We are now able to offer OUD treatment at our office. You do not need to be a patient here, but are welcome to also sign up for the primary care membership.
Did you know that using opioids leads to changes in your brain? This is why you just can’t quit without a lot of help and support. Going through detox and getting completely off of drugs is seen as the ideal, but often doesn’t work. You may have heard it said that nicotine is just as addictive as heroin, n dit really is true. It takes a person on average 5 times trying to quit smoking, before they give it up for good. It takes a long time for your brain to start to “rewire’, and studies show that it never quite go back to pre-drug settings. Instead, what we offer with medication assisted treatment is replacing illegal or street obtained narcotics with a legally prescribed narcotic replacement, buprenorphine . This drug contains a long active selective opioid drug, which will bind to the opioid receptors in the brain more strongly than other opioids, like heroin. It provides no sudden “high” but will also prevent withdrawal symptoms or “dope sickness” when you try to go cold turkey.
The goal is to stabilize you on a regular dose of buprenorphine, so you no longer have to get street drugs to keep from getting sick. Then you can start working on changing your environment to get you out of the visual and social cues to go get high. With the addition of counseling, you can start to work on repairing your relationships, and find your way back to a more normal life. As you feel more stable, we can gradually work on weaning down the dose of buprenorphine , with the goal of eventually being off of it. Most people take at least a year to do that, sometimes longer.
The benefits of coming to our office are many. We are here to help support you in your path to sobriety and wellness. We are a regular doctor’s office, not a substance abuse clinic. We do not keep any narcotics on site. You can also have any insurance to use our program, as we only accept cash. The side benefit to that is that it is kept confidential, with no third party tracking what you are doing. We understand that you are human and that your brain isn’t letting you be you anymore. If you are ready to make a change, give us a call.
