What Happens During Rapid Detox?

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Rapid Detox is one way to detox from drugs quickly. It is important to point out that rapid detox only physically gets you off the drug. It does not help the psychological factors that caused you use the drug in the first place. It also does not break the psychological addiction that the drug might have over you.

Rapid detox is one of the newer forms of drug addiction treatment and there is still some mystery surrounding it.

Counseling

The first step to any good rapid detox program is counseling. Since rapid detox is a medical procedure it is important that rapid detox be done in a hospital setting with fully qualified staff. Staff members should include:

• Anesthesiologist
• Medical doctor certified in rapid detox
• Intensive Care Unit Nurse or nursing staff
• Patient or telemetry monitor

Each of these staff members are a part of a good rapid detox program.

Anesthesia

Medical professionals put you under anesthesia before administering the medications needed to rid your body of opiates.

Anesthesia is dangerous under any circumstances. You should be evaluated by a medical doctor before undergoing any procedure where anesthesia is involved. During rapid detox you will be under for between four to eight hours.

Detox

While you are under anesthesia, the doctor and nurses administer doses of drugs similar to Narcan and Naloxone in order to flush the opiates from your system. They also use blends of anti-anxiety and anti-seizure drugs to prevent adverse reactions from developing.

Waking Up

The medical staff brings you out of anesthesia carefully. They monitor your heart rate, respiratory rate, and other conditions as you wake up. They also monitor you for withdrawal symptoms. Usually there are some breakthrough withdrawal symptoms due to the drug not clearing your system completely.

Controversy

There is a lot of controversy surrounding rapid detox services. Some of these controversies are:

• A single doctor should monitor a single patient, more than one patient and the situation becomes dangerous if something goes wrong. Many disreputable centers have multiple patients per doctor or staff.
• It is only effective part of the time. Rapid detox does not always work for everyone. It is not considered an effective treatment for many people.
• The strain that it puts the body under is dangerous particularly when the patient is not perfectly healthy to begin with. This makes things difficult when someone has been using for a while and is unhealthy to begin with.

One of the main controversies surrounding rapid detox is the fact that not all of the withdrawal symptoms are gone. It has an extremely high relapse rate unless it is followed up by proper counseling and treatment. Many people do not recover completely after rapid detox and wind up either in treatment again or having to go through the rapid detox procedure again.

Where to Find Information about Rapid Detox

To find out more information on rapid detox, call us at 800-996-6135(Who Answers?) . We can answer any questions you might have and help you find the detox center for you.