In this blog, I will talk about why naltrexone therapy for addiction treatment is essential for those struggling with opioid addiction to stay clean long-term and block their cravings.
Watch Dr. Coleman's recap on YouTube, ""Why Is Naltrexone Therapy So Important for Opioid Addiction?" or read the summary below.
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Medication-Assisted Treatment with Naltrexone Therapy
Naltrexone's really important for opioid addiction for the main reason that it works. Because without naltrexone, people just don't do very well. Patients really need some form of medication-assisted treatment (MAT); and the options, of course, are buprenorphine or methadone. But for 20 years, we've been specializing in naltrexone because it's a long-acting version of the drug, and it's completely non addictive. So there's no withdrawal when you finish it, and it doesn't have any kind of getting people high or anything like that.
But without medication-assisted treatment, people really don't do well. If you think of people who go into jail, and maybe they've been in jail for 3 months or 6 months or sometimes even 5 years, and almost all of them relapse as soon as they get out of jail and they have access to the drug again. It's just such a powerful addiction. We're not really quite sure why it's worse than other addictions, like alcohol or even other drugs like cocaine. But opioid addiction has a very high relapse rate.
UNDERSTANDING ACCELERATED OPIOID DETOX
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Naltrexone Studies and Outcomes
In fact, I saw a study recently where they were using a form of medication-assisted treatment and they had some people on the active drug and the other ones on a placebo. The placebo success was only 2%. So people who were not getting the active drug had a 98% failure rate, and they actually defined success as people who had less than 20% negative urine. So the people who were not successful weren't even staying completely clean.
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Naltrexone Therapy for Opioid Addiction
The bottom line is naltrexone is a very powerful drug, it's non addictive, and it's very useful. When we use it as the implant or as Vivitrol, it lasts either 1 month or 2 months. So it's very powerful and it lasts a long time. It helps people recover and really helps people get into recovery and then have a chance to stay clean long-term. By taking away their cravings and allowing them to participate in their therapy and in their recovery program.
Please schedule a callback with the Coleman Institute for Addiction Medicine now if you are ready to be free from opioids. Together we can help you make changes to recover for good.
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