NEW study shows that death risk DECREASES in patients who are on methadone or Suboxone
This is big news!! We ALL Know that NO disease is perfect right? Diabetics will eat boxes of Oreos and cholesterol patients will chow down on cheeseburgers right? Well, addiction is no different and patients with addictions will relapse the same. So, now that we recognize that addiction is a disease just like other diseases lets treat it the same way. With respect, compassion and understanding.
So why is this important?? Well many of you feel that once we start treatment with addiction it has to be perfect and we cant make mistakes !! YES i don’t want you to relapse of course just like I don’t want diabetics to binge on cookies but listen, I wasn’t born yesterday and none of us are any more perfect when it comes to avoiding temptations.
So, patients that are on either methadone or Suboxone are somewhat protected IF they do overdose on opiates. Thanks to the ability of methadone and Suboxone to “latch” on tighter to the brain than heroin and oxy etc. So basically they keep you from dying if you “did” relapse. That’s kind of like insulin helps diabetics if they did overdose on cookies and Lipitor protects cholesterol patients if they did overdose on cheeseburgers!. Again, the addiction disease we are all dealing with in this country is the same as all the other diseases we deal with. The only thing I ask of my patients with addiction is the same that I ask of my patients with any other disease GET on some form of treatment somehow somewhere.