Addiction Treatment with Suboxone

Opiate Addiction is a curse that has the potential of destroying not just the addicted person’s life but of those also who are near to him.  Addiction or dependence to any drug slowly eats away the physical and mental health of a person and leaves him empty with just the craving of the addictive drug.  Suboxone is a popular and commonly used drug in treating addiction, that has helped thousands of addiction patient on the road to recovery.

Overcoming Addiction through Suboxone

Suboxone has been a life saver for thousands of opiate addiction patients. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classified and approved Suboxone as the first ever narcotic drug that can be prescribed an office setting by a doctor who specializes in the treatment of opiate dependence under the Drug Addiction Treatment Act (DATA) of 2000.

Addiction treatment with suboxone is given to a opiate addiction patient in the beginning and maintenance phases of a rehab or detox program. Suboxone helps the patient by preventing the body from undergoing the severe withdrawal symptoms that occur when a addicted body is weaned off drugs like heroin or morphine. While subutex that contains only buprenorphine is used initially in the treatment, suboxone a combination of naloxone and buprenorphine is a medication used in maintenance phase of the program.

While buprenorphine, the active ingredient in Suboxone helps by tricking the brain into thinking that opiates like morphine and heroin are present in the body as it is a partial opioid in nature. It blocks the opiates from attaching themselves to the brain and prevents the body from undergoing withdrawal.

Naloxone that is an opiate antagonist and the second ingredient in suboxone, blocks the effect of opiate. To understand the function of naloxone let us go back to buprenorphine the main ingredient of suboxone. Buprenorphine is an opioid agonist which means it can trigger a receptor and the risk of suboxone addiction as well for people who are already addicted to opiates. This is where naloxone comes into function. When a person tries to take suboxone as a means to get high, the naloxone present in the drug blocks the opiate from taking its effect and instead of getting high the user suffers from severe withdrawal symptoms.

Suboxone Prescription Guidelines

• Usually, there are no specific guidelines to follow for prescribing suboxone. A person can simply take the prescription written by a certified doctor and get it filled at a pharmacy of his or her choice.  However, it is necessary that the prescription has the DEA number and the ‘X’ DEA number of the patient on it for the pharmacy to fill the order for the medication. The DEA number denotes the buprenorphine prescriber status and if it is not written on the prescription the pharmacy may not fill your order.
• Another important guideline for prescription of Suboxone is that the physician who are storing and dispensing the medicine at their offices have to keep records of the patients and their doses who are under suboxone treatment.