Dangers of rapid heroin detox
Filed in archive Treatment on August 24, 2005
There has been some press advertising the effectiveness of "rapid herion detox" under general anesthesia. A recent study from JAMA shows the dangers:
Internet ads for "ultra rapid detox" using anesthesia promise pain-free withdrawal from heroin and prescription painkillers. But the technique can be life-threatening, is not pain-free and has no advantage over other methods, a new study of 106 patients found.
The study, the most rigorous to date on the method, showed that patients' withdrawal was as severe as those of addicts undergoing other detox approaches.
"Anyone who tells you it's painless can only honestly be referring to the period the person is under anesthesia," said co-author Dr. Eric Collins of Columbia University Medical Center.
The study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Patients, all heroin addicts, were divided into three treatment groups. Those receiving ultra rapid detox were anesthetized for about four hours while they got a large dose of a drug that blocks the brain's opioid receptors.
In an awake patient, the initial dose would cause severe withdrawal symptoms, Collins said. The anesthesia is meant to mask the symptoms.
Patients underwent withdrawal when they awoke, even though they were given additional medications for withdrawal symptoms that included anxiety, insomnia, achy muscles and joints, diarrhea and vomiting.
"People think this is a nice, pleasant way to sleep through the misery of opiate detoxification," said Dr. Susan Stine, who trains addiction psychiatry residents at Wayne State University School of Medicine and was not involved in the new study. "This is research that's been needed for some time."
The method also struck out on keeping addicts clean. Eighty percent of the anesthesia patients dropped out of follow-up treatment, a dropout rate slightly higher than for another method in the study.
And three of 35 anesthesia patients suffered life-threatening events, despite painstaking safety measures.
(Johnson, "'Rapid Detox' May Be Life-Threatening", AP/ABC News, Aug.23)
The study, the most rigorous to date on the method, showed that patients' withdrawal was as severe as those of addicts undergoing other detox approaches.
"Anyone who tells you it's painless can only honestly be referring to the period the person is under anesthesia," said co-author Dr. Eric Collins of Columbia University Medical Center.
The study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Patients, all heroin addicts, were divided into three treatment groups. Those receiving ultra rapid detox were anesthetized for about four hours while they got a large dose of a drug that blocks the brain's opioid receptors.
In an awake patient, the initial dose would cause severe withdrawal symptoms, Collins said. The anesthesia is meant to mask the symptoms.
Patients underwent withdrawal when they awoke, even though they were given additional medications for withdrawal symptoms that included anxiety, insomnia, achy muscles and joints, diarrhea and vomiting.
"People think this is a nice, pleasant way to sleep through the misery of opiate detoxification," said Dr. Susan Stine, who trains addiction psychiatry residents at Wayne State University School of Medicine and was not involved in the new study. "This is research that's been needed for some time."
The method also struck out on keeping addicts clean. Eighty percent of the anesthesia patients dropped out of follow-up treatment, a dropout rate slightly higher than for another method in the study.
And three of 35 anesthesia patients suffered life-threatening events, despite painstaking safety measures.
Permalink: Dangers of rapid heroin detox
Tags: drug addiction
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Response from:
Heroin Detox
(03/08/07 4:24pm)
Great post, Kevin. I think people are drawn to the ultra rapid heroin detox because they want a fast way to treat their problem. The thing is that heroin addiction cannot be treated instantaneously. I still think that gradual heroin detox is the best way to treat addiction.
Response from:
elizabeth
(12/15/07 9:25pm)
I'm a recovering heroin addict. About 2 years ago I decided to "punish" myself and did a rapid detox at home by eating 2 naltrexone tablets. Wrong move. Withdrawals beyond your wildest nightmares. NOT the way to go....go to rehab, do a slow detox (around 6-7 days total with detox meds). Then meetings...heroin addiction is not an overnight curable disease. Lifelong process.......
Response from:
Dennis
(01/22/08 3:00pm)
I did an inpatient rapid detox. It was much worse than my other heroin detox, which I did on my own, taking several weeks. The days after the rapid detox were the worst of my life, I popped out of anesthesia during the detox, triggering nightmares I had for years, and I suffered significant short-term memory loss, presumably from the high dose anesthesia needed to (almost) keep me under.
The only good thing I can say about it is that I haven't relapsed in the ten years since, but I have no reason to assume that that correlation implies causation.
The only good thing I can say about it is that I haven't relapsed in the ten years since, but I have no reason to assume that that correlation implies causation.
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