Opioid addiction is not a moral or mental weakness. It's a continuing medical checkup that results from changes in the brain in susceptible people. Once narcotic addiction has developed, escaping the cycle of detox and relapse is typically a long-term process. Addiction to prescription painkillers is a disease that has go increasingly prevalent. Opiate, or narcotic pain medications such as Norco, OxyContin, Vicodin and Hydrocodone are commonly appointed by physicians to treat pain.
Physical dependency means that even if they want to stop taking the medication, it becomes extremely helpless due to symptoms of withdrawal. This happens because of the following physical process:
- The brain has responded to the bearing of the pain medicate by leading the amount of receptors for the drug dose, and the nerve cells in the brain cease to function normally.
- The body physical structure stops producing endorphins because it is receiving opiates instead.
- The regression of the nerve cells in the brain causes a physical addiction on an outside supply of opiates, and reduction or stopping intake of the drug dose causes a painful series of physical changes called the withdrawal syndrome.
Physical Dependence and Detoxification
Narcotic dependence leads to actual changes in sealed areas of the brain. Prescription drug addiction alters the circuits responsible for mood and "reward" behaviors
In addition, long-term prescription drug abuse affects virtually all the systems in the body. Cutting off the supply suddenly incresed to opioid withdrawal symptoms.
Symptoms of opioid withdrawal include:
- · Craving for drugs
- · Yawning
- · Large pupils
- · Nausea and vomiting
- · Body aches
- · Agitation and severe negative moods
- · Chills and goose bumps
Treatment Considerations for Painkiller Addiction
Sudden discontinuation of opiates, is associated with real withdrawal symptoms, which although rarely life threatening, can be unsafe and prolonged, lasting up to 2-3 weeks. Opiate withdrawal is characterized by severe uncomfortable, including looseness, abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting and cramping, back and bone pain and intense craving for the drug.
It is significant to annotation that there is a difference between being dependent on narcotics and being addicted. Many patients can become dependent even in a comparatively short postoperative course of narcotic medications. In such cases, withdrawal symptoms are to be expected, but few patients may need a medication such as clonidine, which helps block the sympathetic overdrive that makes them feel these symptoms. In these shorter-lived problems, the symptoms should resolve in days and not weeks. Those patients also need to know that they are not addicted but have only become dependent on the drugs. However, for patients who are addicted to narcotic pain pill detoxification program is often needed.
Traditional operation of detoxification force patients unnecessarily to suffer through this withdrawal, and as a result of the intensity and extreme discomfort of withdrawal, many person do not even endeavor detoxification. Among those who do, there is a significant dropout rate.26 Even when patients complete traditional detox methods the success rates are poor and the vast majority of patients return to the drug within a few months. The ideal Pain Pill detoxification method should be safe, relatively brief, with a minimum experience of withdrawal symptoms, providing individuals with the ability to achieve and maintain abstinence and to return to healthy, productive lives.
