As you get older, it's inevitable that you'll develop a few aches and pains - but when one man found a £19, drug-free cure for his back condition, he was shocked to hear that it was not available via prescription from the NHS.
Gary says his chronic back pain is gone and that the treatment he found has saved the health service £8,000 in under three years.
Gary Meek, 62, says the Actipatch helped him to escape a cocktail of opioid painkillers that he was prescribed, which left him feeling like he was 'in a haze' all the time.
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The Actipatch works by sending 1000 electromagnetic pulses per minute to relieve pain in joints and muscles.
To help mask the pain of his degenerative disc disorder - a condition which causes chronic lower back pain - Gary was given duloxetine and fentanyl patches, the same kind of painkillers that Michael Jackson and Prince were taking prior to their deaths.
Gary, a retired teacher from Essex, said: "I was taking a phenomenal concoction of opioids and NSAIDs [non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs] to mask the pain. I was in a haze.
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"The amount and type of drugs I was on beforehand was a massive concern. A lot of the time I didn't know what day of the week it was.
"Going back, the amount of medication I was taking - the likes of duloxetine and fentanyl patches - it was definitely time to get away from that.
"I'd spent 15 years on that kind of thing. And it's very difficult to verbalise what the pain is like.
"But fentanyl patches are an especially dangerous drug to be taking."
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Gary has reduced the amount of painkillers he is on, and says he has hugely reduced his intake of the addictive drugs.
"I have managed to almost halve my intake of drugs. Although not immediately, it was a progressive thing. And you can't withdraw completely straight away, that would have been dangerous because of the type of drugs that I was on.
"It wasn't easy."
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According to the NHS, doctors prescribed the equivalent of 79 opioid pill packs per minute in 2017, and the number prescribed by GPs has risen by 10 million in a decade.
Gary added: "I can't see why the NHS isn't looking at something like Actipatch as a genuine drug-free option for people suffering with chronic pain.
"Unfortunately, the good it is doing is being ignored. The financial side of it especially is just amazing."
According to the NHS, there is not yet enough clinical evidence on the effects of the Actipatch to justify prescribing it to patients.
Featured Image Credit: marcorichards