Medical Detox Programs in a stress-free environment

January 11, 2008

Drug Detox Q &A: Is There Anything Drug Companies Say That I Can Believe?

Filed under: OxyContin addiction, Oxycontin detox, drug addiction, drug addiction help, drug detox, prescription drug abuse, prescription drug addiction — Rod Malcolm @ 10:58 pm

Are you confused about prescription drugs? If so, it’s not surprising. The word is getting out that they are dangerous. There’s even a commercial on television about it – a man sitting on a bench says that he doesn’t like living in pain, but he’s afraid he’ll get addicted to painkillers. A kindly man then replies that the drug he’s pushing isn’t addictive, so it’s not a problem. How can you tell if a drug is dangerous or not? How can you tell if you’re likely to need drug detox or rehab to get off them? One thing for sure, you can’t listen to the drug companies.

Actually, that’s not entirely fair, you can listen to some of what the drug companies tell you – there is some truth in their information about side effects.

However, until recently, even the side effects were downplayed: Drug companies used to choose which clinical trials they would disclose to the public, and even to the FDA when they requested approval. Obviously, they chose trials that presented the drug in the most favorable light. Fortunately, a new law now requires the side effects be disclosed. And those side effects should be enough to make deciding whether or not to take the drug a no-brainer.

The list of OxyContin side effects, for example, is very long – there’s at least 80 of them – and they cover such diverse reactions as anorexia, nervousness, abnormal dreams, thought abnormalities chest pain, amnesia, depression, migraines, . anaphylactic or anaphylactoid reactions – which basically amount to, among other things, a sudden drop in blood pressure accompanied by difficulty breathing and, if not treated, death – and withdrawal symptoms ‘with or without seizures’. That’s where the medical drug detox comes in.

If the side effects are that bad even after the drug company has done everything possible to make the drug look good, you can imagine how bad it really is.

The long and short of it – don’t take prescription drugs unless you have a life-threatening situation. And if you’re already taking them, get into a medical drug detox program that will help you get off the drugs before the drugs themselves threaten your life.

January 2, 2008

Will More Drug Detox Be Needed With Patients Getting 90-Day Prescriptions for Dangerous Drugs?

Filed under: OxyContin addiction, Oxycontin detox, drug addiction, drug addiction help, drug addiction treatment, drug detox, drug detox program, drug rehab, prescription drug abuse, prescription drug addiction — Rod Malcolm @ 6:17 pm

Yesterday I read a blog about a new ruling from the DEA regarding prescriptions for Legal narcotics and stimulants that have a high potential for dependence and abuse – i.e. Schedule II drugs. Many groups and individuals are speaking out against this ruling and a petition to rescind it is circulating on the Internet. The ruling allows doctors to give out 90-day prescriptions rather than just 30 days. Will this ruling increase the already alarming need for drug detox and drug rehab for prescription drugs? Yes, I think so.

The list of Schedule II drugs includes many of the drugs we read horror stories about daily: methadone, morphine, OxyContin – which, along with other prescription drugs of their type cause more drug overdose deaths than cocaine and heroin combined – and Ritalin, normally prescribed for kids and identified by the DEA as one of the foremost contributing factors to later cocaine dependence and addiction.

So if a person is taking these drugs already what’s wrong with them being able to go to the pharmacy and renew their prescription a couple of times? Well, it means that no one is monitoring how they’re doing on the drug. And it means that anyone taking these drugs has an even greater chance of addiction and dependency than they had when their prescription lasted for only a month.

According to the DEA, this shouldn’t be much of a problem because doctors will only give the 90-day prescriptions to patients they know are going to need repeat prescriptions anyway.

However, judging by the number of people who’ve already died or gone into treatment at drug detox and drug rehab facilities – and the fact that many of those people start taking the drug when they were given a prescription by their doctor – I don’t see that doctors are any more able to predict prescription drug addiction, abuse or dependency than their patients.

Your safest bet, really, is to just not take these drugs at all or, if you absolutely have to, take them in the lowest dosage possible and for the shortest time possible. And get yourself into a drug detox program at the first sign of not being able to get off them.

November 8, 2007

OxyContin Detox Climbs to the Top of Drug Detox Enrollee Requirements

Filed under: Oxycontin detox, drug detox — Rod Malcolm @ 7:58 am

I recently read an article about a drug detox and rehab center in Canada that was adding additional facilities. The thing that caught my attention in the story was that 100 percent of the people who had enrolled in their program in the last three months were addicted to or dependant on prescription drugs – largely OxyContin and other opiate painkillers. They needed OxyContin detox.

During the Purdue Pharma hearings, when Purdue was fined $634.5 million for misleading the public about the risk of OxyContin addiction and abuse, I found that enrollment into several drug detox and rehab centers for OxyContin addiction had reached about 60 percent, one of them was at 90 percent. But that was just a few drug detox centers in the states in which OxyContin was most heavily marketed.

But the drug detox center in the article I read was in Canada, nowhere near the scene of the crime.

One of two things is happening: either more people are becoming addicted, or more people are becoming aware that they have a problem and are looking for help. I would like to think it’s the latter.

In the few short years after OxyContin was released, hospital emergency rooms treated 30,000 OxyContin incidents, the death toll from OxyContin quadrupled, many people became physically dependent on the drug and others became addicted. If you or someone you care about has gotten hooked on OxyContin, find a drug detox center that can get you through an OxyContin detox fast.

November 5, 2007

OxyContin Addiction, Along With Other Painkillers, Is Handled Through Drug Detox

Filed under: Oxycontin detox, drug addiction, drug detox — Rod Malcolm @ 6:41 am

According to a recent article, overdose from prescription drugs is now the leading cause of death for adults under 45 in West Virginia. In 1998, there were 21 deaths from poisonings, mostly drug overdoses, and by 2006 the number had escalated to 460. Seven of the top ten killers were prescription drugs – methadone, hydrocodone, oxycodone, morphine and fentanyl – aka Dolophine. Lortab. Vicodin. Percodan. OxyContin. MS Contin and Duragesic. OxyContin addiction is getting most of the press these days but the other drugs are just as dangerous, and they all require the same drug detox procedures to quit.

Why has the death rate increased in such alarming numbers? Partially because the number of prescriptions written for these drugs has quadrupled in West Virginia since 1998. But even ‘quadrupled’ is a long way from the difference between 21 and 460. The problem is that the many patients who start off with a prescription have trouble getting off the drugs. When they can no longer get a prescription, they hit the streets instead of going to drug detox for help. People also are introduced to the drugs by ‘friends’, find them in their parents’ or friends’ medicine cabinets, or get them in exchange for sex or other favors. The article even mentioned trading them for car payments.

Drugs beget more drugs, and deaths: Increase the number of prescriptions written by four times, and the death toll increases by 22 times.

If you or someone you know has an OxyContin addiction or a problem with any others of the drugs on that list, get into drug detox fast. Don’t become one of the statistics, and don’t risk the same happening to someone else.

November 4, 2007

OxyContin Addiction is Best Handled With Medical Drug Detox

Filed under: OxyContin addiction, Oxycontin detox, drug addiction, drug addiction help, drug detox, prescription drug addiction — Rod Malcolm @ 11:56 am

I read an article today about Errol Dodson, a weightlifter and wrestler who became addicted to prescription drugs when he received a Vicodin prescription for pain. Over the next few years he developed a Lortab and OxyContin addiction, as well as Vicodin, and was paying $400 a week to buy the drugs illegally. He eventually got off the drugs with a rapid detox procedure but, unfortunately, he’s now tied to another drug, Naltrexone, and can’t even experience the natural high of exercise. Not the ideal way to handle OxyContin addiction.

Rapid detox involves putting a patient under general anesthesia for several hours while he is given other drugs – usually Naltrexone – to force withdrawal. In theory, the pain and shock of a days-long cold turkey withdrawal is still experienced by the body but is condensed into the shorter time period. In practice, and as confirmed by a National Institute on Drug Addiction study, rapid detox is not rapid or pain-free.  Most rapid detox patients take many days or even weeks to recover from the procedure which is not only dangerous but a severe shock to the body. This is especially true when the body has already gone through years of degeneration caused by OxyContin addiction. 

To make matters worse, many patients are often prescribed Naltrexone for a period of a few weeks to two years after the procedure.

Dodson tried cold turkey withdrawal prior to the rapid detox and experienced severe pain and discomfort. He said he felt like snakes were trying to crawl out of his body. So, unfortunately, he chose rapid detox and is paying the price and has exchanged one addiction for another one.

But there is a safe, relatively comfortable OxyContin detox method that avoids the severity of a cold turkey withdrawal and doesn’t require prescription drug support afterwards.  The patient is given drugs to help with the withdrawal symptoms, but the drugs are weaned during the week or so of the drug detox procedure. Novus Medical Detox offers such a drug detox program. Give them a call if you are having a problem with OxyContin addiction.

November 2, 2007

OxyContin Addiction: Some People Need Painkillers, But That Doesn’t Make Them Any Less Addictive

Filed under: OxyContin addiction, Oxycontin detox, drug addiction, drug addiction help, drug detox, prescription drug addiction — Rod Malcolm @ 4:20 am

A recent article professes that OxyContin addiction and addiction to similar prescription painkillers and other opioid prescription painkillers has been blown out of proportion. The author voiced concern that people in chronic pain – back pain, for example – are reluctant to take painkillers for fear of developing a Vicodin, Percocet or OxyContin addiction. The author also said that only 3 – 16% of those who take painkillers for an extended period of time become addicted. What they somehow forgot to mention is that it is almost guaranteed the person will become physically dependant and, when it comes to withdrawal, the line between dependence and addiction is almost invisible.

Whether you have an OxyContin addiction or dependency, here’s what can be expected when you try to get off it: In the early stages you will probably experience anxiety, increased respiratory rate, sweating, tearing or crying, yawning, runny nose, goose bumps, restlessness, anorexia, irritability. If you don’t take more OxyContin the symptoms will probably escalate to include insomnia, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, abdominal cramps, rapid heartbeat, abnormally high blood pressure, muscle spasms, muscle pain and bone pain

Having gone through it myself, I can tell you that there will be plenty of times you would trade how you feel during withdrawal for your original pain in a heartbeat.

OxyContin addiction and dependency has been all over the news for months – ever since Purdue Pharma pled guilty to misleading the public about the dangers of the drug and was fined $634 million. Sure people are afraid of it, and for good reason. Most of that $634 million was used to reimburse various states for the costs incurred trying to help people out of the mess they’d gotten into with the drug.

To my mind, this article smacks of the drug companies fighting back – salvaging what they can of the OxyContin empire by targeting the people least able to resist painkillers: the people who really hurt.

If you have to take OxyContin for a legitimate situation, that’s understood. But you’re right to be wary – as soon as possible get into a medically supervised OxyContin detox that can help you get off the drug safely and with a minimum of withdrawal symptoms. I just wish that I had gone to a good medical detox and spared myself the pain.

October 31, 2007

OxyContin Detox Can Help You Get Off OxyContin Safely and More Comfortably

Filed under: OxyContin addiction, Oxycontin detox, drug detox — Rod Malcolm @ 6:27 pm

Many people who develop an OxyContin addiction started taking the drug because of an injury, accident or surgery that caused severe pain. However, as I wrote in an earlier blog, some “experts” say that about nine percent of those who take prescription opioid painkillers for chronic pain over an extended period become addicted.  Of course they are using a narrow definition of addiction and they also seem to be saying that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, these painkillers are really not that bad. Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to OxyContin addiction.

Whatever the addiction statistics, a great many who take OxyContin or other opioid painkillers are, at the very least, going to become physically dependant—they experience severe withdrawal symptoms when they try to either reduce the dosage or stop taking the painkillers. And whether addicted or dependant, there’s a good chance they’re going to need OxyContin detox to come off the drug safely and without intense withdrawal symptoms.

Where do you go for OxyContin detox? Here’s what one client had to say after their stay at Novus Medical Detox.

“Novus is the greatest detox center and the most comfortable. I realized that my OxyContin addiction was my fault and nobody else’s. I also realized I want to stay clean and hope for the best for myself.  I will be attending rehab after Novus, but Novus did an excellent job of preparing me for my rehabilitation. Novus has a very successful program in my eyes and I would suggest Novus to anyone that has a problem with drugs and alcohol. My stay has been wonderful and the nurses, counselors, cooks, housekeepers and owners are very sweet.”

Getting off OxyContin can be painful. If you or someone you care about needs help, or simple needs to know whether they need OxyContin detox, contact Novus to find out what it involves and whether you need it. If so, they can also tell you how to get started.

October 29, 2007

OxyContin Detox Should Not Be Attempted Through Rapid Detox Procedures

Filed under: OxyContin addiction, Oxycontin detox — Rod Malcolm @ 8:04 pm

Many people have taken the controversial rapid detox route for addiction to alcohol, heroin, OxyContin and other opiates. Not only is a rapid detox not rapid at all, recovery from the procedure can take weeks or months, it is also dangerous – which is why the procedure is controversial. To make matters worse, Garden Grove Hospital has just been fined $25,000 for endangering patient safety by using an anti-nausea drug called Droperidol during a rapid detox procedure. According to California regulators, the hospital used the drug in a manner “likely to cause serious injury or death to patients” – one more reason to go through a medically supervised OxyContin detox, or one appropriate for whatever drug you’re using.

Droperidol can cause serious heart irregularities and even death, according to the FDA, and it is approved only as a last resort and only with cardiac monitoring before and after treatment. At Garden Grove, neither the pharmacy or nursing staff said they knew about the restrictions on using the drug, and they never monitored patients’ heart rhythms. One patient received three doses over two days with no cardiac monitoring whatever.

There are safe ways to detox from drugs. Rapid detox is not one of them. If you or someone you care about is suffering from OxyContin addiction, addiction to alcohol or any other drug, choose a safe OxyContin detox that doesn’t involve such risks. Addiction is bad enough, don’t risk the person’s life further by putting them through a detox program that uses drugs as dangerous, or more so, than the drug to which they’re addicted.

October 26, 2007

OxyContin Addiction May Be Avoided If OxyContin Detox is Done Early

Filed under: OxyContin addiction, Oxycontin detox, drug rehab — Rod Malcolm @ 5:07 am

Hard to imagine your kid as a drug dealer? Here’s the story of one teen who developed an OxyContin addiction after a car accident caused injuries requiring three surgeries. The pills were prescribed for the pain but, according to his mother, he got to the point where he couldn’t get out of bed without them. His mom had no idea he had a problem. After he went into rehab, his mother saw the many messages – one every 20 minutes – on his phone. Instructions from people, many of them adults, who were going to deliver OxyContin and other drugs to him – he was to distribute them, and keep some for himself. That’s how he fed his own OxyContin addiction.

How this could be happening right under his mother’s nose without her even having a clue it was going on is hard to say, but had she figured it out earlier, had she been aware of how easily the need for OxyContin can turn into OxyContin addiction, there’s a possibility that she could have gotten him through an OxyContin detox early in the game, and drug rehab if needed, and he never would have resorted to criminality.

The young man was also being threatened by drug dealers – he was told that if he quit dealing, they’d hurt his mother. Apparently his mom wasn’t worried about herself, but she did move her son to another city to keep him safe. He went to drug rehab and managed to survive OxyContin, and is now in a safer environment, but the family is split up.

If you have a friend or family member who is prescribed OxyContin or other prescription painkillers for a legitimate reason, make sure you are aware of how much they’re taking, how long they’re taking them, and so on. They may need an OxyContin detox to stop taking the drug, and they might even need drug rehab, but they will have their life back.

October 24, 2007

OxyContin Addiction Is Just One of the Many Drug Problems You Can Overcome

Filed under: OxyContin addiction, Oxycontin detox — Rod Malcolm @ 3:37 am

Prescription painkillers are among the most highly addictive drugs around. Many people have tried to get off them by themselves, but it’s almost impossible. In fact, 95% of those who try can’t make it through withdrawal. OxyContin addiction, as well as addiction to other opiate painkillers, is one of the most difficult to conquer. Not all drug detox centers are really equipped to get someone through an OxyContin detox, or drug detox for many other prescription drugs. Here’s the story of one businesswoman who came to Novus.

“For many, the decision to come to a place like Novus can be a scary one and you may be apprehensive and wondering what is in store for you. Speaking from personal recent experience, please rest assured that you are in really good hands.  Every single person who works at Novus genuinely cares about you and wants to see you succeed and they will work very hard with you to help you regain your health and your peace of mind. You have definitely made a good decision in coming here! I felt very much at home. I am looking forward to returning to my pre-painkiller days of optimum health. Thank you for helping me achieve this important goal in my life.”

If you’re having a problem with OxyContin addiction, or addiction to one of the many other dangerous prescription painkillers, give Novus a call. They can get you through an OxyContin detox, or a detox for any other drug, successfully.

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