Chronic Pain During Opiate Withdrawal: What You Can Do
Chronic pain is a growing problem in the United States. Unfortunately, one of the most common remedies for it is to prescribe incredibly addictive opiates. This is one of the reasons why we have a growing opiate epidemic. Opiate dependence and withdrawal are both serious issues faced by those with chronic pain. So how do you deal with both chronic pain and withdrawal?
Chronic Pain and Opiate Withdrawal
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, there are roughly 116 million people who suffer from chronic pain in the United States. Most of these people are on one of these opiate medications:
- Hydrocodone
- Oxycodone
- Hydrocodone / acetaminophen
- Morphine
- Oxycotin
- Fentanyl
All of these medications eventually create a dependency or addiction. Sometimes the addiction develops when patients start to experience breakthrough pain. Other times it develops when patients have been on opiates for years. Regardless of how the addiction begins, the result is the same.
Once a person is addicted to opiates when they stop taking them they go into withdrawal. This is an extremely unpleasant situation for someone already in chronic pain. The chronic pain does not go away just because a person is in withdrawal.
Things You Can do to Ease Chronic Pain While in Withdrawal
Fortunately, there are some things that you can do ease the withdrawal. Although these ways are sometimes not as effective as painkilling opiates, they do work to ease some of the pain. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, some of these ways are:
Yoga can help ease chronic pain.
- Yoga
- Massage
- Acupuncture
- Electrical Stimulation
- Nerve blocks
- Exercise
- Physical Therapy
- Nonopiate painkillers such as NSAIDS
- Hypnosis
- Chiropractics
- Beta-Blockers
All of these are treatments you can seek out and use instead of opiates. They are also treatment that many drug treatment centers use to help their patience with chronic pain and opiate withdrawal.
Treatment for Chronic Pain at a Drug Treatment Center
There are other ways to treat chronic pain combined with withdrawal in drug treatment centers. These ways are:
- Suboxone – a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone
- Buprenorphine – an opiate agonist that blocks the opioid receptors, prevents withdrawal, and helps with some of the pain
- Methadone – a powerful opiate agonist that must be administered daily to treat chronic pain and opiate withdrawal
Almost every drug treatment center uses these medications to keep their chronic pain patients out of pain and off traditional prescription opiates. These medications combined with individual as well as group therapy can relieve both the chronic pain and the withdrawal symptoms.
Fortunately, these medications are maintenance medications. You can take them even after the withdrawal is finished or you can taper off them and find an alternative treatment.
Finding a Treatment Center for Chronic Pain and Opiate Withdrawal
Finding a treatment center is not difficult all you have to do is call 888-602-1971(Who Answers?). We can help you find a center that can both manage your chronic pain and treat you for your opiate addiction.
