Each morning and evening I take Pregabalin, a controlled drug classified as “Class C” by the British government. The drug attempts to limit my chronic back pain. When the pain is especially bad, I turn to my monthly codeine prescription. Americans have been talking at length about the opioid crisis, which mingles rapacious pharmaceutical companies with endemic poverty and a complex and expensive healthcare system. Now the conversation is moving to Britain too, with concern people are buying codeine, tramadol and other pills online, without the knowledge of their doctors.

What’s missing from many of these discussions is the voice of people with chronic pain, those dependent on opioids at times, whose pain can be debilitating and excruciating. Without opioids, on some days I couldn’t get out of bed, the tumors in my spinal cord making it almost impossible due to the pain. Neither the US or the British healthcare system deals with chronic pain adequately. Doctors in the States hand out pills whenever requested, and the huge rise in opioid prescriptions in the UK is down to budget cuts, meaning it’s easier to prescribe some pills than get to the root of the problem, or refer someone to a pain clinic.

Addiction remains an issue, and doctors should take it seriously when prescribing. But once addicted, there is little to no support for people to get off the pills. The subject of addiction is still taboo and addiction support services are massively underfunded. But the panic over opioids is likely to spill over into the prescribing patterns of general practitioners, and people with chronic conditions are likely to be left in pain as doctors become more hesitant. Women already don’t have their pain taken seriously by doctors. And any move to lower the number of painkillers for chronic conditions would simply be an exercise in creating unnecessary pain. People with conditions that cause pain will be left to suffer, told to tolerate daily pain while struggling to work or have anything close to a normal life.