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Opioid Medication

Just as opioid addiction takes many forms in those who suffer from it, opioid addiction treatment takes many forms to treat those patients. Generally called medication-assisted treatment or medication-assisted therapy (MAT), opioid treatments rely on a sort of opioid replacement approach. If patients suffer from opioid dependence, their bodies wouldn’t survive cold-turkey cessation of opioid use. And they need to carefully taper off opioid use through medically-assisted treatments that are lesser opioids than heroin, fentanyl, or prescription opioids. Here are some of the medications which opioid addiction doctors use to achieve this long-term treatment. View more.

Naltrexone

This treatment is what providers call an opioid agonist, meaning that it prevents opioids from activating the body’s pleasure-centers. Without that activation, the body doesn’t feel the sharp euphoria which encourages physical dependence. It also prepares the body to taper off opioid use by giving it only a lessened “high.”

We most often encounter naltrexone through its brand-name medication Vivitrol (a publicly-available relapse prevention medication). Providers can administer an extended-release naltrexone dose through an injection into the gluteal muscle (buttocks) every month. Here are a few of Naltrexone’s side effects: pain, swelling, blisters, lumps, drowsiness, headaches, muscle cramps, and vomiting. View more.

Buprenorphine

The buprenorphine treatment for opioid addiction offers a strong combination of anti-opioid chemicals that together deny opioids’ effects while also reducing the body’s tolerance for them. Buprenorphine therapy, under medical supervision, gives patients access to a lesser opioid that relieves pain and allows patients to taper off their dependence over time. Because its effects prove weaker than other opioids, the patients are also less likely to suffer opioid withdrawal symptoms.

There are two medications which contain buprenorphine for opioid addiction treatment: Suboxone and Subutex. Suboxone combines buprenorphine with an opioid agonist called naloxone, to make sure that patients lose their physical tolerance for harder opioids over time. That naloxone, when used in tandem with buprenorphine, also prevents patients from using Suboxone to achieve the pain-relief of a “high.” The other advantages of this medication include that patients can receive it through both inpatient and outpatient opioid recovery programs. Patients receive Suboxone through sublingual tablets during the longer maintenance period of their opioid addiction treatment.

To return to Subutex: doctors usually prescribe this buprenorphine treatment during the first days after detox. But the two medications share the requirement that only licensed medical providers prescribe it for patients’ use. View more.

Methadone

Like buprenorphine, methadone is a lesser opioid medication which can provide pain relief to patients during their opioid recovery process. Methadone treatments help provide the medically-assisted treatments that patients suffering from opioid addiction need. However, because it does create opioid-like effects in patients, its use requires both medical prescription and supervision during use. Despite that risk, methadone (in both Methadose and Dolophine in certain cases) can provide pain relief for patients during their harrowing opioid withdrawal symptoms.

For continuing opioid addiction recovery, doctors may create a methadone maintenance system where outpatient rehab patients receive regular doses of the medicine. Patients can only receive them in person through licensed methadone clinics, still under medical supervision due to the continued risk of methadone dependence. This outpatient form of opioid addiction treatment enables patients to have greater integration with their outside lives, while still retaining their medication-assisted treatments for long-term recovery. View more.