If you develop an after-hours toothache and head to the emergency room in search of relief, you may have a hard sell on your hands. What’s the problem? ER docs are being inundated with fake patients complaining of tooth pain in hopes of scoring some prescription narcotics to feed their drug habit. This growing trend means that patients in legitimate pain may be turned away empty-handed.

Since many poor patients forgo preventative dental care because they can’t afford it, it’s not improbable that they could end up in the emergency room in extreme pain. But how do doctors tell those in need from the ones who are merely making the rounds, looking for whatever meds they can get? They can’t. As a result, most physicians err on the side of treating pain, knowing that route often leads to abuse.

It’s such a growing problem that for the first time, the frequent prescription of narcotics in emergency departments for dental pain is being studied in a research project financed by the National Institutes of Health.

From 1997 to 2007, painkillers were prescribed in three of four visits to the emergency department for dental complaints, according to a new analysis of the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. Over that period, the number of painkiller prescriptions for dental patients in emergency departments rose 26 percent, according to the report, published January 2012 in the journal Medical Care.

It’s a system that is likely creating more addicts, but many ER doctors feel like their hands are tied. They lack the diagnostic tools to determine if a tooth’s nerve is infected and they don’t have the training to provide alternative treatment methods, like a localized anesthetic injection, which can provide immediate relief for up to 16 hours.

Monitoring programs have been set up to help doctors determine whether patients have recently been given painkillers (40 states have these programs and eight have enacted legislation to create them), but they are not used often enough.

Prescription Drug Addiction Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with prescription drug addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

When you think of babies born addicted to drugs, you usually imagine so-called “crack babies,” with indigent moms nursing a nasty habit that involves back alleys and dirty syringes. But today’s addicted newborns are the product of moms you might never suspect of drug abuse. These babies are suffering prescription drug withdrawal, and they’re in good company.

One Knoxville, Tenn., hospital has been dealing with a dramatic increase in the number of newborns with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), which is the withdrawal process a newborn baby goes through after in-utero exposure to certain medications. Alarmingly, the number of babies born with NAS at Knoxville’s East Tennessee Children’s Hospital doubled from 2010 to 2011.

Narcotics used during pregnancy pass through the placenta to the baby. Once the baby is born, he or she no longer has access to the drugs and will likely go through withdrawal. And experts know that opioids like the prescription painkiller oxycodone are the worst offenders for the babies suffering from NAS, at least at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital.

While the problem is an epidemic in Tennessee, other states and regions are not immune. And for those exposed, withdrawal is an almost forgone conclusion. In fact, between 55 and 94 percent of babies exposed to opioids prior to birth exhibit signs of withdrawal, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Withdrawal means these babies are easily agitated and cry constantly, and many cannot be near sound and light. Other symptoms can include a distinct, high-pitched cry, tightening of the muscles and seizures.

In Tennessee’s Knox County, they’ve seen the number of children in foster care increase by almost 50 percent over the last few years, due in large part to opiate abuse among pregnant women. Then add to that number the many relatives pitching in to raising drug-exposed infants, and you begin to get an idea of the problem’s true scope.

The epidemic is still in the early stages, so there is no national protocol on how to treat NAS. East Tennessee Children’s Hospital has come up with its own methods. They created a wing of private rooms that is quieter, darker and easier to control, and they train volunteers as “cuddlers” who are on hand simply to hold and comfort the babies.

They also use medication, originally opting for methadone, then switching to morphine, which is given in small doses every three hours with feedings. Doses are gradually decreased to wean babies off the drugs. Since adopting the morphine protocol, the average hospital stay for these infants has decreased by several days, now averaging 24 days. These babies still face an increased risk for problems with learning and development throughout childhood, and behavior problems once they reach school age.

Prescription Drug Rehab at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with prescription drug abuse, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Saturday, April 28, 2012 has been designated Drug Take-Back Day by the Drug Enforcement Agency. The DEA regularly schedules these National Prescription Drug Take-Back Days so that anyone who has accumulated unwanted, unused prescription drugs can safely dispose of those medications.

Americans who participated in the DEA’s third National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day on October 29, 2011, turned in more than 377,086 pounds (188.5 tons) of unwanted or expired medications for safe and proper disposal at 5,327 take-back sites across the US. When the results of the three prior Take-Back Days are combined, the DEA, and its state, local, and tribal law-enforcement and community partners have removed 995,185 pounds (498.5 tons) of medication from circulation in the past 13 months.

“The amount of prescription drugs turned in by the American public during the past three Take-Back Day events speaks volumes about the need to develop a convenient way to rid homes of unwanted or expired prescription drugs,” DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart said. “DEA remains hard at work to establish just such a drug disposal process, and will continue to offer take-back opportunities until the proper regulations are in place.”

Safe drug disposal continues to be a problem because medications are often flushed down toilets, sending them into the water supply, or thrown in the trash, which lands them in a local landfill where they can still be accessed and misused.

This latest DEA Take-Back event will take place from 10 am to 2 pm at thousands of sites around the country. To find a site near you or for more information, visit dea.gov or call 800-882-9539.

Prescription Drug Addiction Treatment at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with prescription drug addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Reported drug shortages nearly tripled in 2010 from 2005, according to The Huffington Post, and more than 80 percent of the products in short supply are generic, according to the IMS Institute, which provides information services for the healthcare industry.

The current drug shortage in the US includes cancer and arthritis drugs, but in the case of ADHD meds like Ritalin and its generic equivalents, some are questioning whether growing abuse is at least in part to blame for the scarcity. Congress has been sufficiently concerned about shortages of ADHD drugs and has even written to two drug companies, in essence asking them to prove they’re not manipulating the market by slowing down manufacture of cheaper, generic drugs, The Huffington Post reported.

The shortage has left parents of ADHD sufferers scrambling for Ritalin or Adderall, drugs for which there is an extremely high demand. The popularity of these meds on college campuses as a study aid or party favor is no doubt contributing to the shortage, as is the increasing numbers of children, teens and even adults diagnosed with ADHD. The problem is these drugs are stimulants and controlled substances, so the Drug Enforcement Administration is involved, setting quotas on how much manufacturers can supply. Those numbers don’t necessarily increase in proportion to the number of prescriptions written.

The FDA’s website features a list of drugs currently in short supply, and some people are able to find alternatives by consulting with their physician, but that’s not possible for everyone. Still, the experts warn against ordering medication over the Internet because it is hard to ensure that you’re getting what you pay for.

The problem of supply and demand isn’t going to end anytime soon, but continuing to fight against abuse of prescription meds will help make it more likely that the medications are available for those who truly need them.

Prescription Drug Addiction Rehab at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with prescription drug addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Prescription painkillers are big business in the US, with pharmaceutical companies racing to provide the next big thing to bring in huge profits from an overmedicated American public. Now the Associated Press reports that another drug company has confirmed it has plans to market a new form of hydrocodone. This announcement has experts concerned that this new version of the powerful and addictive painkiller will only worsen an already dangerous national prescription drug problem.

The latest contender is Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals, which says its product, TD Hydrocodone, could be worth as much as $500 million annually in sales. While not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the drug is in the final stages of testing.

Teva isn’t alone in its pursuit of the next popular painkiller. Four companies have been quietly working to develop their own pure forms of hydrocodone, the AP reports. (For those not in the know, hydrocodone is the main ingredient in Vicodin, Lortab and other currently available painkillers.)

While the others have remained quiet about their products in progress, execs at the North American division of Teva offered a preview of TD Hydrocodone during an investors conference in San Francisco recently, boasting that the drug could be on the market soon.

Teva did not divulge details of the drug, but the AP cites documents filed with the National Institutes of Health that show the company has been testing 12-hour, extended-release pills containing up to 45 milligrams of pure hydrocodone. That’s in stark contrast to meds like Vicodin, which are not extended-release and contain no more than 10 milligrams of hydrocodone, mixed acetaminophen or ibuprofen.

Hydrocodone, oxycodone and morphine fall into a category of painkillers known as opiates because they are chemically similar to opium. They are extremely powerful and can create a physical dependence. Users who try to stop can suffer intense withdrawal symptoms, such as muddled thinking, stomach cramps, heart palpitations and nausea.

While many experts in pain management insist opiates are needed for legitimate pain control, especially among the growing elderly population in the US, analysts see a market worth billions.

Of note to those in the field of addiction treatment, the TD in Teva’s TD Hydrocodone is said to stand for “tamper deterrent.” This is in response to the known practice of addicts crushing extended-release opiate pills to get an increased high. As a result, many drug companies are working to develop tamper-resistant technologies to combat abuse.

Prescription Drug Addiction Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with prescription drug addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

The days of the Florida pill mills may soon be coming to an end. In the past, thousands flocked to the state’s more than 1,000 pain clinics to obtain prescription drugs – often illegally – resulting in 89 percent of all the oxycodone sold to practictioners in the US in 2010 being bought by Florida doctors.

Officials are now using tougher laws to change that. In the past year, more than 400 clinics were either shut down or closed their doors, and prosecutors indicted dozens of pill mill operators, suspending the licenses of nearly 80 doctors for prescribing mass quantities of pills without clear medical need.

New laws are also cutting off distribution. As of July, Florida doctors are barred, with a few exceptions, from dispensing narcotics and addictive medicines in their offices or clinics. As a result, doctors’ purchases of oxycodone, which reached 32.2 million doses in the first six months of 2010, fell by 97 percent in the in the first half of 2011.

As doctors face tough new restrictions, law enforcement agencies are turning their attention to pharmacies. The number of applications to open new pharmacies in Florida has nearly doubled in the past two years, accounting for up to half of all the requests in the entire country, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Violators, whether they are pharmacists, doctors or clinic owners, face stiffer, swifter penalties if they prescribe or distribute legal narcotic drugs to people who do not need them or without following required steps. In one case, a Florida doctor who worked at one of the pain clinics was even charged with murder when a patient died of an overdose in 2009 a few hours after the doctor prescribed him 210 pain pills. And this wasn’t an isolated case. Prosecutors say the clinics in question were responsible for 56 overdose deaths.

Charging a doctor and a clinic owner with homicide “was a game changer,” said Sheriff Ric L. Bradshaw of Palm Beach County. “You are not going to get a slap on the wrist. You are looking at life in prison.”

Prescription Drug Addiction Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with prescription drug addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about drug treatment, financing or insurance.

It’s no surprise to anyone who’s paying attention that prescription drug abuse is rampant in the US. Pill mills and unethical doctors make it easy for addicts to get a quick – and legal – fix, as long as they have the cash. One of the tragic results of this rampant abuse of legal drugs is that overdose deaths from powerful painkillers have more than tripled in the past decade.

Prescription painkillers like OxyContin, Vicodin and methadone contributed to nearly 15,000 deaths in 2008. That’s more than three times the 4,000 deaths in 1999. Those troubling stats come from a new government report released by the CDC that illustrates the danger in big, clear numbers.

And the problem isn’t likely to go away anytime soon.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly five percent of Americans ages 12 and older say they’ve abused prescription painkillers. The study also
Shows that fatal overdoses were more likely in men and middle-aged adults.

Prescription Drug Abuse Treatment

If you or someone you love is in need of prescription drug abuse treatment, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

In recent years, doctors have seen a steady stream of patients seeking Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug prized for its swift calming effect. The clamor for the drug, and concern over the striking number of overdoses involving Xanax and the growing problem of prescription addiction, are leading some doctors to take the unusual step of limiting or stopping Xanax prescriptions altogether.

The drug, and its generic version, alprazolam, has steadily risen in popularity. While it has helped in some cases when used as prescribed, the widespread use of Xanax has also led to widespread prescription abuse for more than a decade. Those concerned about prescription addiction have focused largely on narcotic painkiller addiction, but benzodiazepines, the class of sedatives that includes Xanax, are also widely misused or abused, often with very negative consequences.

Alprazolam was the eighth most prescribed drug in the nation last year, according to SDI, a data firm that tracks drug sales. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year reported an 89 percent increase in emergency room nationwide related to nonmedical benzodiazepine use between 2004 and 2008.

In hopes of helping to limit the damage, some state- and federally-funded healthcare providers are cutting off prescriptions for controlled substances. Not everyone is on board, though. Other doctors say that refusing to prescribe certain drugs under any circumstance is overly rigid, noting that Xanax helps many people who use it responsibly.

Xanax Abuse Treatment

If you or someone you love is in need of Xanax abuse treatment, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

There’s so much talk about the dangers of prescription addiction these days that many people are afraid to take any prescription painkillers at all for fear of needing to seek prescription drug abuse treatment. For others, who’ve already struggled with and overcome addiction, they know they need to be extremely careful of taking anything that could cause them to relapse. But a new Institute of Medicine report claims that 116 million American adults struggle with chronic pain everyday, and many are to face that pain without narcotic painkillers.

How To Lessen Effects of Drug Addiction

For those battling ongoing pain, there are many natural ways to lessen the effects. Everything from weight loss to yoga, bike riding, stretching, regular icing of the area and taking supplements like fish oil, glucosamine and chondroitin can help. These measures won’t likely make the pain completely disappear, but they can get it the point where it’s tolerable enough to not necessitate the use of painkillers.

The use of narcotic painkillers like Percocet and OxyContin long-term is a much-debated in medical circles and can be quite controversial. On one side are doctors who do everything they can to avoid prescribing opioid painkillers to their patients so they don’t fall into drug addiction, while other doctors, many of them pain medicine specialists, believe narcotics can be used safely on a long-term basis.

Narcotic Painkillers are Addictive

Most doctors agree that narcotic painkillers can be addictive. According to the new Institute of Medicine report, studies show about 3 percent of chronic pain patients who regularly take opioids develop abuse or addiction, and 12 percent develop “aberrant drug-related behavior.” You only have to look at the rates of those seeking OxyContin abuse treatment to recognize it’s a growing problem. Even those who don’t become addicted can become desensitized to the drugs, so they need higher and higher doses to combat the same amount of pain. In time, the pills do little for the pain they are taken to treat.

The important thing is to look for the root of the pain and find ways to alleviate it so that taking medication on an ongoing basis is no longer necessary. One doctor compares it to taking medication for toothache pain without ever bothering to treat the problem with the tooth.

For those who are currently battling chronic pain, Health Magazine offers the following five tips for improving the problem:

1. Exercise
2. Alternative therapies
3. Sleep
4. Supplements
5. Heat and ice

Prescription Drug Treatment

If you or someone you love is battling an addiction to prescription painkillers, call La Paloma to find out more about our opiate abuse treatment programs at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about drug treatment, financing or insurance.

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims that prescription drug overdose deaths in Florida are up a staggering 265 percent since 2003. It’s statistics like this that have led the White House Office on Drug Control Policy to declare prescription drug abuse the nation’s fastest-growing drug problem.

Addiction and healthcare experts are seeing the problem affect a new and extremely vulnerable group. According to state health records, 635 Florida babies were born addicted to prescription drugs in the first half of 2010 alone. South Florida doctors and intensive care nurses report a dramatic uptick in babies born hooked on pills that their mothers abused while pregnant, CNN.com reports.

Babies born to moms who abused prescription painkillers during their pregnancy go through withdrawal symptoms in the same way so called “crack babies” do. The problems can range from cramps, sweating and rapid breathing to seizures.

Prescription Drug Abuse During Pregnancy

La Paloma and other treatment facilities across the country have seen a dramatic increase in the need for prescription drug abuse treatment as the number of users (and abusers) continues to rise. Unfortunately for these affected babies, moms-to-be or new moms hooked on prescription drugs are usually reluctant to seek help because they’re afraid they’ll lose custody of their newborns. As a result, the babies don’t get the care they desperately need. For women who try to kick their habit during pregnancy, there are other risks. They can’t safely just stop using. They need to be weaned off slowly, under medical supervision, or the baby will go into withdrawal in the womb.

Prescription Drug Abuse Treatment

If you or someone you love is in need of prescription drug abuse treatment, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about painkiller addiction treatment, financing or insurance.