Opioid use — even short term — can lead to addiction and, too often, overdose. Find out how short-term pain relief leads to life-threatening problems. Learn opioid addiction treatment more about signs of opioid addiction and how other people found the road to recovery. Detoxification refers to the elimination of drugs from the body.

• With over 16 million affected globally and 2.1 million in the United States, the course emphasizes the urgency of identifying and promptly treating persistent opioid use and misuse.
• Help prevent opioid misuse in your family and community by storing opioid medicines securely while you use them.
• Training in administration of naloxone for a loved one with substance use disorder is offered in most communities.
• Many other treatments are available, including less addictive pain medicines and therapies that don’t involve medicines.

Risks Associated with Opioid Misuse

The abuse of opioids can have long-lasting effects on someone’s health, possibly even resulting in death. This article will review the signs of opioid abuse, the effects and dangers it can cause, as well as how it can be treated and prevented. It is a disorder in which someone is misusing opioids to the point where it is becoming difficult for them to be able to stop using them or decrease their use.

How to recognize an overdose‎

Healthcare providers typically prescribe opioids to manage moderate to severe pain. Opioid use disorder is a chronic disease of the brain—sometimes called an addiction—characterized by the persistent use of opioids despite harmful consequences caused by their use. Patients typically have both physical dependence and loss of control over their opioid use and may experience serious consequences related to their use. It is a relapsing disorder, which means that if people who have OUD stop using opioids, they are at increased risk of reverting to opioid use, even after years of abstinence. Treatment for opioid use disorder is available from health care professionals and may be provided on an outpatient basis or through a residential program such as a rehabilitation center (rehab).

• Over time, people who use opioids (for pain or other reasons) develop a physical dependence on the drug, meaning that if they stop taking opioids, they experience withdrawal symptoms.
• This could be due to some weakening of the bones or also because people who abuse opioids may be at an increased risk of falling.
• While these opioids are all available by prescription, illicit opioids, like heroin (and, increasingly, illicitly manufactured fentanyl), are not.
• Extreme caution should be used if you’re considering breastfeeding (chestfeeding) while taking opiates.
• Opioids are highly addictive, largely because they trigger powerful reward centers in your brain.

When to see a doctor

Preventing overdose death and finding treatment options are the first steps to recovery. Treatment may save a life and can help people struggling with opioid use disorder get their lives back on track by allowing them to counteract addiction’s powerful effects on their brain and behavior. The overall goal of treatment is to help people regain their health and social function. Another detoxification option, known as medically managed withdrawal, has greater likelihood of success. What’s more, these statistics don’t include the damage opioid misuse can inflict on people’s everyday lives, not to mention those of the people around them. Misuse of these drugs can disrupt relationships with friends and family, harm performance at work or school, and can result in serious health and legal consequences.

• Opiates have the potential to cause life-threatening issues for your baby.
• Opioid withdrawal symptoms generally last between three and five days, although they can last up to 10 days, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM).
• High doses of opioids can slow a person’s breathing, which may be fatal.
• Mixing opioids with other drugs or alcohol also increases the risk of an opioid overdose.

How should you store and dispose of opioids to protect family members?