The NHS has paid out tens of thousands to a man who developed an “uncontrollable” gambling problem after he was given a common Parkinson’s drug, The Independent can reveal.
Philip Stevens, a 66-year-old from Hampshire, has received £70,000 from his GP following a lawsuit after he was given the drug Ropinirole, which led him to develop impulse control disorder that saw him spend thousands on gambling websites and expensive clothes.
The NHS lists impulse control disorder as a potential side effect of the drug. Patients are advised to contact a specialist nurse if they start “binge eating, gambling or shopping uncontrollably or having an unusually high sex drive”.
The 66-year-old was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1995, and when his health started to deteriorate in 2015, he was forced to stop working.
Two years later, his GP prescribed him Ropinirole for a condition called restless legs syndrome. However, they did not warn him of the potential side effects of the medication, Mr Stevens claims.
Mr Stevens had previously been a fan of horse racing but said he would only place bets where he believed he had a chance of winning and knew when to walk away.
However, shortly after he started taking Ropinirole, Mr Stevens started showing signs of compulsive behaviours and started gambling more frequently and eventually “spiralled out of control”.
He recalled regularly gambling using betting apps on his phone, waking up in the middle of the night to place bets, and betting on anything he could.
Over the course of four years, Mr Stevens spent thousands on gambling websites and remembered that eventually he stopped caring about winning at all.
He also started to shop compulsively for expensive clothes and accessories, spending thousands of pounds and was even compelled to go on three-day-long fishing trips every week.
He said: “The things that I once enjoyed that became obsessions, such as fishing and horse racing, are now joyless because, with each one, a sense of guilt overcomes me.
“I am not the same person as I was pre-Ropinirole.”
Finally, in October 2021, during a review by a neurologist, Mr Stevens was asked by the doctor how he was feeling and specifically asked if he experienced any side effects such as compulsive behaviours. He mentioned he had been gambling and the doctor advised him to immediately stop taking Ropinirole.
However, his troubles did not end there; Mr Stevens said when he called his GP surgery to advise them he was stopping the drug, no advice was given about withdrawal symptoms.
According to the NHS website, patients should not stop taking Ropinirole suddenly as it can prompt serious withdrawal symptoms such as changes in mood, tiredness, sweating and pain.
Although Mr Stevens’ compulsion to gamble and buy clothes subsided two days after stopping the medication, he then experienced five months of withdrawal symptoms, which included severe exhaustion, paranoia and hallucinations so severe he did not recognise his house, wife or children.
At one point, Mr Stevens said he asked his children to take DNA tests as he was convinced they were not his, and he eventually developed depression and suicidal thoughts.
Reflecting on the withdrawal symptoms, Mr Stevens said: “Along with the shame of my compulsive behaviour, [it] has mentally drained me and left me very withdrawn.
“On a positive level, my marriage has survived, and I am beginning to look forward more than backwards, and maybe one day I will believe that what happened to me was not my fault.”
In 2023, law firm Leigh Day, who supported Mr Stevens in his claim, also settled the case of a 51-year-old woman who developed impulse control behaviour after taking Ropinirole and was left £40,000 in debt due to extreme shopping and gambling.
The law firm also settled another gambling case this year over the drug Pramipexole, another drug used to treat Parkinson’s and restless legs syndrome.
Angharad Vaughan, medical negligence solicitor and partner for Leigh Day said: “I am pleased that we were able to secure this settlement for Philip. It is shocking that it took so long for a medical professional to flag the potential side effects and withdrawal symptoms from taking Ropinirole.
“We hope that important lessons will be learned from this case to ensure that, in future, patients receive all the information they need about the potential side effects of such drugs.”
