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When someone decides that they need to go
to a medical detox facility to help them withdraw
from a drug or alcohol, they are concerned about a
number of things that concern most of us going for
medical treatment. In speaking with our
patients it seems that the major concerns
are:
· Will I be
uncomfortable?
· How safe is
it?
· How long will it
take?
· Will I be able to
complete my detox?
PURPOSE OF MEDICAL
DETOX
At Novus Medical
Detox Center, we believe that the purpose of any
medical detox is to more comfortably and safely
assist someone to stop taking a drug or drugs or
drinking alcohol. We also believe that our
patients should be detoxed from a drug or alcohol
and not leave Novus on any new drugs.
We know that in six
to fourteen days, it is not possible to fully
remove a drug from your system. In fact,
many drugs will lodge in the body's fat tissues
and will not be fully out of your system unless
you do a special sauna program designed to sweat
out the toxins from fatty tissues.
Will you complete
your detox at Novus? We can't guarantee this
because the patient determines this.
However, unlike the experience of many other detox
facilities, it is very rare that someone doesn't
complete their detox at Novus Medical Detox
Center. We know that patients who follow our
program at Novus and then obtain the appropriate
after-care are able to safely stop taking the drug
or alcohol they were consuming.
A medical detox
program does not fully handle the reasons, either
mental, physiological or both, that the drugs or
alcohol were taken in the first place. At
Novus Medical Detox Center, we do seek to educate
the person on how the substances they were taking
were affecting them and work with the person to
locate the appropriate care for the next step in
handling the physiological and/or mental reasons
for taking the drug or drinking alcohol.
Sometimes this involves finding a holistic doctor
or other healthcare provider, but we always do our
best to help the patient locate the appropriate
after-care provider.
As discussed in
previous newsletters, Novus Medical Detox Center
has developed protocols that have allowed people
on high doses of drugs or high amounts of alcohol
to be more comfortable and safe from the medical
risks of withdrawal. In this newsletter, we
will discuss the factors that determine how long
it takes to complete a medical detox program at
Novus.
HOW LONG WILL IT
TAKE?
This question is
easy to answer for some medical detox facilities
other than Novus. The reason-they have a
fixed and unchanging detox protocol for each type
of drug and for alcohol. That is just the
way it is. Sometimes it is too short and the
person is very uncomfortable-to the point that
they leave and resume drinking or taking drugs to
handle the discomfort. Sometimes it is
unnecessarily long. But it is almost always
unchanging.
This question is
more difficult for Novus. Our patients are
not subjected to a "standard" protocol but instead
they are treated as they are-unique individuals
who we assist to more comfortably and safely
complete their detox based on a number of
factors. The detox schedule for our patients
changes frequently in response to how the patient
is doing and in consideration of a number of
factors. Some of these factors
are:
· Age
· Type of drug or
alcohol from which they want to
detox
· Amount of the drug or
alcohol being consumed
· Length of time the person has been taking
the drug or drinking alcohol
· Vitamin or mineral
deficiencies
· State of
hydration
· State of
health
· DNA and metabolism
FACTORS
THAT AFFECT HOW LONG A NOVUS MEDICAL DETOX PROGRAM
TAKES
Let's briefly
address each factor that is listed above.
AGE
The first factor is
age. A 75-year-old person may be healthier
than an 18-year-old, but as a general rule, as we
age our bodies tend to function less
efficiently. This generally means that a
medical detox program will take longer for an
older person than for a younger one.
However, because of all the other factors we will
be discussing in this newsletter, sometimes an
older person will detox more rapidly than a
younger person on the same
substance.
TYPE OF DRUG OR ALCOHOL FROM
WHICH THEY WANT TO DETOX
The second factor
is the drug or alcohol from which you want to
detox. Generally, the most difficult opioid
from which to detox is methadone. Depending
on the dose and the other factors listed above, a
methadone detox normally takes from 10 to 14
days. We have had a few people finish sooner
than 10 days, and some have taken longer than 14
days.
In our experience,
the most difficult benzodiazepine from which to
detox is Xanax. Some people will complete
their detox from Xanax in six to seven days, but
the average time is normally more like seven to
ten days. It can take this long because of
the way that Xanax affects some of our
patients. Unless the patient addresses the
actual causes of why they were taking Xanax after
they leave Novus, these withdrawal symptoms,
although normally much less severe, can continue
for weeks after they leave Novus and contribute to
a quick relapse.
It is generally
easier for a person who is addicted to wine to
medically detox than it is for a person who is
drinking an equivalent amount of bourbon or gin,
but again it depends on all the factors listed
here.
AMOUNT OF THE DRUG OR ALCOHOL BEING
CONSUMED
For example, higher
doses of methadone generally require the longest
detox time, but someone taking only 20 milligrams
of methadone daily will almost certainly complete
their detox more rapidly than someone taking 120
milligrams of OxyContin.
If someone is
drinking a bottle of wine a day, they will likely
be able to complete their detox more rapidly than
someone who is drinking a fifth of vodka a
day.
LENGTH OF TIME THE PERSON HAS BEEN
TAKING THE DRUG OR DRINKING
ALCOHOL
Generally, the
longer a person has been taking a drug or drinking
alcohol to excess, the longer it will take for a
person to withdraw from the drug or detox from
alcohol. Over time, the body becomes more
dependent on the drug or alcohol to create the
effects the person is seeking. It is for
this reason that it sometimes takes longer for the
body's natural production of the chemicals that
the drug or alcohol was replacing to reach normal
levels.
VITAMIN OR MINERAL
DEFICIENCIES
Many people who come to
Novus are deficient in vitamins and
minerals. This means that their bodies will
not work as efficiently and this is why we often
see such rapid improvement after our patients
receive vitamin IV's and begin taking
supplements. The more deficient the patient
is when they arrive, the longer it will take for
their bodies to begin to function more
efficiently.
STATE OF
HYDRATION
While most people
are dehydrated to some extent, people abusing
alcohol or drugs normally have an even greater
degree of dehydration. Hydration is one of
the most important factors for anyone going
through a medical detox. If a person is
dehydrated, the body's cells work less efficiently
and since they make up the vital organs, the
organs operate less effectively. Because the body
accepts hydration like a sponge absorbs water, the
longer it takes for our patients to become
hydrated properly, the longer it takes to complete
their detox. Fortunately, in most cases the
IV's and our use of electrolytes speeds the
process.
STATE OF HEALTH
Novus can help the
person who is dehydrated or who has vitamin and
mineral deficiencies, but if someone has blood
pressure problems or diabetes or heart problems,
these will affect the length of time a person
requires to complete a medical detox
program. Because of the stress that too
rapid a detox can cause, the person with other
health problems normally takes longer to detox
from the same substance as a person in better
health.
DNA AND METABOLISM
Perhaps the major
reasons explaining the variations in time needed
to detox more comfortably and safely from
substances are the individual's DNA and
metabolism. All of us have differences in
our DNA that explain the differences in how we
look and how we react to drugs and alcohol.
All of us may metabolize drugs and alcohol through
the same pathways, but this doesn't mean we
metabolize the drugs and alcohol in the same
way. Remember, our DNA is unique to us and
the action of the enzymes that metabolize these
substances is often different. For some, the
enzymes will work "normally", for others the
enzymes will work more slowly or faster, and some
may not even have the enzymes in the first
place.
For example, one
person taking 60 milligrams of an opioid like
OxyContin may metabolize and use all 60 milligrams
of the opioid, while someone taking 100 milligrams
may not metabolize the opioid fully and only
receives the effect of 60 milligrams.
CONCLUSION
At Novus Medical
Detox Center, we routinely have people come to us
who have gone to other detox facilities.
They all comment on how much easier their Novus
medical detox program was than the previous one or
ones that they did. They appreciate the fact
that Novus adjusts each person's taper based on
how they are doing and encourages our patients to
complete their detox as quickly as they safely and
comfortably can.
A common
misconception is that people continue to use
alcohol or drugs to get "high". This may
have been the motivating reason when they started
using, but most find that the alcohol or drugs no
longer produce a "high"-they just keep away the
uncomfortable and often unbearable withdrawal
symptoms.
Some people ask if
a person withdrawing from OxyContin can be
withdrawn in less than the average of 6 to 8
days. The answer is yes, the person can
detox more rapidly and some of our patients have
completed their detox in five days. However,
for most, if they try to speed up their detox too
much, they will have very uncomfortable withdrawal
symptoms and they may leave before they finish
because the pain is too great.
Once started, not
finishing a medical detox almost always leads to a
resumption of the drug or alcohol use because of
the withdrawal symptoms. If patients proceed
with their medical detox program in the manner
most suitable to them, they will no longer be
experiencing the painful withdrawal symptoms from
the drug or alcohol and will be ready to take
their next step toward freedom from the drug or
alcohol. This next step
could be going into a rehab program, or it could
be going to other healthcare providers if the drug
or alcohol use was started to control physical
pain.
At Novus Medical Detox
Center, we help our patients complete their detox
safely and much more comfortably and most leave
Novus rested, thinking more clearly and ready to
go forward with the next step in their lives.
NOTE: This email is provided for
general educational purposes only and is not
intended to constitute (i) medical advice or
counseling, (ii) the practice of medicine
including psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy or
the provision of health care diagnosis or
treatment, (iii) the creation of a physician
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endorsement, recommendation or sponsorship of any
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contact your health care provider
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