Back pain is a massive problem which is badly treated

PETE MOORE was 43 when he woke up one autumn morning with back pain so excruciating that he struggled to dress himself. His doctor in Romford, an English town, referred him to hospital for an MRI scan; this showed that some of the spongelike discs that separate the spine’s vertebrae were bulging out of the slots into which they customarily fit. Such “slipped” discs can be caused by an injury; but they are also the sort of thing which can just happen with increasing age.

Mr Moore received a prescription for opioids to help him cope with the pain; but the pain persisted, and he found himself becoming loopy. Unable to work or do much else, Mr Moore, who had been a painter, sank into depression. Three years into his ordeal, he says, he was “thinking of ending it all”.