Doctors and drug manufacturers once thought it would be a great idea to promote the benefits of opioids. About thirty years ago, they started prescribing them for both major and minor pain management. Patients who had never abused drugs were all of a sudden prescribed medication that would soon become habit-forming.
As the years went by, more and more medical issues were being treated with opioids. Initially, they were meant to be prescribed to people in severe physical pain. This included cancer patients, accident victims, and people recovering from major surgery. It wasn’t long, however, before the drug became a panacea for anybody who complained of pain.
The over-prescribing of opioids created an epidemic unlike any this country has ever seen before. Within the past ten years, people who were legitimately prescribed opioids for pain become full-blown heroin addicts. The problem is that doctors eventually cut off their patients from receiving the medication. The patients are addicted to the opioids by then. They have no choice but to seek their supply of the drug on the streets.
The Need for Opioid Addiction Treatment
This new breed of addicts has given rise to the need for opioid addiction treatment centers in Charlotte, NC. Charlotte is in the part of the country that has seen the greatest increase in opioid addiction. People who wouldn’t have been considered addicts thirty years ago are now destroying their lives due to their opioid addiction.
Up until a few years ago, there was an accepted depiction of what a drug addict looked like. They would describe the drug user as:
- Young
- Unemployed
- Poor
- Homeless
- Lacking moral character
Despite the unfair depiction, most accept it. With the opioid epidemic, we have come to know a completely different portrait of an addict.
People addicted to opioids are not all young, homeless people who shoot heroin. Most opioid addicts are either employed or they had jobs until the late stages of their addiction. These are professionals with high education. They tend to come from middle-class families and are homeowners.
Can Opioid Addiction Rehab Help?
With the opioid epidemic in full swing, opioid addiction rehabs are more important than ever before. People in Charlotte, NC who never in a million years would’ve thought they needed rehab are checking in every day. Opioid pain management has created an entire generation of drug addicts. It doesn’t discriminate based on age, race, sex, or socioeconomic status.
One of the best ways to overcome an opioid addiction is to attend an opioid rehab in Charlotte, NC. They provide a medically-assisted detox with medical professionals available 24/7. While patients learn how to overcome their physical addiction, they also learn how to deal with pain in the future.
People dealing with opioid addiction face a challenge that people with other drug addictions don’t face. If you initially became addicted to opioids because of pain management, once you kick the addiction, the pain remains. A lot of people cannot tolerate their pain levels without some sort of medication.
Are There Alternative Forms of Pain Management that Don’t Involve Opioids?
Doctors and experts are learning that they need to find an alternative to opioids for pain management. With the number of addicts dying, there are going to be practical and legal restraints to prescribing opioids. Many states have already passed legislation limiting the prescribing of opioids for pain. Other states are going to follow suit soon.
Aside from the legal constraints, doctors cannot justify prescribing medication that is killing thousands of people every year. They need to find alternatives that will help patients manage pain without causing addiction. The problem is scientists simply aren’t sure how pain works in the human body.
In order to develop drugs that can replace opioids, researchers need to understand pain creation and how to stop it. Opioids provided a perfect solution. That is until they led to the worst drug epidemic this country has ever seen.
Researchers are in the process of developing and testing a handful of non-opioid pain medications. However, none have FDA approval. People suffering from pain will have to either continue to rely on opioids or find non-drug remedies.
Anyone who has suffered severe pain knows that there are very few (if any) non-medication options to treat chronic pain. Hopefully, the future of pain management will be much brighter than its recent past.
