Author: Gary Jackson

Recovery is Possible: Treatment for Opioid Addiction Feature Topics Drug Overdose

After a negative drug test, the patient then receives a bowl and picks out a slip from a pile labeled with various cash values. Depending on the slip they select, they are rewarded with an amount of money, which generally ranges from 1 to 100 dollars. As the patient continues to produce negative drug test results, they are allowed to have an increased number of draws [31]. One of the issues with contingency management is the lack of centers that provide this form of treatment.

Treatment may save a life and can help people struggling with opioid addiction get their lives back on track by allowing them to counteract addiction’s powerful effects on their brain and behavior. The overall goal of treatment is to return people to productive functioning in their family, workplace, and community. If you’re taking opioids and you’ve built up a tolerance, ask your healthcare professional for help. Other safe choices are available to help you make a change and keep feeling well. Quitting these medicines suddenly can cause serious withdrawal symptoms, including pain that’s worse than it was before you started taking opioids. Your healthcare team can help you gradually and safely reduce the amount of opioids you take.

Ongoing treatment

Practitioners may try different approaches for patients who continually relapse. OUD continues to be a major concern in the United States, especially for those living in rural counties. These include stigma among healthcare professionals against OUD patients, numerous legal restrictions for pharmacological treatment, and inadequate training of clinicians. It is imperative that these impediments are addressed in a manner that will promote more widespread OUD treatment in order to curb the prevalence of OUD across the country. After discussion with you, your health care provider may recommend medicine as part of your treatment for opioid addiction. Medicines don’t cure your opioid addiction, but they can help in your recovery.

• If someone has an addiction to opioids as well as a co-occurring mental health condition such as depression and anxiety, CBT is often a good psychological treatment to start with.
• But it’s impossible to tell who could become dependent and misuse opioids.
• Family therapy can help families with a member or members who are dealing with addiction, but it is especially effective for adolescents with substance use disorders.
• Research shows that mental illness may contribute to substance use disorders, and substance use disorders can contribute to the development of mental illness.
• One of the issues with contingency management is the lack of centers that provide this form of treatment.

It includes strategies such as needle exchange programs, safe injection sites, opioid replacement therapies (such as methadone maintenance programs), and naloxone as a tool for overdose reversals. The chronic nature of addiction means that for some people relapse, or a return to drug use after an attempt to stop, can be part of the process, but newer treatments are designed to help with relapse prevention. Relapse rates for drug use are similar to rates for other chronic medical illnesses. If people stop following their medical treatment plan, they are likely to relapse.

What medications and devices help treat drug addiction?

DEA policy changes have removed this “X-waiver” requirement and the cap on how many patients a provider could treat with buprenorphine. Wade says that these moves should help increase the accessibility of this treatment. However, methadone is underutilized because the drug is under strict prescriber regulations absent from other FDA-approved OUD medicines. For example, Suboxone, but not methadone, can be prescribed by physicians and nurse practitioners and available by telemedicine. The most effect overall form of OUD treatment is called medication-assisted treatment (MAT), meaning that medications are combined with different types of counseling for a holistic approach.

Or contact your local law enforcement agency or your trash and recycling service for information about local medicine takeback programs. If no takeback program is available in your area, ask your pharmacist for help. Withdrawal from different categories of drugs — such as depressants, stimulants or opioids — produces different side effects and requires different approaches. Detox may involve gradually reducing the dose of the drug or temporarily substituting other substances, such as methadone, buprenorphine, or a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone. To lessen the chance of developing a substance use disorder, follow your doctor’s orders carefully, making sure to only take the medication as prescribed.

Common medications used to treat drug addiction and withdrawal

One of the most significant challenges comes in preventing opioid use/overdoses in rural areas and underdeveloped regions where there is reduced access to medical resources and addiction treatment centers [7]. We do not track overdoses, reversals, or loss of consciousness caused by drugs in a way that helps patients. Many OUD patients have had so many overdoses, reversals, loss of consciousness, falls, head trauma, and injuries that by the time they are evaluated, they have signs of brain injury. Preventing overdose death and finding treatment options are the first steps to recovery.