Dependence is both a biological and psychological condition. More than 415,000 people received care for pain killer abuse or addiction this past year. A lot of chronic pain patients may be under-treated as a result of physicians who are trying to gain control over pain killer addiction, they report.
When you're addicted physically to a drug, like pain killers or alcohol, etc., it's for the reason that you've suppressed or shut down your body's production of endorphins, which are natural opiate pain killers; when this occurs you start craving the drug that you replaced the endorphins with whether it's alcohol, any of a number of drugs or pain killers. An opioid-dependent pain patient has enhanced function with the use of the drug while an opioid-addicted patient does not have improvement. If you are addicted to pain killers or other drugs or think you might be, you can start working to increase the body's endorphin manufacture naturally; some techniques are laughing, touching, massage, acupuncture, acupressure, walking, anything that makes you feel good that's natural.
If you think you are addicted and want to get off pain killers or other drugs, it's best to get detoxified as swiftly as you can and then go through some type of therapy; it's imperative to have others to lean on and learn from and offer support to you. Patients can unknowingly start taking pain killers after a moderate injury or because of a severe injury in an automobile accident, fall or for post surgical pain. Often individuals who are addicted to pain killers are plagued with various symptoms to different degrees; many times they don't associate the symptoms with the drug.
Opioids used as the medical doctor has prescribed are supposedly not hazardous according to some well-established medical groups; but if this is the case, why are so many people addicted to them? A lot of other drugs can interact with the opioids and cause a variety of symptoms; this can be fatal. Pain killer dependence includes: opiate dependency, opiate addiction, narcotic dependency, narcotic dependence, and pain killer dependency or painkiller dependency.
There are a number of effectual treatment options to treat pain killer dependence to prescription opioids and to help deal with the sometimes severe withdrawal symptoms that can go together with sudden stopping of pain killers or drugs. A person exhibits compulsive behavior to fulfill their craving for a pain killer or pain medication even when there are harmful consequences linked with taking the pain killer or drug. Common side effects and adverse reactions of pain killers are: nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, dry mouth, miosis (contraction of the pupil), orthostatic hypotension (blood pressure drops upon sudden standing) -- often occurs when arising too fast when getting out of bed in the morning, urinary retention, constipation and fecal impaction.
You must make a change in your lifestyle in order to stop you from taking pain killers and or other drugs again. Taking the time to spend in a treatment center, detoxing, is of the greatest priority. A lot of insurance plans do cover inpatient detox, check yours if you have insurance.
Some insurance companies will pay for one or two weeks; some may pay for therapy too. You must leave the regular responsibilities of your life for a week or two or suffer the predictable outcome and bad health effects of prolonged drug dependence. It's vital to get help and not to try getting off pain killers on your own.
Knowing some of these particulars and discovering endorphin production will help get you on the road to pain killer addiction recovery rapidly; start working on it today and hopefully you'll notice changes tomorrow. A patient being treated with a pain killer can become dependent, but with controlled and appropriate use of the medication, the patient can return to some level of normal living and normal activities following discontinuance of the drug. Today's pain killer treatment options are drawn from long-time knowledge and clinical research from studying and treating other kinds of drugs and even heroin dependence.