Overview of Opiate Treatment

Opiate treatment is highly essential for those who suffer from opiate abuse. Opiate, a specific class of drugs, is the root cause of a large number of drug related deaths all over the world. Usually, opiate drugs are prescribed to patients to manage severe or moderate pain. Codeine, heroin, and morphine are the common types of opiate drugs. When patients start to take the medication on their own terms, they become an addict to opiates. However, people use these medicines without the prescription of a doctor. This is a street drug and people use it as a recreational drug. So, opiate abuse is a huge problem all over the world, especially in the United States.

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When Do You Need Opiate Treatment?

When you start using opiate drugs frequently, your body begins to tolerate opiates. As a result, people who use this medicine increase the frequency of intake of this medicine. This is the beginning stage of opiate abuse and a sign you need treatment. You cannot stay in this stage for long. In order to gain the results you are looking for, you will increase the quantity and frequency of consumption further. This leads to the physical dependence or addiction to this drug. Once you are addicted to opiates, you started showing withdrawal symptoms as early as a few hours after the administration of this drug. In this phase, it will be very difficult to stop using these drugs.

Opiate Withdrawal Symptoms

Here are a few physical symptoms of opiate abuse.

* Rapid heartbeat
* Sweating
* Bone and muscle pain
* Cramps
* Tremors
* Weakness
* Diarrhea
* Vomiting
* Sneezing
* Inflamed, runny nose
* Restless leg syndrome
* Itching

People may also show some psychological symptoms as well. Some of them are depression, nausea, dizziness, insomnia, paranoia, anxiety, panic attach, cravings, dysphoria, etc. Though rare, opiate abuse may also lead to some serious symptoms such as dehydration, seizure, strokes, cardiac arrhythmias, and suicide attempts. Depending on the duration, frequency, type and quantity of the use of opiate drug, physical withdrawal symptoms last for 48-72 hours.

Importance of Opiate Treatment

Long term use of opiates can lead to infection in the heart lining and valves. Opiate abuse also causes clogging of blood vessels that lead to brain, kidneys, liver, or lungs. This will ultimately lead to infection on these organs or even death. When the tolerance level of your body increases, you ingest higher amounts of opiate drugs. This will lead to the risk of fatal overdose. It is very difficult to overcome the opiate addiction because many prescription opiates are legal.

Major Opiate Treatments

Opiate addiction is a very serious and complex health problem. Usually, such patients need long term care and treatment to overcome this addiction. Opiate treatment focuses on reducing the dependence on these illicit drugs, reduce morbidity, get rid of infectious diseases, improve physical and psychological health, reduce criminal behavior, etc.

Methadone Maintenance Treatment

This is a form of opiate replacement therapy. It helps to reduce or eliminate illicit use of opiate. It also aims to improve the health and social productivity of patients. Methadone Maintenance treatment also reduce the possibility of transmission of infectious disease such as HIV and hepatitis due to opiate injection. This treatment is also highly useful for getting relief from narcotic craving, and suppress abstinence syndrome. You can undergo methadone treatment if you want to move away from opiate drugs.

Buprenorphine

Various studies were conducted to find out the effectiveness of buprenorphine. Researchers say that buprenorphine is safer than methadone in opiate replacement therapy. It is highly effective in reducing the risk of deaths during the process of opiate treatment. It is also effective for overcoming the withdrawal symptoms of fentanyl, oxymorphone, morphine, hydrocodone, oxycodone, heroin and other opiates.

Diamorphine

This treatment is useful for improving the health and social status of opiate addicts. This is an effective treatment for hardcore opiate addicts as well.

Naltrexone

FDA approved this treatment in 1984. This treatment follows both oral medication and monthly injection. However, some researchers question the effectiveness of oral Naltrexone. Monthly naltrexone injection is designed for overcoming the problems related to oral formulation.

Withdrawal symptoms are the greatest obstacles for those who beat with opiate addiction. Even if the addicts try to stop using the drug, they are unable to do it due to severe withdrawal symptoms. Therefore detoxification program is the first step of this treatment. Withdrawal of opiate is very painful for the addicts. Sometimes, this is a dangerous process too. So supervision of a trained medical professional is highly essential during detox period. Patients need the help of an experienced and efficient professional to get the right opiate treatment.