Pat Moore Foundation is a recovery community in Costa Mesa, California. We have specialized in opiate addiction treatment programs since 1985, and we’ve come to know first-hand the powerful addictive and destructive qualities of oxycodone and prescription drugs abuse. Below is a link to a short information guide on Oxycodone abuse, addiction, symptoms, risks, hydrocodone, and Suboxone detox and treatment.
How to Treat Methadone Addiction
Methadone addiction is a bigger problem than ever, as many former heroin users turned to methadone treatment to help prevent heroin withdrawal symptoms in detox. While methadone does help to manage these physical symptoms to make it easier to get off heroin, it has many disadvantages of its own. The most significant disadvantage of methadone rehabilitation programs is that they cause a methadone addiction.
Methadone may not be chemically structured in the same way as heroin, morphine, vicodin and other opiates, but it is equally addictive, if no more so. Methadone produces the same euphoric high as those other drugs as well as the same horrendous withdrawal symptoms including vomiting, diarrhea, fever, muscle aches, insomnia, anxiety and constant cravings. Many actually report methadone withdrawal to be even harsher than heroin withdrawal. Additionally, the FDA issued public health advisory warning of potentially life-threatening side effects of using methadone.
Treating methadone addiction requires the same medication-assisted approach as treating heroin addiction. Luckily, however, there is now a drug that can help prevent withdrawal symptoms and other characteristics of detoxing off methadone without causing a similar replacement addiction. That drug is buprenorphine. Buprenorphine is the active ingredient in Suboxone and Subutex. The FDA approved it in 2002 for treatment of opiod addiction including heroin, oxycodone, methadone and others.
Suboxone offers a helping hand to methadone addicts by helping to reduce cravings, withdrawal symptoms so that it’s possible to function in everyday life. It can be administered as an outpatient therapy or as part of a residential program depending on the individual. When the patient is ready, the dosage can be gradually stepped down without many of the harsh withdrawal effects.
Source: http://www.fda.gov/CDER/drug/advisory/methadone.htm
Click here for the next part in the series, “Methadone Addiction and Side Effects.” Click here to return to the first part in the series, “Introduction to Methadone.”
Pat Moore Foundation’s drug & alcohol detox and alcohol & drug addiction treatment programs are licensed and certified by The State of California. We provide non-medical and medically managed detoxification (using Suboxone, Subutex, and Buprenorphine when appropriate) and primary residential treatment. Our individual homes are on a unique co-ed campus where we offer gender specific treatment. We are located in Costa Mesa, in Orange County, Southern California, close to Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, and only an hour’s drive from Los Angeles and San Diego. To speak with a counselor, please call us 24-hours at (888) 426-6086 or if you’d like us to contact you, send a confidential message online by filling out our online form.
Note: All medical services are administered by medical professionals, which are facilitated and operated solely under the jurisdiction of a separate medical corporation.