Inside Health

Prescriptions for nerve drugs pregabalin and gabapentin have risen dramatically in recent years and at the same time, concerns about abuse. Former prisoner and addict "Patrick" tells Dr Mark Porter that "gabbies" or "pregabs" are drugs of choice in jail and Dr Iain Brew, a GP who works in prisons, says misuse is a growing problem and there are examples of doctors being pressurised into prescribing them. Dr Cathy Stannard, consultant in pain medicine at Southmead Hospital in Bristol, chaired an expert group that drew up new prescribing guidelines for pregabalin and gabapentin and she tells Mark that more attention needs to be paid to emerging evidence of misuse. Many women say that if they've had one caesarean section, they feel pressurised to have another one and Sara describes how her medical team planted "a seed of doubt" about the potential risks to her baby which she says for her meant another C-Section was inevitable. But new guidelines from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists spell out