I presented this topic at the Atlanta meeting of ASAM a couple weeks ago.  There are too many slides, but the historical stuff was just too fascinating to leave out.  I wanted to demonstrate,  by lining it up on the side, how time has compressed the most critical discoveries to a very short period of time.  In other words, it wasn’t until thousands of years of opium use that the general concept of endorphines and opioid receptors came along.  We can only hope that similar understandings of the biological basis of tolerance and withdrawal will be comparatively soon.

My study shows something truly fascinating– that a partial agonist seems to anchor tolerance at a lower level, still allowing for potent analgesia, but preventing euphoria and dose escalation.  I have used this combination in people with very major surgeries, that are known to be quite painful– i.e. knee and hip replacements, dental surgeries, gallbladder surgery, and median sternotomy.

Next month I will be presenting a paper at the annual meeting of ASAM, the American Society of Addiction Medicine. The paper discusses a new method for treating chronic pain, using a combination of buprenorphine and opioid agonists. In my experience, the combination works very well, providing excellent analgesia and at the same time reducing—even eliminating– the euphoria from opioids.

Ten years ago, I would have really been onto something. Back then there were calls from all corners to improve the pain control for patients. The popular belief regarding pain control was that some unfortunate patients were being denied adequate doses of opioid medications. I remember our hospital administrators, in advance of the next JCAHO visit, worried about pain relief in patients who for one or another reason couldn’t describe or report their pain. Posters were put up in each patient room, showing simple drawings of facial expressions ranging from smiles to frowns, so that patients in pain could simply point at the face that exhibited their own level of misery.

What a difference a decade makes! Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of Oxycontin, was fined over $600 million for claims that their medication was less addictive than other, immediate-release pain-killers. Thousands of young Americans have died from overdoses of pain medications, many that came from their parents’ medicine cabinets. Physician members of PROP, Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, have called out physicians at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health for having ties to Purdue while arguing against added regulations for potent narcotics.

I have tried to present both sides of the pain pill debate, without disclosing my OWN opinions on the issue—at least until today. And I must be at least somewhat ‘fair and balanced,’ because I’ve received angry messages from both sides—from people telling me I’m evil for not understanding their need for pain medications, and from people telling me I’m evil for not respecting the danger of the medications.

By the way… I have a policy of not printing messages that simply call me names, or that tell me how bad a doctor I must be for writing what I do. I love a good argument, so please feel free to comment on ANY points that I’m trying to make. But I don’t think that making efforts to lead a discussion warrants personal attacks—so please, stick to the issues!

Today, though, I would like to share a couple thoughts on the issue. The thoughts came after a discussion with one of my patients with chronic pain. I have been presenting one side, then the other side, and back again, trying to remain neutral… but from all that I’ve seen as a psychiatrist and as an anesthesiologist, some things cannot be denied.

1. Some people do have chronic pain that responds to opioids. Many doctors—including the doctors who are afraid of the DEA, or the doctors who don’t want to deal with the hard work of prescribing opioids, or the doctors who want a simple world where ‘pain pills are always bad’—don’t want to admit the truth of this statement. This is, with apologies to Al Gore, a very inconvenient truth.

I find it interesting that doctors who don’t want to prescribe pain pills act as if chronic pain does not exist– as if the suffering of people with painful disorders is less important in some way, if it lasts too long. Every prescriber is aware of the need to treat acute pain, but when it comes to chronic pain, the difficulties that arise with treatment (e.g. abuse, diversion, tolerance) lead some doctors to act as if something magical happens on the road from acute to chronic. The phenomenon is the exact opposite of the old saying, ‘to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ In this case, ‘to doctors who don’t want to use hammers, there ARE NO NAILS.’ But in truth, there ARE nails; some patients have lots of them. And we doctors have a duty to hammer away at them… (OK, enough with the analogy already!).

2. Just because some people divert opioids does not mean that other people shouldn’t have necessary pain relief. Treating pain is about as fundamental as medicine can be. I do not understand the doctors who say ‘I do not treat pain—you’ll have to see someone else’—especially when there are no doctors available to fill that role. More and more ‘health systems’ are adopting this position, at least in my area. What gives?!

3. At the same time, there is no such thing as ‘complete pain control.’ Tolerance removes the power of narcotics, and chasing tolerance always ends badly. Patients with chronic pain must use ALL tools available, including non-narcotic techniques.

4. Being prescribed pain medications comes with certain responsibilities; the responsibility to use the medications appropriately, to communicate openly and truthfully with the prescriber, to avoid ‘doctor-shopping,’ etc. At some point, patients who refuse to honor these responsibilities will lose access to pain medications—at least to some extent. Is this humane or fair? I think so, as access to pain relief for these patients is balanced against the lives of those killed by illicit use of these medications.

I’m sure I could go on… but for now, this is enough food for thought. Besides, it’s almost time for dinner! Feel free to comment—but please, be nice!

A question was asked about the last post that warrants top billing:

“Buprenorphine acts similar to opioid agonists in lower doses, with the same addictive potential as oxycodone or heroin. In higher doses—doses above 8 mg or 8000 micrograms per day—the ‘ceiling effect’ eliminates interest and cravings for the drug.”

Ceiling Effect

I’m not sure I followed this. Can you explain more? What would you think about someone who is taking 1-2mg of Suboxone twice a day without a prescription, and says they want to stay on that dose once they find a prescriber? Are they better off on 8mg or more per day, or would it be ok for a prescriber to keep them at the lower dose? Is the answer the same if they hope to taper off the medication completely within a year (they don’t feel able to do this on their own right now, but hope to be able to when some life circumstances change). Thanks!

This gets a bit complicated, but I’ll do my best. A couple background issues; buprenorphine has a ‘ceiling’ to its effect, meaning that beyond a certain dose, increases in dose do not cause greater opioid effect. That is the mechanism for how buprenorphine blocks cravings.

If the blood level of buprenorphine is ABOVE that ceiling, the opioid receptors are maximally, 100% stimulated. If the person takes more buprenorphine, and the blood level increases, the opioid receptors don’t feel the increase, as they cannot be stimulated more than 100%. But more importantly: when the person takes less, and the blood level of buprenorphine goes DOWN, the receptors also sense nothing– as long as the level stays above the ‘ceiling’ level.

Read the above paragraph, and think on it until you grasp it– as it explains buprenorphine and Suboxone. If you understand that paragraph, you will know more about Suboxone than most doctors!

Below that ceiling level, the opioid effect from buprenorphine varies directly with dose—just as with oxycodone, hydrocodone, heroin, etc. Medications that have effects that increase with dose are called ‘agonists’. Buprenorphine is a ‘partial agonist;’ it acts like an agonist up to point, the ceiling effect, beyond which increases in blood level have no greater effect.

The level of this ‘ceiling’ varies from one person to the next, depending on efficiency of absorption (on average, only a third of a dose is absorbed from under the tongue), body size, liver function, differences in regional blood flow, and the presence of other medications that affect buprenorphine metabolism. In order for buprenorphine to have the unique, craving-blocking effects, the blood level of buprenorphine must stay above the ceiling level, for the reasons described above.

Lower levels (blood levels of buprenorphine below the ceiling level) still have SOME effects on cravings. Buprenorphine has a long half-life, an that alone reduces the desire to take more—especially if the medication is taken more than once per day– since the blood level drops very little between doses. For agonists or for buprenorphine below the ceiling level, drop in blood level equals drop in opioid effect, equals sense of things wearing off, equals cravings.

But the classic method for treating with Suboxone, as described in the certification course, is for it to be given at a high enough dose to stay above the ceiling level… and dosed only ONCE per day. If the blood level stays above the ceiling level, once-per-day dosing covers cravings completely. Yes, people still want to take more, especially initially, but that desire is not driven by chemical effects; the desire is instead based on psychological factors, like habit, or from being accustomed to feeling better after a dose, and getting a placebo ‘lift’ from taking a second dose.

A person can eliminate that second dose fairly easily, providing that the morning dose is high enough, i.e. usually 8-16 mg. To eliminate the second dose, the person should distract him/herself as soon as the thought about taking the second dose comes to mind. Immediately, do anything else—the dishes, call a friend, wrestle with the dogs… and the thought will pass. If the person does the distraction method for a few days, the need to take the second dose will go away—a psychological process called ‘extinguishment.’

Dosing every other day, and even every third day, has been studied; people cannot tell the difference, if the dose is raised enough to keep the blood level above the ‘ceiling’ (providing the person is given a placebo that tastes the same).

As for as the writer’s friend… I’m not a fan of any illicit use, but I am aware of the shortage of physicians. When the person has a physician, in my opinion the person should be prescribed a dose that allows for once per day dosing. Realize that buprenorphine wears off VERY slowly; it takes over three days for half of a dose to leave the body! So that ‘need’ to take more is almost always entirely learned or ‘conditioned.’ The medication does not wear off in that short period of time.

Even if the person has withdrawal symptoms, the sensations are almost surely imagined. How to tell? Use the distraction method, and note that a couple hours later, when the person remembers that the dose was skipped, note that the withdrawal went away. That doesn’t happen with ‘real’ withdrawal!

The sense of withdrawal that drives the second dose is simply a memory; a conditioned response that the body has that triggers the person to take more opioid. We become conditioned by drug use, just like the salivating dogs from science books! In the case of opioids, whenever we feel down, we think that an opioid will lift us up, as it has hundreds of times before. And even if what is taken is not a real opioid, the mind ‘feels’ a boost, just from expecting what has always happened in the past.

As for tapering, I look at many factors in order to recommend, or not recommend, stopping buprenorphine—things like age, presence/absence of using friends or contacts, physical health, mood, support network, personal motivation to stop buprenorphine, ability or lack thereof to dose once per day, consistently, number of relapses and personal ‘recovery’ plan, etc.

Realize that EVERYONE looks forward to a day when life circumstances will change for the better—but most of the time, life becomes more, not less challenging. Yes, it is nice to have a reliable job… but it is much more stressful being the sole breadwinner for a family with children, than working to pay for one’s self! Marriages settle down in some ways over time, but they also lose the intense infatuation that can gloss over personal differences.

As I have often written, it is VERY hard to stop opioids. It is a little easier to stop buprenorphine; I am convinced of that fact because I have seen opioid addicts taper off buprenorphine, but I know of no opioid addict who tapered off an agonist. But SOME people cannot taper of ANY opioids—including buprenorphine. I do not consider those people ‘addicted’ to buprenorphine, because they lack the constant obsession for opioids that is so destructive to the mind of an active addict. But they ARE physically dependent on buprenorphine— a fair trade, in my opinion, for a life of chaos, broken relationships, legal problems, and death.

I guess I do get irritable sometimes…  but I’m getting better at controlling my anger as I get older.  One cool thing about a blog is that I can go back and see what I wrote years ago.  In this case, I was looking for a post about telling the difference  between opioid toxicity (from taking too much) versus opioid withdrawal. In that post I suggested looking at the size of the pupils.  The name of the post, in case anyone is interested, is called ‘abres los ojos’– the name of an old Penelope Cruz movie and spanish for ‘open your eyes.’ 

Penelope Cruz sounds very cool, by the way, when she whispers ‘abres los ojos…’ as you can hear at the beginning of the movie trailer.  The movie was remade and called ’Vanilla Sky’– again with Penelope Cruz, but this time with her speaking in English.

Am I the only one who cares about this stuff?!

The post BEFORE that one was from a time– 2009– when people often wrote to tell me how misguided I was for recommeding buprenoprhine.  Those comments, at a time when so many young people were dying from overdose, would really get to me.  I’ll share the exchange, for old time’s sake.  For people who enjoyed my older, feisty posts, they are still out there– you just need to keep hitting the ‘earlier posts’ button!

The post:

This guy doesn’t like Suboxone– or the horse it rode in on.  He has been trying to write angry posts under my youtube videos, but I have been blocking them– His feelings about Suboxone popped up on one of the health sites out there this morning, catching my attention through ‘Google alerts’ for Suboxone.  It must be the same guy, because the complaints are the same, the language is the same, and in both cases the screen names are related to frogs(!).  I will go ahead and post his comments, and then my response, so that he can relax– knowing that he has done his part in the epic struggle over Suboxone.

Ive looked all over the internet and still have not found more then 5 people who have quit suboxone like i have. I took it for 12 months tapered down to 2 mg and quit 5 days ago..Basicly i am writing this due to the fact that i am really pissed at the fraud i feel is being commited by the drug maker of suboxone. I was taking 15 10 mg a day of percocet and 10 mg a day of norco a day b4 i got on sub. Anyways the reason i am so pissed is that these last 5 days have been the worse 5 days ive ever had.My Dr says oh youll just feel little tired for a few days is all.. ya right… 5 days of not being able to move,anxiety,depression you name it.. and no i am not crazy i took pills for shoulder injury so i have an idea where these feelings come from and its the good ole subs that all these Drs are making a fortune off. You must remember that out of all My drs patients i am like the only one whos quit totaly and can actually sit here and tell you what its like.. Its terrible and after considerable thought i think people need to know this sub is just another opiate and what gets me is the withdrawls are even worse then reg opiates. I CLOSE WITH ONE LAST COMMENT: ITS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY WHEN IT COMES TO SUBS: Think twice before some slick talking Dr wants you on it.. its far from a magic pill. Just ask the few of us out of 1000000,0000 people who quit the phoney stuff.

There is no magic pill for addiction to pain pills and if you think sub is then think again..One last thing, try and ****** suboxone withdrawls and guess what youll find??? first 50 sites pop up are paid for by the drug maker of sub and you have to dig to find real facts from patients with experience.. Drug maker pays big bucks to keep all the info ” positive” on subs… They are no dam different then the crooks on wal-street !

My Response:

Before my answer, a quick comment–  I do like the ‘crooks on wal-street’ remark;  I haven’t seen that ‘play on trademark words’ before.  I am assuming that he was making a joke–  he had to be, right?

OK, here is my response.  As usual it is a bit ‘snotty’– but you have to remember that I get this garbage all the time, and it gets old:

I am sorry to be the one to break this to you, but you are an opiate addict. Moreover, you will always be an opiate addict; hopefully you will be an addict ‘in remission’. The brain pathways that make up ‘addiction’ are laid down in a manner that involves memory processes; becoming a ‘non-addict’ would be like forgetting how to ride a bike. It cannot happen. Again, you can be in remission, but with opiates, that is very difficult– and unfortunately very uncommon.

Many people write about how they used will power or vitamins or some other silly technique to quit opiates– once they have gone over 5 or 10 years, I am interested in listening to them. It is easy to quit using for a year– it is another thing entirely to quit using for 10 years. I got clean in 1993 and felt pretty proud of myself… I quit through AA and NA, not Suboxone. I worked with opiates the whole time, giving patients IV fentanyl, morphine, demerol, etc in the operating room… but in 2000, thanks to a little market in the Bahamas that sold codeine over the counter, I relapsed. I ended up losing almost everything, including my career, all my money, a vacation cottage, my medical license… ****** ‘mens health’ and ‘the junkie in the OR’ and you will read my story.

There is no ‘fraud’, no ‘slick doctors’. There are doctors trying to help, and some work harder than others to keep people on track. We now know that Suboxone is best thought of as a long-term treatment, just like most other illnesses; we treat diabetes, hypertension, asthma, etc with long-term agents; if you stop your blood pressure meds abruptly you will have ‘rebound hypertension’ that can be very dangerous… Suboxone is similar to any other treatment. The thing is, pharmacy companies never used to care about addiction; the money is in treating other illnesses– just watch the commercials on TV! The money has been in viagra-type drugs! Suboxone is the first generation of opiate-dependence medications; the next wave will have fewer side effects, and so on. That is what happens with every disease. I am glad addiction finally has the attention of pharmaceutical companies. As for ‘slick docs’, there are many easier ways to make a buck in medicine! I am at the ‘cap’ of patients; the money I make treating patients with Suboxone is a tiny fraction of what I made as an anesthesiologist; I could drop the Suboxone practice tomorrow and take one of the 30 jobs in my area frantically looking for psychiatrists and make as much or more money. Yes, there probably are some ‘bad docs’ out there– there are ‘bad everythings’. But a bad doc will make a lot more money treating ‘pain’ using oxycodone than treating addiction with Suboxone! For one thing, there is no cap on pain patients! And when a doc wants to prescribe Suboxone, he/she can have only 30– THIRTY– patients for the first year. Hard to get rich on 30 patients!

Suboxone has the opiate activity of about 30 mg of methadone. When tapering off Suboxone, the vast majority of withdrawal symptoms occurs during the final parts of the taper– the last 2 mg. That is because of the ‘ceiling effect’. But you are not just tapering off Suboxone…

Do you remember when you started Suboxone, how lousy you felt, and how Suboxone eliminated the withdrawal? YOU NEVER FINISHED GETTING OFF THE STUFF YOU WERE ADDICTED TO. There is no ‘free lunch’; Suboxone allowed you to avoid all that withdrawal; if you stop Suboxone, you have to finish the work you never finished before– going through the withdrawal that you ‘postponed’ with Suboxone! Welcome to the real world– you likely abused those pills for years, and if you don’t want treatment with Suboxone, you had better start a recovery program, or you will be right back to using again.

Human nature can be a disappointment at times… When I ‘got clean’ after my relapse 8 years ago, I was just grateful to be ‘free’– even for just a few days of freedom! To get to freedom, I was in a locked ward for a week, no shoelaces (so I wouldn’t hang myself!), surrounded by people who were either withdrawing or being held to keep them from self-harm (it was a psych ward/detox ward combined). After that, I was in treatment for over three months– away from my family all that time, and I couldn’t leave the grounds without an ‘escort’ (no, not that kind of ‘escort’!). Treatment started at 6:30 AM and ended at 10 PM. The rare ‘spare time’ was used to do assignments. After those three months I was in group treatment for 6 years, and also AA and NA meetings several times per week. I still practice and active program 8 years later– I know what happens to people who stop: they eventually relapse, and some of them die. I AM NOT EXAGGERATING ‘FOR EFFECT’ HERE.

I had better stop or I will spend all of 2009 with this post… My final comment: Most of what you are feeling is not ‘Suboxone withdrawal’. I have watched many people stop Suboxone; some have bad withdrawal, some have NONE. When you talk about ‘anxiety’ or other problems facing life on life’s terms, you are experiencing life as an untreated addict. ADDICTS WHO SIMPLY STOP TAKING THEIR DRUG OF CHOICE FEEL MISERABLE!!! That is not withdrawal, and it doesn’t go away! Suboxone held things ‘in remission’ and allowed you to pretend you were not an addict; it is NOT a cure. So now, off Suboxone, you will see what it is like to live life as an opiate addict without treatment– and if you don’t get treatment, you will likely relapse. You will relapse because untreated addicts find life intolerable.

My human nature comment– everyone wants good things, but nobody wants to do the work to get them… (I’m in a bit of a mood today I guess– sorry). Recovery from opiates has always taken work– very hard work. And even then, success was rare– most people had to go back to treatment over and over and over before finally getting it. If people stopped working, as I stopped working in 1997, they eventually got sick again. Enter Suboxone: now you can have instant remission from active addiction! So are people grateful for that fact? That now, instead of years and years of struggle, they can take one pill each morning and hold their addiction in check? NO. Now they complain that ‘I don’t feel good when I stop Suboxone!’. Sorry, but a part of me says ‘poor baby’. You have a fatal illness, and you think you are done with it… you will find going forward that you will either use, or you will take buprenorphine or a new medication along the same line, or you will be attending meetings for life. Those are your three choices– pick one.

If you find a 4th choice, tell me about it in 5 years. I would like to hear how you did it, and yes, I hope you do find it (rather than die using). But I looked for that other path myself for years and never found it, and so did millions of other addicts.

Back to the present…

Phew.  Makes me tired just remembering those days.  Since then the number of deaths have only gone up, but at least there is a better acceptance for treating opioid dependence using effective medications— at least for people ready to accept that help.

I’ve received several complaints from patients and readers about one of the current buprenorphine formulations.  The primary complaint is that the tablet is ‘not ‘working as well as the other formulations;’ that it seems to wear off earlier, or that people feel compelled to take more than what is prescribed.

Buprenorphine 8 mg tabs

My understanding, admittedly based only on what people have told me, is that there are three current formulations of buprenorphine.  The brand form, Subutex, comes as a relatively-large, flat-oval tablet, white or off-white in color.  The Roxanne version is a round white tablet, with a diameter of about 0.5 inch.  The tablet people have complained about is from Teva, and is smaller;  about the size of a tic-tac.

In general, I think that generics are as good as brand name medications.  I have never come across a reliable instance, in my practice, of generics being less potent or less active.  I recognize that particularly for psychiatric medications, the placebo effect accounts for significant portions of the actions of medications—so if a person BELIEVES that generic fluoxetine is less likely to work, it IS less likely to work.  But take away the placebo issue, and a molecule of fluoxetine is a molecule of fluoxetine—regardless of where it comes from.

That said, I realize that the delivery of molecules can be affected by the design of capsules and tablets.  I remember a study, years ago, that showed that many of the vitamins sold in the US passed through the intestinal system without even dissolving, let alone getting into the bloodstream. If the active substance is encased inside insoluble resin, there is little to be gained from taking it.

The delivery issue is less of a concern with a medication that is delivered through the oral mucosa, as with buprenorphine.  There are several factors that affect absorption of buprenorphine;  the concentration of buprenorphine in saliva,  the amount of surface area that buprenorphine is allowed to pass through, and the time allowed for that passage to occur.  If the smaller tablet dissolves more slowly, molecules of buprenorphine may have less actual contact-time with oral mucosa, thereby reducing absorption.

On the other hand, I am well aware of the psychological reward that people describe from taking buprenorphine or buprenorphine-naloxone, even in the absence of any subjective sensation.  The fear of withdrawal is relieved by taking buprenorphine—making the dosing experience ‘rewarding.’  It may be that the smaller tablet provides less reward, as the small size engenders less confidence in those unfelt ‘effects.’

In any case, I invite readers to share their experiences, just in case those who have already written are truly onto something.  Please leave comments below—and thanks for sharing!

Every now and then I hear about a therapist or addiction doc who is doing such a disservice to the practice of addiction medicine as to deserve special mention.  This week’s award goes to a certain counselor at a treatment program in Oshkosh, WI, who I’ll refer to as ‘This Jerk.’

I’ve made no secret, over the years, about my hope for addiction to eventually be treated with the same respect for patients and attention to medical principles as for any other illness.  I certainly try my best to work according to those ideas, and find that doing so really helps when it comes to making treatment-based decisions.  In other words, I’ll ask myself—if this person had diabetes, what would an endocrinologist do?  Or better yet—if I had diabetes, what would I want MY endocrinologist to do?

This Jerk Counselor

We all know that certain professions attract certain types of people.  Some of us have been pulled over by the cop who was the kid subject to playground taunts, now all grown up, determined to make life a living Hell for anyone with a loose seat-belt.  When I worked in the state prison system, I worked with guards who belonged in the same category; men and women who loved to carry keys to cages that held real people.  It’s the power trip, I suppose.

This Jerk apparently loves the power trip of ‘treating’ people who are sent back to jail for ‘failing’ his treatment.  He doesn’t have to worry about being a lousy therapist; he has a captive audience, and likes it that way.  One difficult aspect of being a therapist is treating patients who don’t like us for one reason or another, or who don’t kneel every time we enter the room.  But when This Jerk feels disrespected, he picks up the telephone and calls the patient’s PO to report ‘noncompliance with treatment’– then gloats about sending the patient to jail.

Treatment professionals who are in a position of unusual power over a patient must be particularly careful to empathize with their patient’s position.  In medical school, we were placed on gurneys and wheeled around by fellow students, to emphasize the vantage of patients coming to the emergency room.  We were taught to sit at the same or lower eye-level of our patients, as speaking down to people creates an unsettling power differential.

The power to prescribe or withhold buprenorphine (let alone the power to send to prison!) comes with an obligation not to abuse that power.  Withholding buprenorphine causes patients to go into withdrawal—something dreadful to people addicted to opioids.  Worse, withholding buprenorphine places patients at very high risk of relapse—which in turn places them directly in harm’s way from overdose and legal repercussions.

This Jerk, I’ve been told, takes issue with psychiatrists who continue to treat patients on buprenorphine who struggle with sobriety.  He considers it ‘good care’ to withhold buprenorphine from an addict who uses, supposedly to punish the patient into sobriety.

In case This Jerk (or a similar ethically-challenged counselor) is reading, I’ll point out the obvious:  when a doctor pulls the rug from under a patient by withholding medication, that patient might easily join the ranks of other dead addicts.  On the other hand, when I work with a patient who is struggling with sobriety, keeping the person on buprenorphine and working to identify triggers for using, that person almost always ‘gets it,’ eventually.

I’ve been working with people addicted to opioids, using this approach, for so long that the other approach—the punitive, ‘cut ‘em loose for struggling’ approach—seems barbaric.  I don’t understand how people identified as healthcare workers (nothing professional in his behavior!) rationalize the dismissive approach.  I suppose, if This Jerk views addicts as the scum of the Earth, or as people with weak characters, or people who lack ‘will power,’ punishing relapse by withholding treatment feels about right.  But most of us leave that world behind when we commit to helping people suffering from illness.

What’s This Jerk’s excuse?  Is it that he just doesn’t get it?  Or are there other motives at play?  With the current cap on patients on buprenorphine, the most lucrative way to practice is to keep turnover high, rewarding practices that hire therapist-idiots like This Jerk.

Or is it the power trip– that people with difficult addictions are an affront to therapists?  I’ve met therapists with this attitude before, who seem to have a form of codependency with their patients. They take credit for any success by their patients, but think the patients who fail are not worth their time, and should be dumped, expunged, or kicked-out to relapse and die.  I suppose This Jerk would say ‘not my problem!  I did MY job!’

Readers may suspect that this topic irritates me—and they’re right.  Maybe I’ve seen more death, up close, than the typical counselor.  I’ve attended autopsies; I’ve reviewed post-mortem photos from overdose scenes; I’ve pushed IV fluids into people with fatal injuries who presented for emergency surgery.  I have spent hours with the parents of young patients who died from overdose.  I’ve seen the parents’ faces as they struggled with the thought that they could, or should, have done something else—just one more thing to save their child.  Death, to me, is not ‘theoretical.’ It is not something to toy with, and certainly not something to invite into the life of a person who made me angry, for not recovering at MY pace.

I suspect that the Jerks of the world will continue to justify their sadistic approach to ‘treatment.’ But patients—at least SOME patients—don’t have to put up with that behavior.  People like This Jerk hold power over an individual with an addiction history, but there is power in numbers.  It is not appropriate to use one’s power vindictively, or to gloat over a patient’s struggle.  It is not appropriate to humiliate a patient in front of others.  If you see that behavior, collect witnesses, and bring it to someone’s attention.  Maybe that ‘someone’ will write a blog post about it!

Doctors in particular should treat patients with ALL diseases—including addiction—with respect.  It is not respectful, or ethical, to deprive a patient of life-sustaining medication—especially out of spite.  I look forward to the day when the thought of ‘kicking someone off Suboxone’ is viewed as similar to kicking a poorly-compliant teenage diabetic off insulin.

Would THAT make sense— even to This Jerk?

I was never a huge Whitney fan, but nobody can debate the beauty and power of her voice.  Also beyond debate is that she deserved a better ending than the one she found, alone in a bathtub, while ‘friends’ were partying a few floors away.  Xanax and other benzodiazepines, combined with alcohol, are suspected of contributing to her death.

Grief-Stricken Friends

In fact, my primary reaction to reading about her death has been disgust over the way things play out in star circles– similar to how they played out after the death of Michael Jackson.  We have the parade of the business confidants– Simon, the Idol/X-Factor guy, saying that he could tell something was amiss.  Producers who say she looked great the last time they met.  Friends who say they tried to reach out.  Even Jesse Jackson somehow got his picture taken as part of the tragedy.

The picture that summarizes that world best shows Jane Fonda and one of the Kardashians (I don’t know one from the other) taking a break from grief to pose for a photo.

Hollywood, as I think about it, is the perfect setting for addiction– a place where everyone is acting and pretending, where relationships are fake but ‘useful,’ where rage occasionally makes headlines but bad behavior is mostly ignored.

I would LOVE to be a part of it.  But I wouldn’t last five minutes.

I often talk to my patients on buprenorphine (aka Suboxone) about the need to fill their minds with new ideas, plans, and experiences.  For years, those of us with addictions were focused on one thing– finding a way to avoid being sick for the next few hours.  That one issue became the center of our Universe, pushing out every other interest in our lives.  Treatment with buprenorphine removes that obsession, leaving room behind for interests to re-develop.  The challenge for patients on buprenorphine, particularly young patients, is to seize the initiative, and to fill their minds with healthy interests, relationships, and activities.

Many treatment professionals completely miss the point of buprenorphine treatment.  The unique action of buprenorphine at the mu receptor results in a constant level of opioid effect, even as the brain level of buprenorphine varies throughout the day.  This constant stimulation disappears through the phenomenon of tolerance; a process that allows the mind to ignore ANY input or stimulus that never varies.

The mind, then, has no evidence that the person is on a medication– so the person ‘feels’ normal, and IS normal– as normal as anyone can be, in a world with caffeinated beverages and wifi networks.  All of the mental activity that was spent fretting over opioids is removed during buprenorphine treatment– a process that really should be called ‘remission treatment,’ given what is occurring in the mind and brain.

I’m getting far afield here… my point is that the removal of all that ‘fretting’ allows for the interests of the person to return. The relationships pushed out and neglected by cravings can be restored, and hopefully repaired.  Hobbies can be taken up again.  Athletic interests can return.

But people who became attached to opioids at a very young age may have missed the normal opportunity to develop those relationships and interests.  Young people must develop interests in other things, once they are stabilized on buprenorphine. As an older person, I am not ‘hip’ to all of the things that younger people do these days (as evidenced by saying ‘hip’!), so I have to leave much of that to the creative energy of those patients!  But as an example of the things one can get interested in, this morning I had a few minutes of ‘do nothing’ time… and after watching one of the stars of ‘The Artist’, the silent movie that one all the Oscars, I Googled ‘silent movies’ and started reading.  Eventually I somehow ended up at a site for a college Asian Student Association (would LOVE to visit at least one Asian country some day…) where I viewed beautiful photos from Taiwan, including the countryside, the cities, the food…. and eventually the YouTube video below, of the Taiwan 2010 New Year firework display, at the world’s SECOND tallest building (for now) – Taipei 101.  (before clicking the link you just past, do you know the first?)

Watch in HD if possible–  turn  of the volume, listen to the people around you, and you’re almost there!

Today I met with representatives from Alkermes who were promoting Vivitrol, a long-acting mu opioid antagonist that is indicated for treatment of alcoholism and opioid dependence.

Naltrexone

I admit to some pre-existing bias against the medication.  I’m not certain, to be honest, whether that bias was based upon sound clinical reasoning, or whether it was based on personal, negative reactions to naltrexone in my past.  Or maybe, as a recovering opioid addict, I have negative feelings about anything that blocks mu receptors!

Vivitrol consists of naltrexone in a long-acting matrix that is injected into the gluteal muscle each month. The medication is expensive, costing about $1000 per dose (!)  That cost is usually covered by insurance, and like with Suboxone, Wisconsin Medicaid picks up the tab save for a $3 copay.  Alkermes, the company that makes Vivitrol, also has a number of discounts available to reduce or even eliminate any copays required by insurance companies.

I’ll leave the indication of Vivitrol for alcoholism for another post.  The indication for opioid dependence came more recently, and appears more obvious, given the actions of naltrexone at the mu opioid receptor.

In short, naltrexone blocks the site where opioids—drugs like oxycodone, heroin, and methadone—have the majority of their actions.  Blockade of that site prevents opioids from having any clinical effect.  There is some dose, of course, where an agonist would regain actions— an important feature in the case of surgery or injury.  But even in those high doses, the euphoric effects of addictive opioids would be muted.  People on Vivitrol, essentially, are prevented from getting high from opioids.

Back in my using days, I took naltrexone, thinking that doing so would help me get ‘clean.’  I didn’t wait long enough, however, and so I became very sick with precipitated w/d.  The makers of Vivitrol recommend waiting at least a week, after stopping opioids, before getting an injection of Vivitrol.  I suspect that a week is not long enough to prevent w/d, but I realize that it would be very difficult to expect patients to last longer, without using anything.  I would expect that any precipitated w/d could be reduced through use of comfort medications, at least for a day or two until the symptoms are mostly gone. This requirement, though, to be clean for a week or more is one of my problems with the medication.

As an aside, I was also prescribed naltrexone (oral tabs) at the end of my three months in residential treatment, and I took the medication for another three months.  I had no withdrawal or other side effects to naltrexone at that time.

Another issue was the concern that naltrexone has been connected to hepatic toxicity.  We discussed that issue today, including the studies that led to that connection—which are not compelling.  The discussion allayed most of my concerns about liver problems from Vivitrol.

Finally, I have always recommended buprenorphine over naltrexone because of the anti-craving effects of buprenorphine that result from the ‘ceiling effect’ of the medication.  I worried that naltrexone, by blocking the actions of endorphins, would actually increase cravings.  But that is not what the data shows.  In the studies with Vivitrol, cravings for opioids were dramatically reduced by the medication.  The mechanism of that effect is not entirely clear;  some of the anti-craving effect may be psychological, as addicts stop wanting something when they know there is no way to get it.  But there may be other complicated neurochemical effects at presynaptic opioid receptors that are not fully understood.

The bottom line is the result of treatment;  the very sick opioid addicts treated in the studies used by Vivitrol to gain FDA approval showed a profound reduction in opioid-positive urines, over a span of 6 months.

I suspect that I will continue to favor buprenorphine.  I do not buy into the ‘need’ some people describe to ‘get of buprenorphine as fast as possible.’  Buprenorphine is a very effective, safe, long-term treatment for inducing remission of opioid dependence.  But because of the cap, I am glad that another option is available to treat this potentially-fatal condition.  And I admit to perhaps being too quick to judge Vivitrol, which appears to be a safe alternative—particularly for people who have a lower opioid tolerance that do not want to push it higher, or for people who have been free of opioids for a week or two.

I would invite local people who are on my buprenorphine waiting list to consider Vivitrol as an option.

It has been a while, it seems, since I’ve checked in.  I’m at the point in the life cycle of a ‘blogger’ where I feel like I’ve said most of what I came here to say… so help me out by sending your questions, particularly those with broad implications, and I’ll chime in with an opinion.

In the meantime, check out the ‘best of’ page;  I have links there to some of the more popular post.   And for now, I’ll answer a question I received today on ‘TheFix.com’:

Do you believe in intervention of someone who does not ask or desire (to be clean)?

It is hard to predict human behavior; sometimes people rise to the occasion when all appears to be lost, and other times people who have everything going their way make surprisingly poor decisions.  But in my experience, real sobriety requires the addict to feel a profound need to change that comes from within. 

More common than you think!

That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that interventions never work—but the intervention should be set up in such a way that the addict or alcoholic—him or herself– comes to the realization that getting clean is the only option. 

For example… let’s say that grandma has a problem with pain pills, taking more than what is prescribed, going to multiple doctors, going to the ER for pain pills, etc.  Her children don’t like her behavior, so they stage an intervention, to show her the problems her behavior is causing.  At the intervention, they tell her how hurt her grandchildren are by her absence at their functions, and they explain the risks of her behavior.  They set her up at a treatment center, and she is shipped off for 30 days.

She may go to all of the groups and meetings in treatment, agreeing politely in every setting that she has a serious problem, and that she really ‘gets it.’  And that would be great for the treatment center; they would collect their $30K, and everyone there would congratulate each other on how compassionate and bright they are. And later, when grandma is doing the exact thing she was doing before treatment, the counselors would put the blame on HER, acting as if SHE has a problem for not sticking to plan—even though almost all of their patients end up the same.

I used to be a bigger fan of residential treatment. But at some point I let go of the fantasy of residential treatment as the ‘gold standard’, and accepted the real numbers.  It is easy to clean a person up for a month in a closed environment.  But in regard to long-term sobriety… residential treatment rarely works.  Sorry to say something so horrible—but that emperor, sadly, has no clothes.

So back to grandma… I would expect her to go back to the same behavior after treatment. Why, after hearing from all the family, would she do that?

Because true change is very, very difficult. 

Besides, she has plenty of reasons to keep things the same.  She will likely think that the problem isn’t the use of pain pills, but rather that she didn’t hide things well enough.  Or she will assume that other people simply don’t understand what it is like to be 70 years old, trying to live with pain. She used to change the smelly diapers of these kids;  what could they possibly tell her that she doesn’t know?

And the major reason she won’t change?  For her to truly realize that her behavior is a problem, she would have to endure the shame for what was going on—and shame is a very strong motivator for denial.

In treatment, the team will try to try to break through that denial and have her admit, to herself, that she has a problem.  But that type of admission is rare, and only comes out when a person is desperate—and when there is no choice but to change.

But there are other ways to manage an intervention.  It would be best if grandma herself decides, at some point, that things must change.  How does that happen?  First, everyone has to stop enabling her.  If the grandchildren are angry that grandma didn’t show up at their birthdays, they should be allowed to express that anger—and when grandma protests, she is forced to hear why people are mad.  If grandma runs into problems with the doctor or pharmacist, nobody should help her sort things out;  she is left to juggle excuses on her own.  If she needs the ER for pain pills, she drives herself—or waits for a cab.

I chose ‘grandma,’ by the way, because I wanted to present the challenge of dealing with a person who deserves sympathy.  Nobody does her a favor by keeping her miserable.  Realize, though, that we are discussing addiction here;  I’m not suggesting that people abandon loved ones struggling with painful conditions!

The doctor should prescribe medications on a tight schedule, with strict refill dates that are maintained without exception.  Doctors are sometimes afraid to let people go into withdrawal, so they order ‘a few extra pills’ to get to the next refill;  medications should be long-lasting, so that withdrawal is uncomfortable, but not dangerous.  A short period of the medication- i.e. a one-week supply—will reduce the period of withdrawal.  If a person struggles to follow limits, the prescribing period is shortened until the person CAN follow it—even to the point of 3-day prescriptions with multiple refills.  If grandma complains about the multiple trips to the pharmacy, she is told that period will be lengthened if she sticks to the schedule— and shortened if she doesn’t.

The point of all of this is to make the person with the problem feel the consequences of their problem.  Too often, everyone else is aware of the need for an intervention, because everyone else feels the consequences—everyone but the addict.  The trick is to make the consequences hit the person who has the problem—and for everyone else to get on with life, until the person with the problem is sick and tired of those consequences.

Of course, every now and then an intervention turns out to be meaningful enough to get a person’s attention, and to spur change.  But in my experience those types of outcomes—the things we see on TV and in movies—are not the norm.