Opioid Use Disorder: What It Is, Symptoms & Treatment

Increasing rates of drug addiction have contributed to recent decreases in U.S. life expectancy. Opioid use disorder is a chronic and treatable mental health condition that involves a problematic pattern of opioid misuse. Effective treatment is possible and typically involves medication and cognitive and behavioral therapy. It’s important to seek help as soon as possible if you think you’re developing a dependence on opioids. Methadone and buprenorphine should be considered for patients with OUD to minimize the risk of death.

How is opioid use disorder diagnosed?

Medications used in the treatment of opioid use disorder support a person’s recovery by helping to normalize brain chemistry, relieving cravings, and in some cases preventing withdrawal symptoms. The choice to include medication as part of recovery is a personal medical decision, but the evidence for medications to support successful recovery is strong. Though its cause is not yet fully understood, contributing factors may include how opioids affect an individual’s brain as well as family history and environmental and lifestyle factors. Like other diseases, opioid use disorder has specific symptoms and a pattern of progression (it tends to get worse over time), and treatments may help bring it under control. Medications used in the treatment of opioid use disorder support a person’s recovery by helping to normalize brain chemistry, relieving cravings, and in some cases preventing withdrawal symptoms.

How effective are medications to treat opioid use disorder?

A person may need a treatment approach that addresses both mental health and substance use disorders if both conditions are occurring together. The person’s environment and access to supportive family members and friends can also play important roles. Some patients will need to repeat therapy and may relapse many times before achieving long-term success. Practitioners may try different approaches for patients who continually relapse. Though opioids can be prescribed by a doctor to treat pain, use of legally prescribed or illegal opioid medications may lead to an opioid use disorder. From 1999 to 2020, more than 800,000 Americans died from drug overdoses.

What is the prognosis for opioid use disorder?

There are many other types of psychotherapies that benefit people with OUD.

Is opioid addiction a disease?

• Naloxone (commonly known by the brand name Narcan®) is a drug that treats the overdose immediately.
• Opioid abuse can lead to many long-term health problems and even death.
• According to a separate National Institute on Drug Abuse report, an estimated 2.5 million people aged 18 or older had opioid use disorder in 2021, with roughly one in five people receiving treatment.
• It’s important to seek help as soon as possible if you think you’re developing a dependence on opioids.
• Importantly, physical dependence with tolerance and withdrawal alone do not mean someone has an opioid use disorder.
• It also can be delivered as a once-per-month injection or through thin tubes inserted under the skin that last six months.

This activation of the reward pathway makes opioids addictive for some people. Continued use of the drugs causes changes in the brain signs of opioid addiction that lead to tolerance. This means that a larger dose of opioids is needed to get the same level of pain relief or euphoric high.

• Opioids have a high potential for causing addiction in some people, even when the medications are prescribed appropriately and taken as directed.
• Another medicine, buprenorphine, also relieves opioid cravings but without producing euphoria.
• Having certain physical health conditions, such as chronic pain, can increase people’s use of opioids and the eventual development of OUD.
• Treatment options such as medications, therapy, and rehabilitation are available for those who are looking to quit.
• These treatments are routinely provided on an outpatient basis, including primary care or at federally regulated opioid treatment programs.

Naloxone is used in the acute treatment of an opiate overdose and can be given subcutaneously, intramuscularly, intravenously, intranasally, or by inhalation. 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.

• Beginning in 2013 and continuing today, the third wave of the opioid epidemic saw the sharp rise of fentanyl overdoses, with 73,838 deaths in 2022 alone.
• If you’re taking opioids and you’ve built up a tolerance, ask your healthcare professional for help.
• Opioid dependence simply refers to the development of tolerance or withdrawal.

Treatment options are available to help quit abusing drugs, but it requires wanting to quit and having a good support system. If you have been prescribed opioid medications for pain control, it is very important to take them only as directed and not share them with anyone else. If you’re no longer experiencing pain, contact your local pharmacy for the safest way to dispose of your medication. When an opioid overdose is suspected, naloxone hydrochloride should be administered as soon as possible. Naloxone hydrochloride nasal spray is currently available under different brand names. Kloxxado (8 mg/spray), Rextovy (4 mg/spray), and Rezenopy (10 mg/spray) are available by prescription.

On the other hand, some countries have already made naloxone available in pharmacies without prescription. This is because it’s easy to miscalculate and use doses that they previously tolerated. But these doses lead to overdose due to loss of tolerance from a break in opioid use.

People with untreated OUD often experience social, legal, economic, and health consequences as a result of their opioid use. It is important to remember that OUD is not the result of personal failure or insufficient willpower; it is a brain disease for which effective treatment options are available. Another detoxification option, known as medically managed withdrawal, has greater likelihood of success.

Common approaches used in treatment

NOWS can cause early labor, fetal growth restriction, placental abruption, and fetal death among other problems. Note that if someone is prescribed opioids for pain and is using them as prescribed, https://ecosoberhouse.com/ the physical dependence criteria are not factored into the number of signs and symptoms. They are therapeutic treatments, not substitutes for the drugs causing the person’s problem.