Chronic pain sufferers easily fall into a cycle of hopelessness, depression and constant anxiety. Chronic pain such as nerve pain represents an independent clinical picture that results in limitations in coping with everyday life, including inability to work and social isolation. It goes on there:
“Around every third patient suffers from nerve damage. Those affected often feel misunderstood by doctors and those around them and have to endure enormous mental stress. Pain patients often have a long history of suffering behind them before they are presented to a pain specialist.
Pain patients underserved
In Pakistan there are only a few established pain physicians and around 150 special pain centers that can look after people with chronic pain. Our knee and spine laser center is a leading center for these complaints. The supply situation for pain patients in Pakistan can therefore still be expanded.
Have pharmaceutical companies concealed the danger of addiction?
Drugs such as OxyContin or Fentanyl became box office hits. In desperation, millions across the US turned to painkillers, leading to disaster. In Pakistan, only 350,000 patients with severe chronic pain can be treated by the 1,206 outpatient pain therapists in a quarter, according to the BVSD, and that is just 10 percent of all possible patients.
Addictive Painkillers
In the World, tens of thousands of working-class and middle-class people are addicted to painkillers. The manufacturers of the painkillers became very rich with it. The pharmaceutical companies have concealed the danger of addiction. Unsuspecting pain patients were exploited for profit. In an almost unprecedented dimension:
Painkillers in Pakistan
In Pakistan, too, the use of opioid painkillers has increased over the past ten years: by almost a third between 2006 and 2015. Approximately 140 million packs of painkillers that are sold in Pakistan each year, 105 million are sold over the counter in pharmacies without a prescription. Conclusion: From babies to seniors, every Pakistani takes almost two packs of painkillers a year. That should alarm.