Posts Tagged ‘maintenance therapy’
A Look Into Detox Symptoms
Medical technology has provided specific drugs that can help with detoxification symptoms. I know it sounds odd. Take a drug to get off a drug. But because some of the symptoms are so severe, having these drugs available can be very important. Plus, they are not addictive, and when you are under the care of a doctor, they will monitor your usage very carefully until you won’t have to take those drugs anymore.
One very effective treatment of opiate withdrawal symptoms is methadone maintenance therapy. It is safe when administered under the care of a doctor. Taken orally once a day, methadone suppresses narcotic withdrawal for between 24 and 36 hours. Because methadone is effective in eliminating withdrawal symptoms, it is used in detoxifying opiate addicts. It is, however, only effective in cases of addiction to heroin, morphine, and other opioid drugs, and it is not an effective treatment for other drugs of abuse.
Heroin Addiction: Heroin Assisted Treatment Studies Hit Home in North America
In Vancouver, a pilot program was started in 2005 (the first of its kind in North America) assessing the efficacy of heroin assisted treatment among hard-core drug users. This type of study, which has been previously conducted in parts of Europe, proposed to solve severe drug problems afflicting portions of major cities throughout Canada. While many long-term opioid addicts respond positively to methadone treatment, a smaller segment of the heroin addicted population, for reasons unknown to sociologists and psychologists alike, refuse to cease their IV drug use despite conventional rehabilitation efforts or maintenance therapy. It is this portion of the heroin using population that NAOMI (North American Opiate Maintenance Project), the pilot program mentioned above, sought to address.