July 6, 2011

More Info on the Epidemic of Opiate Addiction and the Disease of Addiction



I found this article very interesting. It talks about how physicians are limited to treating only 30 patients at a time with Suboxone (or similar opiate blockers) while they can prescribe opiates as much as they want!

You can read it on Psych Central, here.

Another related post from that site, also by Dr. Junig, says ".... why addiction is best considered a disease or medical illness, showing that the characteristics of addiction that are similar to those of other chronic diseases. The fact that addiction is a disease is no revelation to anyone who works in the field, yet there seems to be a collective blind spot among physicians when it comes to treating addiction like other diseases." The rest can be read here.
Peace, Hope and Love, Barbara





5 comments:

Gledwood said...

I think many doctors are absolutely terrified of running into trouble with the medical boards.... here you can THEORETICALLY be prescribed methadone by any doctor at all but VERY few actually do it.

Up until the early 2000s there were lots of private drs specializing in dishing out injectable methadone to anyone who'd pay for the service... they overprescribed hugely ~ most scripts appeared to be for 250-300mg a day. The addicts pretty much had to sell some of their script in order to pay for the next one! Which was truly ridiculous.

PS I was thinking about your son's diagosis. It is possible to be schizoaffective yet only show depression and anxiety for long periods. Far as I understand it ANYONE who's ever had full-blow mania is categorized as "bipolar" for life... The European and American diagnostic criteria for schizoaffective differ quite a lot. In America you have to have hallucinations or delusions for 2 weeks in the abscence of "prominent" mood symptoms... here you need to display schizophrenic AND mood symptoms simultaneously. My dr said I was hallucinating too much to be bipolar... Akh, it's a thorny issue! I hope all is OK your end, it was nice talking today :-)

Gledwood said...

PS I heard that addicts were spending $700 on doctors' bills and Suboxone, just for the initial consultation!

Here you can pay about $400 and get injectable methadone!

Unknown said...

Hey, nice site you have here! Keep up the excellent work!

Opiate Addiction

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