Urgent ketamine warning after estate agent, 22, died taking painkiller overdose to relieve addiction agony

A 22-YEAR-old estate agent died after taking an overdose of painkillers to relieve the agony of her ketamine addiction, an investigation has found. Isabelle Sapherson-Moralee, known as Izzy, began taking the class B drug during the Covid lockdown in 2020, falling into a five-year addiction that caused irreparable damage to her bladder and liver. Isabelle Sapherson-Moralee struggled with a ketamine addiction for five years Credit: BNPS It left her in chronic pain and battling bladder and kidney issues Credit: Refer to caption Izzy was in extreme pain from ketamine bladder syndrome – inflammation and scarring in the organ caused by repeated use of the drug – and chronic liver disease, also brought on by ketamine. The 22-year-old was prescribed painkillers to help ease her agony, which were found in her system at higher than normal levels when she passed away in April 2025 at her home in Wimborne, Dorset. Sign up for the Health newsletter Thank you! Her cause of death was respiratory depression due to toxicity from the medication. Dorset area Coroner Brendan Allen said her death was a “misadventure” and there was no evidence that she’d taken an overdose of the pain meds deliberately. “It seems likely that on the day of her death, with the intention of relieving her pain, Isabelle took too much medication,” he said. This in combination with biliary sepsis – a dangerous blood infection starting from the liver – brought on by “severe ketamine- related chronic liver disease”, caused the 22-year-old’s death, Mr Allen wrote in a Prevention of Future Deaths report. An inquest into Izzy’s death held in June heard that she’d been in hospital prior to her death, but discharged herself two days before to go home to her mum. Ann Moralee told the inquest: “I kept asking her, please let me phone an ambulance but she said, ‘No more hospitals Mum, I can’t do it anymore’.” Most read in Health Izzy passed away in April 2025 Credit: Not known, clear with picture desk THE TOLL 'K' TAKES ON YOUR BODY KETAMINE can lead to death by putting pressure on the heart and respiratory system. But its other effects on the body, which are often irreversible, are horrifying, too. “Ketamine bladder syndrome is one of the worst symptoms,” Dr Catherine Carney, an addiction specialist at Delamere, told Sun Health. This is where the breakdown of ketamine in the body causes inflammation in the bladder wall. It leaves people unable to hold urine and passing chunks of their bladder tissue. Some users face the prospect of having their bladders removed entirely. Dr Carney explains: “The lining of the bladder can shrink over time and be extremely painful for those experiencing it. “This can often lead to lower abdominal pain and pain when passing urine, as well as bleeding. “It’s usually what has forced people to get help because they can’t tolerate it any more. “We’ve had young men in agony, wetting the bed. “Their whole life is focused on where there’s a toilet because they can only hold urine for ten minutes. “For a teenager or someone in their early 20s, that’s absolutely life-changing. “In some cases, the bladder damage progresses to the kidneys and people get kidney failure, too. “This is developing in people who have been using for two years, so it is relatively quick.” Dr Carney adds that the urine samples of new guests checking into the clinic are often just a “pot of blood”. This is followed by weeks of agony coming off the drug. An irony of ketamine use is people tend to take more and more to numb the pain of the side-effects it causes. Dr Carney says: “There’s nothing that we can give which is as strong as a medical anaesthetic (the ketamine). We can use codeine-based products or anti-inflammatories. “Some antidepressants help at night, but the pain is hard to manage in the early days. “Most people that come to us, the bladder will improve to the point that they don’t need to have it removed. “But once you’ve got a bladder that has shrunk to the size of 70ml, that’s never getting better.” The mum, a flight attendant and former nurse, said she didn’t find out about Izzy’s ketamine addiction until 2023, by which time it had gotten “out of control and she couldn’t hide it anymore”. Aside from causing chronic pain, the drug had made Izzy incontinent due to damage to her bladder. This was so severe she spent £500 a month on incontinence pads and had to stop working six months before her death. Izzy also became very underweight, dropping to just 5st 9lbs. Despite visibly suffering, Ann said Izzy was unable to get the help she needed, as she was bounced around between different specialist teams. The 22-year-old was receiving support from a local drug treatment agency and was in regular contact with her GP. During a hospital admission in the year prior to her death, Izzy was also referred to a gastroenterologist, pain management specialist, an eating disorder team and mental health services. “There was no co-ordinated review of the care Isabelle required that involved all of the agencies/specialisms to which she had been referred,” Mr Allen said in his report. Her mum Ann Moralee leaving the inquest into Izzy’s death Credit: BNPS GETTING HELP If you think that you have a drug addiction then please contact your GP. You can also visit FRANK for honest information about drugs and to find local treatment services. If you are having trouble finding the right help, call the FRANK drugs helpline on 03001236600 Or click here to visit the NHS website for more advice and support Evidence shows that a joined-up, “multi-agency approach” can be effective for treating ketamine addiction and the related health consequences effectively, the coroner said. But he warned a lack of national policy for ketamine addiction treatment risked patients “falling through the cracks” and dying, due to their medical conditions not being addressed. “Evidence was heard that there are no national policies and processes that address ketamine addiction and ketamine-related health conditions, with no recognised pathway that brings together the specialisms required to treat patients suffering ketamine addiction and ketamine-associated harms,” Mr Allen wrote. Ann, from Wimborne, Dorset, told the inquest she felt medics could have done more to help her daughter and had “missed opportunities”. She said: “She was just seen as a ketamine addict and everything else was ignored, especially her back pain. “We asked for help from the bladder and bowel people but they discharged her, as did the weight-loss team who said she didn’t have an eating disorder. “Then she really just gave up.” All the while, Izzy was struggling to kick her addiction and was even found using ketamine while in hospital in March. Often, ketamine addicts can be caught in a vicious cycle as the only thing that relieves the agony of their bladder issues is the drug that caused the damage in the first place. A month later, she was admitted to A&E before discharging herself and passing away at home. Mr Allen addressed his report to the Secretary of State for health and social care and NHS England, raising concerns about the lack of national treatment pathway for ketamine addicts – as well as a lack of prescribing guidelines for pain medication when a patient may still be using ketamine. He also highlighted that there isn’t enough research into how addictive the drug is and the cascade of health problems it can cause. “A lack of research into the addictiveness of ketamine and the collating of the data relating to ketamine-related harms means there is currently no detailed understanding of the consequences of chronic ketamine use, no national processes to assist in developing effective care plans to break the cycle of addiction and no clear understanding of the scale of the health consequences ketamine use presents,” he stated. Comment now