About Detox
Once you take the crucial first step of admitting you have an addiction, reaching out for help becomes the next step. Prior to going through therapy, there's a good chance you could need to detox. Detox is the process of eliminating harmful substances …show more content…
Doctors can prescribe oral medications or request intravenous or injected medications. While most medications offer relief from pain or insomnia, there's another class of detox medications that emulate the very addictive substances a patient is trying to eliminate. Clinicians refer to these as "tapering" drugs.
When faced with a patient suffering from a severe addiction to alcohol and/or dangerous drugs, most doctors seek to prevent them from trying to detox too fast. There's a high risk of serious health issues if the brain doesn't have ample time to adjust to a new physiology. Doctors can mediate this risk by prescribing tapering drugs. By slowing decreasing the dosage, doctors can help regulate the patient's brain, body and physiology until the weaning process is complete.
Contrary to popular belief, certain withdrawals require certain detox medications. There is no one miracle medication that helps eliminate all withdrawal symptoms. Doctors simply prescribe what's necessary based on the patient's type of addiction. Example: antidepressants like Desipramine (Norpramin) offer relief from stimulant related withdrawal symptoms. Sedatives like Diazepam (Valium) and lorazepam (Ativan) are good medications for alcoholism while Methadone serves as a common tapering drug for opiate addiction. As you can see, a lot depends on the substance in