Re- instate co-proxamol. It is the most effective pain reli

Don't give up! I was on co-proxamol for several years and found it very effective. It was then withdrawn, and like most others I was prescribed Tramadol, which has had little or no effect on the acute pain I experience, particularly at night. During a conversation with my GP recently it transpired that Co-proxamol can still be precribed, albeit as an unlicensed drug, and that a very small number of other patients in the practice were already receiving it. Although my GP admitted that it might be frowned upon, because I am unable to take NSAIDs which play havoc with my gut, he offered to make a case for my receiving Co-proxamol in light of no other pain relief being effective. I am now back on the drug and it has made an enormous difference. I think most people would realised that it is a compound which CAN be used in suicide, but then so are many others (paracetamol in particular which can be stockpiled by going from supermarket to supermarket - not even a pharmacy involved!) available with very few restrictions. The self-harm aspect is what forced the withdrawal of Co-proxamol - perhaps the government need to know that against the 200-300 deaths a year it was implicated in, it was THE drug of choice for patients for whom nothing else has been able to come close to the relief it brings. Keep on campaigning, and keep on asking your doctors for help!

Don't give up!

Apologies it this reply is a bit dis-jointed, I am slighly under the inluence of alahol as it helps me sleep in the absance of co-proxamol. It is also my last 'dose' of alcahol, possibly for ever, as I am about to regain access to co-proxamol.

If your GP (mine is excepuonally arrogant) won't help, demand an appointment with your NHS pain clinic. I can't tolerate amy of the alternatives, it was co-proxamol or nothing. The doctor at the pain clinic was quite happy to recomend co-proxamol on this basis & on the fact that I have beeen taking for 20 years without incedent. He was also mystified about both why & how it was withdrawn, stating that tramodol (a common 'alternative') is far more harmful & that my only untried alternative, Oxycodone is basically Heroine & a definative 'overkill'.

Keep arguing THERE IS HOPE!!!

I too found coproxamol the only painkiller to work, I can't have codeine as it constipated me, and as I have chrones as well as arthritis that not good. Tramadol had no effect and I might as well take smarties. I convinced my GP to let me have them and then at the pain clinic it was explained that it contained a synthetic form of morphine, which was better as some people can't process morphine. With this argument even though I have since changed GPs and moved area. So keep trying.