Video Transcript
"There has been a recent significant increase in opiate addiction for a number reasons. With regard to illegal drugs heroin has become more widely available again and is of higher quality and therefore more addicting and more people will become addicted to it. Probably the biggest change in opiate addiction has been the widespread use of long acting prescription narcotics such as Oxycontin and a MScontin which when used properly are very effective for the treatment of chronic pain. However they are highly addictive drugs and very easy and subject to abuse by individuals intentionally or otherwise.
These drugs have created huge problems in terms of hospital admissions both for over dose and for detoxification and rehabilitation because of their widespread availability as well as the marketing efforts of the companies that produce and market them for prescription use.
One of the things that it's important for everyone to understand is that no one intends to become addicted to drugs and it can happen to anyone and addiction is a disease is a highly treatable disease and with good detoxification follow-up treatment and sustained self help and recovery efforts the probability of successful recovery is very high for any individual.
Having been involved in the addiction medicine practice for over fifteen years now and having been involved personally with the detoxification of thousands of individuals from opiate medication, I've been most impressed with the success rate of rapid opiate detoxification compared to traditional detoxification. The procedure is performed in a hospital setting by an experienced anesthesiologist as well as in addiction medicine or internal medicine physician is particularly expert in addiction medicine who would supervisor a procedure completely. The procedure is done in an operating room type setting with a airway management resuscitation equipment and monitoring of all vital functions during the procedure.
The success rate for completion of traditional detoxification using either symptom based treatment or even opiates substitution is very low, probably in the thirty to forty percent range of completing the detoxification process because of difficulty in tolerating withdrawal symptoms cravings for use and the likelihood that the individual actually aboard the process and leave the detoxification centre in return to use. with the rapid detox procedure one is assured of successfully completing this a hundred percent of the time because once one is placed under general anesthesia procedure it will not be terminated until it's complete. Another point is about the cost of the rapid of the detox procedure when compared to seven to fourteen days of hospital treatment or the additional cost of multiple attempts at traditional detoxification, rapid opiate detoxification is actually relatively inexpensive by comparison.
Probably the most resistance to this particular procedure in the traditional medical world is based on really not understanding addiction and not understanding the procedure and how it works. Positions typically are resistant to change of any kind and take some time before they would become acquainted with the new medication or new procedure before becoming comfortable with it. However this procedure has actually been in use for quite some time and has been used safely and effectively in many settings, and for treatment resisted opiate addicts it's probably the treatment method of choice for detoxification."