Most ex-users at centers for drug rehab Wisconsin say they got pulled into this web quite innocently. To seek relief for persistent pain, they saw a doctor who prescribed pain killers to them. The respite the pills gave them was so comforting that they started abusing the drug and became addicted to them.
What opioids are
Opioids are pain-relieving drugs. Some of these are codeine, fentanyl, methadone, morphine, tramadol, and hydrocodone. These are given mostly to patients suffering from injuries, surgeries, or chronic conditions such as cancer. Sometimes they are even given for dental procedures.
What they do is once, inside your system, they lessen the number of pain signals that are sent to the brain. Some of them even change the response of the brain to pain.
Addiction symptoms
Drug detox experts say that opioid addicts show several signs and symptoms that can help you realize they have a problem. Let us take a look at some of these here:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Mood swings and irritability
- Physical agitation
- Lack of motivation
You can realize you are addicted if:
- You crave the drug all the time.
- You feel an inability to control your urge to take it.
- You take the drug without your doctor’s approval.
- You take the drug while being fully aware of its negative consequences on your body.
Overdosing
You must call a drug addiction hotline if you feel a loved one has overdosed on an opioid. The symptoms are:
- Slow or irregular breathing
- The person is not breathing at all
- Unresponsiveness
- Passing out
- Vomiting
- Slow or erratic pulse/ no pulse at all
Users develop tolerance to the drug with time. When one uses an opioid for a long time, it alters the way in which the brain senses pain. Also, the constant use keeps the body in a state of euphoria. Users crave this feeling and, once their tolerance develops, the sense of taking more to feel the same increases too. So, they take more and more of the drug to experience the same level of pleasantness.
Once you stop the drug, your body reacts negatively to its absence in the body. This is when you get withdrawal symptoms. Some of these symptoms are so severe that the user goes in for relapse and the time round, in most cases, they take even more quantities of the drug to achieve the craved-for drug.
Here are some withdrawal symptoms:
- Chills and shaking
- Sweating
- Pain
- Depression
- Insomnia
- Fatigue
If you want to stop your drug use, you should start searching for drug rehab near me.
This is because you may find it difficult to stop your opioid addiction by yourself. Medical help is the best in such cases. The medical experts will slowly wean you off the drug and get you back to your normal state over a period of time.
