Naltrexone treatment for drug and alcohol addiction

For the last year we have been very busy treating patients with Naltrexone. Naltrexone has been used for many years overseas in the management of drug and alcohol addiction. The Naltrexone treatment is very useful in the sense that your patient responds immediately.

Naltrexone actually works in three different ways. Firstly, Naltrexone takes away the cravings for all uppers and downers. Naltrexone also helps to suppress the cravings for nicotine and alcohol. Naltrexone also blocks cravings for dagga. Secondly, Naltrexone gives the patient a feeling of excitement, happiness, reward, comfort, satisfaction and peace. Naltrexone makes your drug not necessary anymore. Thirdly, Naltrexone blocks all the receptors for drugs to the brain and therefore your drug will never work again - meaning no reward or high feeling will be experienced after use. Only sickness and suffering awaits the user when drugs are used while on the Naltrexone treatment.

Since we started to use Naltrexone treatments in March 2012 we have done quite a lot. The success rate on the Naltrexone treatment is very high especially if patients return for follow-ups. It is of outmost importance to see your patient for at least a year and for the addict to receive Naltrexone treatment every three months. In that period when Naltrexone blocks the receptors in the brain, the addiction centre in the brain is healed. The process takes up to three years. Naltrexone is therefor of great value to start the process.

Naltrexone is furthermore very safe because of the low dose. Naltrexone treatments works very specifically. There are no known side-effects or interactions with Naltrexone treatments at these low dosages. Naltrexone can therefore not harm the patient in any way. Over the last 50 years no negative findings have been reported. Naltrexone gives a steady supply to the patient of active antagonist and Naltrexone. The treatment lasts three months.

There are different strengths for different needs.

In South Africa the numbers of patients using drugs are growing every day. It is the second biggest problem apart from unemployment that government has to deal with. The department of health is giving us great support in our effort to fight this ever growing burden to society.

Over Thousands of years alcohol has been the most acceptable chemical substance to abuse, effecting each and every organ and system in our bodies.

People get addicted so easily because of the social acceptability of the substance. Alcohol addiction is always a consequence and not a cause. There is also a genetic link in alcoholism.

In South Africa, 12% of the population suffers from Alcohol addiction. This is a deadly condition that leads eventually to unavoidable suffering and death.

South Africa has many rehabilitation clinics, which offer specialized services at a very high cost. Unfortunately the success rates of these clinics are less than 2%.

Alcoholism and drug addiction changes your personality and your way of thinking permanently. Your disabled way of thinking affects at least 14 people directly and hundreds indirectly.

In South Africa we have 4 million alcoholics with no guaranteed cure. Alcoholics are very selfish people and not cooperative at all. To work alcoholics you do need to intervene, to make sure that your patient cannot drink again. This you can only achieve with an implant.

Worldwide the demand for intervention is huge and this addiction management should be addressed.

It is with great sympathy and sadness that we learned about patients who became irresponsible and drank while having our implants. We have lost some patients and some had serious reactions afterwards. This is something a doctor does not want to live through.

But on the other side of the spectrum from the 0.5% of patients that relapsed after 6 months, there is the 99.5% that are well motivated and do their follow-ups promptly. At this moment in time we want to treat alcohol addiction on a 3 monthly basis. That gives us a cushion period of at least 2 months which works tremendously with the patient’s motivation.

We are also proud to say that we were joined by patients from Miami [Florida],Canada, Holland France, Ireland, Greece, Italy, the UK., Spain, Katar, Malaysia, Saudi-Arabia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, Namibia, New Zealand and from all over South Africa. This makes us feel that what we are doing is worthwhile. Treatment is really making a change in people’s lives and the ripple effects are tremendous through our community. Our alcohol addicted patient gain respect in society and make us very proud. In the end patience need to realize that they are going through this for themselves.