of the show Prohibited area called “Medicines, alcohol: these drugs that destroy families “ Broadcast on November 21, 2021 which will allow her to realize that she is dependent. Diane is indeed very marked by the testimony of Helga whose son Simon made a fatal overdose of codeine mixed with anxiolytics. “”I recognized myself in this story. I saw each year scrolling where I had mixed the drugs and where my husband was afraid of not finding me alive The morning. I had the feeling that everything was fitting, as if I had found the missing piece of a long police investigation and that I finally understood who was the culprit“, Note Diane who tried to stop this medication during her pregnancies but who did not succeed.

Diagnostic “deliverance”

Two days after the broadcast of this program, she published a message on social networks and receives numerous testimonies. “”I associated the image of the dependent person with drug addicts Excluded and almost on the street in a certain way but I received numerous testimonies from people who were parents inserted in the company“Diane realizes that doctors have prescribed this medicine for years for years without warning it on its dangers whose addiction which it causes. Because it is dependence is suffering from Diane. She decides to speak to her neurologist who puts her in touch with the head of the Center of Pain of the Rouen University Hospital.”It was she who made the first diagnosis addiction, by pronouncing this word very clearly. For me, it was a huge relief. The fact of being able to formulate what happened to me was a real deliverance“The medical team offers her a week’s hospitalization for a weaning. In April 2022, she entered the hospital and keeps the memory of a stay marked by the alternations between the gap crises that are repeated and the infusions of drugs that barely relieve him.

The “terrible” return home

A week later, the return home is terrible. Only at that time, she receives a letter which informs her that she will be the subject of a social services investigation and almost immediately takes up. “”I was in shock and I had neither the infusions which were relieved to me a little nor the support of the hospital staff “Explains Diane.

“”After my hospitalization, I was able to halve my tramadol’s intake but afterwards, I readed it by two. I was no longer really taken care of by the CHU where I had been hospitalized. I went so go see my general practitioner then others to get my dose“, regrets Diane who would have liked to be prescribed from Naloxone®, a drug that can temporarily neutralize the effects of an opioid overdose and which is commonly used in northern America.”I find that we are in France very late in the field of addictology. It’s really sad. I asked the doctors about naloxone and they replied that they were afraid that it is badly used“Today, Diane is much better since she started a specific and analgesic substitution treatment, adapted to her chronic pain.

“”I stopped the tramadol and the morphine which I was also dependent on. It is not always easy but I already have no risk of overdose and I live it as a real renewal “ explains Diane who also wrote her book to encourage dependent people in tramadol to express themselves. “”This subject should no longer be taboo: dependent people must be able to talk about it without shame in order to get help. General practitioners should also be prescribed by tramadol without alerting the risk of dependence. Addiction to opioids can concern everyone, really everyone “insists Diane who shows beautiful resilience at the end of her work and who writes: “I haven’t finished with my addiction, but one thing is certain: I move forward. And above all I want to believe it “.