Tag Archives: Opioid abuse

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Controlling opioid painkillers abuse

June 7, 2017
Controlling opioid painkillers

Controlling opioid painkillers abuse is possible when patients follows the prescription well

Controlling opioid painkillers abuse: Outpatient detox

Although many patients who are dependent on opioids will benefit from long-term maintenance therapy with methadone or buprenorphine, several studies have suggested that there may be a meaningful subset of individuals who can obtain good outcomes with more time-limited approaches, because of this doctor Dalal Akoury reiterates that detoxification is typically connected with high relapse rates and return to opioid abuse. Besides that, some data also suggest that if you do it right, outpatient detoxification can be effective. And remember that, by controlling opioid painkillers abuse using naltrexone therapy is extremely important to help prevent the resumption of illicit opioid use following detoxification.

Dr. Akoury has noted that outpatient detoxification may be particularly appropriate for patients who present for treatment with less severe opioid dependence. In this trial, consistent with previous research, stabilization on a lower dose of buprenorphine an indicator of less severe dependence was associated with a favorable treatment response. This finding may hold particular relevance for prescription opioid abusers, many of whom are younger and have brief histories of opioid dependence, less severe other drug use, less IV use, and greater psychosocial stability than past generations of primary heroin abusers.

Controlling opioid painkillers abuse: Behavioral therapy and naltrexone maintenance

Although their study design did not permit them to measure the impacts of the treatment regimen’s intensive behavioral therapy and naltrexone maintenance, the researchers believe that both were instrumental to their patients’ positive outcomes. The behavioral therapy, delivered by master’s level therapists, included counseling on how to handle withdrawal and avoid relapse, strengthen social networks, and find healthy recreational activities. The patients were also offered individually tailored sessions focused on their particular needs, from employment to managing depression.

Naltrexone is a non-opioid medication that blocks the receptors where opioids bind and exert their effects. A patient undergoing treatment for opioid addiction that slips and takes an opioid drug doesn’t get the expected high or euphoria. For this reason, it may be right to suggest that naltrexone can be viewed as an insurance policy Dr. Akoury says. That because it can prevent a single lapse from turning into a full-blown relapse. The idea is, if you don’t have any drug effect, why spend heavily on OxyContin if Naltrexone can be taken long term to prevent recommencement of opioid use after detoxification?

From the research findings, it is clear that longer usage of Bp/Nx tapers enhance patients’ outcomes is consistent with some even though not all, as it is evident in the previous studies on detoxification. Dr. Akoury says that more gradual Bp/Nx tapering may more completely suppress opioid withdrawal symptoms, thereby reducing patient discomfort and risk for relapse to opioids.

Finally, when faced with any addiction challenge of any kind and not necessarily opioid painkillers, seeking for timely help are very important. The facts outline about the outpatient detoxification for opioid painkillers addicts above are essential but you also need to seek for more beyond outpatient treatment. Scheduling an appointment with doctor Akoury will help you in finding out more about healthy solutions available at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center. This is actually the place to be for accuracy, assurance, and professionalism in dealing with all matters relating to drug addiction.

Controlling opioid painkillers abuse: Outpatient detox

 

 

 

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Fighting opioid addiction

Global painkillers addiction epidemic

April 7, 2017
Global painkillers addiction

Global painkillers addiction epidemic is causing more health trouble than we can imagine

Global painkillers addiction epidemic: Opioids pill form energy

The prevalence of addiction in our societies demands that we be on high alert in dealing with all kinds of addiction including tackling the global painkillers addiction epidemic. A well-thought approach from all sectors of health care that includes all primary, secondary and tertiary care methods; clinical care approaches and even financiers like insurers working with providers to reduce barriers to addiction treatment that will secure prescription avenues to prevent over-prescription is very essential. Doctor Dalal Akoury, MD President and founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center is reiterating that when fighting opioid addiction, opioids pill forms energy and addiction, it is important that everybody needs to be involved including the pharmacies. Doing this will fundamentally reduce the risk of addiction for all patients and will directly benefit individuals with a history of or tendency to opioid pills (painkiller) addiction.

Global painkillers addiction epidemic: The most desired form of pain killers

Most of the opiates being abused by addicted patients are in pill form. These are easy to open up, transport, and also provide the brain toxicology-altering high that addicts seek. Experts at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center are categorical that the easiest ways to fight addiction are to eliminate the reward from the situation entirely. This can be done by compounding oral painkillers into up-to-date creams and gels were possible with this the compounding pharmacies can lower the risk of addiction significantly. The good news about this is that not only do topical compounds deliver more localized pain relief and cause fewer complications due to lower absorption rates, a topical compound does not alter brain state the way oral opioids do when delivering the much needed high by users.

Besides that doctor Akoury registers that pharmacies can also provide alternative options for traditional painkillers which are typically reserved for patients who have allergies to certain medications thereby necessitating the need for compounded alternatives, using a painkiller alternative for Vicodin or Oxycontin that can lower prescriptions for the highly addictive and readily available painkillers. Patients or doctors with patients who are working on overcoming drug addiction can also work with a compounding pharmacy to help with “tapering,” or the act of slowly reducing ingested levels of opioids to safely treat the body’s addiction without abruptly cutting off the supply.

Finally, according to the information available with the public health sector, it is evident that compounding pharmacies contribute a lot to the fight against opioid addiction on both fronts at the macro level by working with researchers and other health care professionals to understand the broader development of these public health issues; and at the micro level by working with patients and physicians to use compounding to reduce the addictive properties of medications. If you are struggling with any kind of addiction we want to let you know that help is on the way and you can be well again in a very short time at affordable rates. Speak to us today and we will attend to you professionally.

Global painkillers addiction epidemic: Addiction prevention and treatment

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Withdrawal

Conflicting drug use opinions and addiction

March 31, 2017
Conflicting drug use

Conflicting drug use opinions and addiction is not helping in defeating the scourge

Conflicting drug use opinions and addiction: There is nothing good in using drugs

It has been said without number that people suffering from mental disorders like social anxiety or depression or those with withdrawal symptoms can get relief from using the same drug that caused them the problem in the first place. This is what I want to call a concoction and drug use conflicting opinions. When the end product of any given product is unhealthy, it can never be said to be good and helpful. Doctor Dalal Akoury a renowned addiction expert says that usage of drugs is like suppressing a disease with pain killers. The pain may be suppressed but the disease is active and growing to cause more damage. Therefore drug use is by all standard bad and cannot be good. What people see as positive effect is simply a concoction that will go a way as soon as the real problem of addiction resurface. The more you suppress by taking more of the drug the more dangerous it become to your health and more difficult to handle during recovery process.

Conflicting drug use opinions and addiction: Effects of withdrawal symptoms

From the expert’s point of view at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center, when users of the drugs are temporarily enjoying the concocted positive effects, they often feel that they will be in more control of the drug they use. But then again they find themselves beaten and like lightening the drug take over the full control of their lives. Before they realize, they are seriously into drugs and what they initially thought was pleasurable becomes less pleasurable and the need to use more drugs overwhelmingly take roots in their lives.

Doctor Akoury advices that people needs to stay away from drugs as possible. She says that drugs are very addictive and has no positive ending. Those who took drugs thinking that they are in control are today addicts to the same drugs they were supposed to have control over. At this point, they may then compulsively seek and take drugs even though it causes immeasurable problems to themselves and also to their loved ones. The consequence of this is that they will certainly crave for more drugs and this time, they will even take higher or more frequent doses. With drug use conflicting opinions has no place. It is your health first and the other things letter. This is true even to users in their early stages of drug use says doctor Akoury.

Finally the limits put by the authority are not working either. The better option is complete abstinence. That is to say that even relatively moderate drug use poses dangers. It therefore means that drug use confliction opinions has no place when it comes to drug use. The common denominator hear is drugs are addictive, result in serious chronic health problems and must be treated just like that. If you are struggling with and drug, stop listening to the statements of positive usage, those are just but drug use conflicting opinions. Seek for help and call doctor Akoury today for a more professional healing approach.

Conflicting drug use opinions and addiction: There is nothing good in using drugs

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Specific neurotransmitters affected by drugs

July 12, 2016
Specific neurotransmitters

With good treatment, Specific neurotransmitters affected by drugs can be eliminated for a greater freedom.

Specific neurotransmitters affected by drugs: What is neurotransmission?

For us to better understand the specific neurotransmitters affected by drugs, we must appreciate certain facts. Like for instance, any victim of substance abuse experiences directly reflects on the functional roles of a given neurotransmitter whose activity is being disrupted. Each individual neuron manufactures one or more neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, or any one of a dozen others that scientists have discovered to date. Each neurotransmitter is associated with particular effects depending on its distribution among the brain’s various functional areas. Dopamine, for example, is highly concentrated in regions that regulate motivation and feelings of reward, accounting for its importance in compulsive behaviors such as drug abuse.

A neurotransmitter’s impact also depends on whether it stimulates or dampens activity in its target neurons says doctor Dalal Akoury, MD, President and founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center. It is also worth noting that ordinarily, some drugs will disrupt one neurotransmitter or class of neurotransmitters. Like for instance, those individuals who are struggling with opioid may experience changes which are similar and more noticeable than those that accompany normal fluctuations in the brain’s natural opioid-like neurotransmitters, endorphin and enkephalin: increased analgesia, decreased alertness, and slowed respiration. Other drugs interact with more than one type of neurotransmitter.

Because a neurotransmitter often stimulates or inhibits a cell that produces a different neurotransmitter, a drug that alters one can have secondary impacts on another. In fact, the key effect that all abused drugs appear to have in common is a dramatic increase in dopamine signaling in the nucleus accumbens leading to euphoria and a desire to repeat the experience. For example, nicotine stimulates dopamine-releasing cells directly by stimulating their acetylcholine receptors, and also indirectly by triggering higher levels of glutamate, a neurotransmitter that acts as an accelerator for neuron activity throughout the brain.

Specific neurotransmitters affected by drugs: Changes which occurs with chronic drug abuse

During the early phase of an individual’s drug experimentation, specific neurotransmission normalizes as intoxication wears off and the substance leaves the brain. Eventually, however, drugs wreak changes in cellular structure and function that lead to long-lasting or permanent neurotransmission abnormalities. These alterations underlie drug tolerance, addiction, withdrawal, and other persistent consequences.

Some longer term changes begin as adjustments to compensate for drug-induced increases in neurotransmitter signaling intensities. For example, drug tolerance typically develops because sending cells reduce the amount of neurotransmitter they produce and release, or receiving cells withdraw receptors or otherwise dampen their responsiveness. Scientists have shown, for example, that cells withdraw opioid receptors into their interiors (where they cannot be stimulated) when exposed to some opioid drugs; when exposed to morphine, however, cells appear instead to make internal adjustments that produce the same effect reduced responsiveness to opiate drugs and natural opioids. Over time, this and related changes recalibrate the brain’s responsiveness to opioid stimulation downward to a level where the organ needs the extra stimulation of the drug to function normally; without the drug, withdrawal occurs.

Specific neurotransmitters affected by drugs: What is neurotransmission?

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Opioid abuse and its effects to the brain reward system

March 19, 2014

Opioid abuse and its effects to the brain reward system-How does the reward center in the brain work?

Brain

The brain is the life controller and must not be affected by opioid addiction or abuse

Life is the most precious and price less gift humanity has. This is only useful and meaning full with proper functioning brain. We all understand that the brain is certainly a busy little organ yet it is on duty tirelessly for life without taking any vacation, the moment it possess for whatever reason life ends or serenity is rearranged. Despite it busy roles in driving the body; it knows fun and pleasure when it sees it. When an external stimulus, such as a particular food or a potential mate, has been encountered and deemed a pleasurable sensation, the cerebral cortex signals the ventral tegmental area of the brain to release the chemical dopamine into the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex and the nucleus acumens. These latter regions of the brain make up the reward system. These areas work in conjunction to deliver a sense of pleasure and focus the attention of the individual so that he or she learns to repeat the behavior once more. Researchers theorize that this is how behaviors necessary for survival, such as reproduction and eating, are learned.

Interestingly, the reward center doesn’t kick into gear only when we eat something delicious or meet a potential new love interest. It turns out that generosity can be quite a kick too! MRI studies have revealed that when we perform an act of kindness, the brain’s reward center is aroused and we experience feelings of pleasure. The brain is flooded with happiness-inducing dopamine whenever we give a homeless person some money or help out someone in need. A study conducted in 2008 confirmed the belief that spending money on other people can result in elevated feelings of happiness for the giver.

It might not be all fun and games for the reward center, however, a recent study came to a startling conclusion that the brain’s reward center responds to bad experiences as well as good. Doing something scary or even merely thinking about it can trigger a release of dopamine. In essence, dopamine isn’t just triggered by fun and pleasurable events. Negative things can do the trick too.

Opioid abuse and its effects to the brain reward system-Reward pathway

The most important reward pathway in brain is the mesolimbic dopamine system. This circuit (VTA-NAc) is a key detector of a rewarding stimulus. Under normal conditions, the circuit controls an individual’s responses to natural rewards, such as food, sex, and social interactions, and is therefore an important determinant of motivation and incentive drive. In simplistic terms, activation of the pathway tells the individual to repeat what it just did to get that reward. It also tells the memory centers in the brain to pay particular attention to all features of that rewarding experience, so it can be repeated in the future. Not surprisingly, it is a very old pathway from an evolutionary point of view. The use of dopamine neurons to mediate behavioral responses to natural rewards is seen in worms and flies, which evolved 1-2 billion years ago.

The VTA-NAc pathway is part of a series of parallel, integrated circuits, which involve several other key brain regions.

The VTA is the site of dopaminergic neurons, which tell the organism whether an environmental stimulus (natural reward, drug of abuse, stress) is rewarding or aversive.

The NAc, also called ventral striatum, is a principle target of VTA dopamine neurons. This region mediates the rewarding effects of natural rewards and drugs of abuse.

The amygdala is particularly important for conditioned forms of learning. It helps an organism establish associations between environmental cues and whether or not that particular experience was rewarding or aversive, for example, remembering what accompanied finding food or fleeing a predator. It also interacts with the VTA-NAc pathway to determine the rewarding or aversive value of an environmental stimulus (natural reward, drug of abuse, stress).

The hippocampus is critical for declarative memory, the memory of persons, places, or things. Along with the amygdala, it establishes memories of drug experiences which are important mediators of relapse.

The hypothalamus is important for coordinating an individual’s interest in rewards with the body’s physiological state. This region integrates brain function with the physiological needs of the organism.

Probably the most important, but least understood, are frontal regions of cerebral cortex, such as medial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex, which provide executive control over choices made in the environment (for example, whether to seek a reward).

The locus coeruleus is the primary site of noradrenergic neurons in the brain, which pervasively modulate brain function to regulate the state of activation and mood of the organism.

The dorsal raphe is the primary site of serotonergic neurons in the brain, which, like noradrenergic neurons, pervasively modulate brain function to regulate the state of activation and mood of the organism.

Of course, these various brain regions, and many more, do not function separately. Rather, they function in a highly inter-related manner and mediate an individual’s responses to a range of environmental stimuli.

Opioid abuse and its effects to the brain reward system-What are opioids?

Opioids are medications that relieve pain. They reduce the intensity of pain signals reaching the brain and affect those brain areas controlling emotion, which diminishes the effects of a painful stimulus. Medications that fall within this class include hydrocodone (e.g., Vicodin), oxycodone (e.g., OxyContin, Percocet), morphine (e.g., Kadian, Avinza), codeine, and related drugs. Hydrocodone products are the most commonly prescribed for a variety of painful conditions, including dental and injury-related pain. Morphine is often used before and after surgical procedures to alleviate severe pain. Codeine, on the other hand, is often prescribed for mild pain.

Symptoms of opioid abuse can be categorized by physical state.

Opioid abuse and its effects to the brain reward system-Intoxication state

Patients with opioid use disorders frequently relapse and present with intoxication. Symptoms vary according to level of intoxication. For mild to moderate intoxication, individuals may present with drowsiness, pupillary constriction, and slurred speech. For severe overdose, patients may experience respiratory depression, stupor, and coma. A severe overdose may be fatal.

Opioid abuse and its effects to the brain reward system-Withdrawal state

Symptoms of withdrawal include the following:

  • Autonomic symptoms – diarrhea, rhinorrhea, diaphoresis, lacrimation, shivering, nausea, emesis, piloerection
  • Central nervous system arousal – sleeplessness, restlessness, tremors
  • Pain – abdominal cramping, bone pains, and diffuse muscle aching
  • Craving – for the medication

Opioid abuse and its effects to the brain reward system-How does the reward center in the brain work?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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