Suboxone
At the Kentuckiana Center for Addiction Medicine, our recovery teams use every tool available to help you achieve a real and lasting recovery from your addiction. Our approach includes medication-assisted treatment (MAT), also referred to as medication assisted recovery (MAR). Addiction treatment utilizing medication varies depending on the addiction. For those who are addicted to opioids, suboxone is a powerful and effective medication. Another drug that can be used to assist your recovery is naltrexone.These medications are instrumental in helping our clients achieve the lifelong recovery they hope to have. They often can assist in recovering via discreet, outpatient treatment versus more intensive inpatient programs.
Our medication-assisted treatment plans don’t just address physical dependence. On the contrary, your path to recovery will be achieved with a comprehensive, treatment plan that will help you overcome your physical dependence on substances. It will also give you the tools you need to address the psychological and emotional elements of your addiction.
What Is Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT)?
MAT stands for medication-assisted treatment. Medication-assisted treatment is a physician-led treatment plan that makes use of certain prescription drugs to help the client get sober and remain sober.For many clients, the most challenging step is getting sober initially. When a client is still under the influence of their substance of choice, or suffering withdrawals from that substance, they have a difficult time thinking clearly and motivating themselves to remain clean.
Once they are sober, however, the concepts of healing and recovery become more apparent to them, and they can see a path forward.
One can use several different medications in MAT. One of the most common is suboxone. The main ingredient in suboxone is buprenorphine. Naltrexone can also be a helpful tool in addiction treatment.
How Can Medication Help You Recover?
Our expert suboxone doctors are here to help. Medications like buprenorphine can be catalysts that help our clients break the cycle of addiction. Typically, addicts find it difficult to recover because it is incredibly challenging to interrupt this cycle. They get high, experience withdrawals and the unpleasantness of coming down. Then they get high to avoid that unpleasantness. This cycle exposes them to continued criminal behavior and risky health practices, which in turn endanger their personal and professional relationships and finances.For someone stuck in this cycle, it can be nearly impossible to carry out a healthy and productive lifestyle. Even if someone can do so, it’s only a matter of time until it becomes impossible.
Clients whose addictions are being managed with Suboxone or other medications, on the other hand, can return to a productive lifestyle faster. They can apply themselves to their jobs, careers, familial relationships, and friendships. This treatment can help give them the motivation they require to recover.
Furthermore, clients who are in a MAT program aren’t relying solely on medication to get better. MAT is used in conjunction with a comprehensive treatment regimen that includes education about addiction, psychiatric care, counseling, therapeutic fellowship, and medical monitoring. This comprehensive treatment regimen is designed to give them all of the tools they need for a complete recovery.
Here at the Kentuckiana Center for Addiction Medicine, we understand that getting sober and staying sober are two different things. We are committed to helping our clients achieve both. Simply getting off drugs isn’t enough. Our clients want to stay sober, and genuinely recover, and we do everything we can to help them achieve that.
Buprenorphine Therapy
MAT isn’t a new concept, and our suboxone clinic can help you. Methadone maintenance therapy has been a common practice in addiction treatment centers around the world for decades. Methadone is a synthetic opioid that was initially developed as a painkiller and later used to help treat opioid dependence and addiction. Today, methadone therapy has mostly been replaced by suboxone therapy for several good reasons.Suboxone is a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone, and like methadone, it is a synthetic opioid. The side effects of suboxone are, for most patients, relatively mild and predominately physical. These side effects may include headache, dizziness, oral numbness, insomnia, nausea, and difficulty concentrating, among others. Cases of severe side effects are extremely rare.
How Buprenorphine Works
Methadone was often useful when used in highly monitored situations, yet it did have a potential for abuse in its own right. It was similar to the opioids many patients found themselves addicted to in the first place.Opioid addiction often begins when a patient is prescribed painkillers for a legitimate health issue and become dependent on the drug. When their tolerance becomes too high, or their doctors cease to prescribe the medication, they turn to buy the drug. Or they turn to illegal street drugs like heroin to support their addiction.
Addiction is a condition that develops when an individual begins to associate a specific behavior with a surge of dopamine that accompanies that behavior. It is the dopamine surge that the individual chases; it is the physical addiction to the behavior that causes the sickness associated with withdrawal.
Methadone causes a similar dopamine surge, which is one of the reasons it has the potential to be abused. Suboxone, on the other hand, mitigates that response. While the buprenorphine affects the brain like addictive opioids, the naloxone in the medication suppresses the euphoria associated with opioid use. This combination helps our clients manage their cravings and reduces their withdrawal symptoms simultaneously, giving them a clear path toward recovery.