Heroin rehab center treatment programs can include outpatient, residential, detox, as well as methadone or other pharmaceutical substitutes such as Buprenorphine. Almost always, treatment will begin with a medically assisted detoxification, in order to allow patient's body to withdraw safely from the drug. It should be noted that detoxification by itself is not treatment nor has it been shown to be very effective in preventing relapses - it is simply the first step. Irrespective of the treatment method chosen, almost all treatment plans today try to include a certain amount of personal counseling.
Nowadays, heroin addiction help has been proven to help addicts beat their addiction and once again return to healthy, happy lives. Why is heroin addiction treatment critical to your success - because heroin addiction treatment can lead to a life of permanent sobriety if the right program is chosen and executed. Even though when you are going through your toughest times, you may feel that recovery may be more painful than your addiction, believe us, it is not. There is a light on the other side of the dark tunnel and you can emerge victorious. Proper heroin addiction treatment deals with both the mental effects and the physical effects of quitting. The "high" that a user gets from the drug needs to be replaced with an appropriate high from some other activity or thought. This replacement is usually done through specialized behavioral modification exercises. Many outpatient heroin addiction treatment programs will allow for clients to remain at school or work because this can be an important component to heroin addiction recovery.
It is important to have the heroin detoxification be medically supervised since the results of chronic heroin abuse can include bacterial infections of the heart valves and blood vessels, scarred or collapsed veins, liver or kidney disease, abscesses (boils) as well as other soft-tissue infections. Complications with the lungs (including but not limited to tuberculosis and pneumonia) often result from sub standard health condition of the addict in addition to heroin's depressing effect on respiration.
Methadone versus Buprenorphine treatment
Extreme withdrawal symptoms can be lessened by delivering an opioid antagonist initially to a heroin addict. The main approach to reduce the physical part of heroin withdrawal is to initially substitute a longer-acting opioid (for instance methadone or buprenorphine) in place of the heroin or sometimes a different short-acting opioid but then gradually taper off the dose.
Methadone is typically used as a substitute for heroin during the treatment phase for heroin addiction. In comparison to heroin, methadone slowly absorbs into the gastrointestinal tract, therefore having a much longer effect of about 24 hours. This allows the methadone treatment to avoid the quick cycling from intoxication to withdrawal that is normally associated with the heroin addiction. Because of this, methadone has been proven to be a successful substitute for heroin; even though it bears approximately the same addiction possibilities as heroin, it is still recommended for users who have continuously failed to completely withdrawal or for those have relapsed recently. Recovering addicts who are properly stabilized on methadone will not show many effects to the drug (for instance it will not make them feel "high"), plus they are generally unable to get a "high" from other opioids unless the dose is very large. Since methadone is longer-acting, it creates withdrawal symptoms that show up later than with heroin, however they typically last a lot longer and sometimes are even more intense. The possibility exists for methadone withdrawal symptoms to last for more than 30 days, compared to heroin withdrawal symptoms where significant physical symptoms are typically over in 4 - 7 days.
Buprenorphine has several advantages over methadone, with one of the biggest being convenience. Relatively quickly after initial buprenophine treatment, patients can get a supply of the drug to take home with them. Buprenorphine is normally administered only when an opiate-dependent user has not used heroin or other opiates for 12-24 hours (time is longer if taking methadone), and the user is in the beginning stages of opiate withdrawal. However under the circumstances that the patient is not in early withdrawal stages, then care should be exercised because a dose of buprenorphine could cause acute withdrawal.