Treatment Options To Consider If Your Child Has An Opiate Addiction
If your child has developed an addiction to opiates, whether they are prescription painkillers or the highly illegal heroin, you may find yourself at a complete loss. Finding out your child has such a serious drug addiction is never easy. However, it does not mean there are not options available to you to help you deal with the situation. There are numerous treatment programs and options that can help your child get their addiction under control and get them on the road to recovery. Get to know some of those options so you can be sure that you are getting your child the best possible care for their opiate addiction.
Inpatient vs Outpatient Treatment Programs
There are generally two different types of opiate treatment programs. These are inpatient and outpatient programs. Outpatient opiate treatment programs would allow your child to stay at home with you (or in their own home) while getting treatment. This type of program allows more flexibility if your child has a job that they cannot miss or has children, pets, or other responsibilities that cannot be taken care of by another family member while they seek out treatment.
However, the problem with outpatient opiate treatment programs is that patients in such programs have a great deal of opportunity to relapse and resume opiate abuse while they are going through treatment. They only go to treatment for a few hours a day or week and have the rest of their time to themselves to do as they choose, and that may be to abuse opiates.
Inpatient treatment programs for opiate abuse are more intensive treatment programs and offer a more controlled and constructive treatment environment. Your child would stay in a treatment center or clinic for the duration of their treatment (usually from a few weeks to a few months) and receive around-the-clock care and supervision. This helps people addicted to opiates get through the detox process as well as the beginnings of recovery without the chance of resuming opiate abuse.
Suboxone and Other Medical Treatment Programs
Some opiate treatment programs focus solely on the mental aspects of opiate addictions. While this is an important part of recovering from opiate addiction, it can often leave out the physical dependence that opiate addicts develop to the drugs. Continued opiate abuse actually changes the chemistry of the brain.
Opiates cause a flood of dopamine and other relaxing, feel-good chemicals in the brain. Using opiates in excess causes the brain and body to come to wait for the drug to be in the body to release those chemicals. As such, the body needs the opiates to perform functions it would otherwise have done on its own.
A suboxone treatment program or another medical treatment program will help to address this physical dependence on opiates. Suboxone is a prescription medication that combines a prescription opiate medication and an opiate antagonist. It essentially helps with the detox process and can even be used in the long-term to prevent or reduce withdrawal symptoms as well as prevent relapse. The drug gives the brain that hint of the effects of opiates but not enough to get any kind of high from it. The opiate antagonist in suboxone blocks those effects so that the suboxone only helps to control and maintain the brain's chemistry.
Knowing these different opiate addiction treatment options, you can be certain that you help your child get the best possible treatment for their addiction. To learn more, contact a company like Pittsburgh Family Practice.