For years, Jean-Marie Ossart suffered from severe back pain. In 2012, a CT scan revealed a birth defect of the spine, which caused degeneration of the intervertebral discs (degenerative disc disease). “I was in so much pain that, some days, when I came home from work, I would sit on my couch, not move until the next morning, without eating…”remembers this fifty-year-old glazier.
“The doctors first prescribed me painkillers, muscle relaxants, then they gave me sustained-release morphine, Skenan”a powerful opioid. It was in 2012. No doctor warned him of the risk of becoming dependent if he took a high dose. He doesn’t read the instructions. For a week, the pain fades, then returns. “And what’s more, I was in the moonlight. » He opens up about it to his doctor, who has a “best idea” and prescribed another form of morphine, Actiskenan, fast-acting, at a rate of six tablets per day. “I took it to be able to work: you are in pain, you take one and you can leave”he tells us. In total, it was around ten pills each day. He becomes dependent.
Every three months, his doctor renews his prescription without examining it, without questioning him… But, in 2017, suffering from vomiting, sweating, diarrhea, he was taken to the emergency room. It’s a crisis of withdrawal. “They gave me my dose and I felt better. » The emergency doctor suggests that he consult to stop and directs him to the university addiction service of Lyon (located at the Hospices Civils and at the Le Vinatier hospital center). Within this service that he directs, Benjamin Rolland created, in May 2023, the Lyon Resource Center for Drug Addictions (Cerlam). Little by little, Mr. Ossart reduces the doses. “Why were I allowed to gorge myself on medications from 2012 to 2017? Why didn’t anyone tell me…? »he still asks today.
What medications are we talking about? Opioids include natural substances such as morphine, opium, codeine, and synthetic compounds such as fentanyl or tramadol. They are prescribed for moderate to severe pain, post-surgical or related to cancer, for example. They act on opioid receptors in the brain and play a key role in the central nervous system, by regulating the perception of pain, and increasing the sensation of pleasure, reward and well-being.
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