No specific aetiology was found and there was no recurrence of fever throughout the remainder of the admission. If you choose to deal with precipitated withdrawal at home by yourself, some things can help. Ask your doctor if they have any tips or medications that could ease your symptoms. If a prescriber does not give you naloxone or buprenorphine, ask them about any other medications that may help ease the symptoms.
- Before starting Suboxone, the patient should be in a state of opioid withdrawal.
- To understand what’s happening in precipitated withdrawal, it helps to visualize locks and keys.
- A medically assisted treatment withdrawal plan is like gently pressing your brakes to slow down and stop at a stoplight.
- Remember, if you hold out initially, the withdrawal symptoms will be helped by Suboxone.
- A 2010 study suggests that precipitated withdrawal occurs in around 9% of people who take buprenorphine to manage OUD.
However, the defining feature of precipitated withdrawal is the rapid onset of withdrawal symptoms. The withdrawal symptoms that occur from some of these medications are known as precipitated withdrawal. Claire Zagorski earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Texas at Austin and a master’s degree at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. She has practiced clinically as a paramedic in multiple treatment settings, including as a member of the Austin Harm Reduction Coalition. She founded Longhorn Stop the Bleed and is committed to supporting healthcare professionals who seek to integrate harm reduction principles in their practice. It’s normal to feel hesitant about taking buprenorphine for precipitated withdrawal, especially if it played a role in causing it.
Why does buprenorphine cause precipitated withdrawal?
Preventing precipitated withdrawal from occurring is as simple as working together with a medical team to ensure that you taper down your dose of opioids slowly enough to avoid an onslaught of symptoms. This type of withdrawal, as its name suggests, is precipitated—or hastily brought about—during the initial phases of an addiction treatment program. Generally, healthcare professionals can manage precipitated withdrawal by prescribing more buprenorphine or comfort medications.
A 53‐year‐old male patient with opioid dependence (as defined by the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision) presented to our inner‐city drug and alcohol service in Sydney, Australia. A long‐term user of illicit opioids, he had increasing intravenous heroin use, $AUD50 (approximately 0.1 g) each morning, with recent escalation to evening use as well. This is highly dangerous because it gives the user a higher chance of taking opioids again to ease the symptoms. Firstly, if the person going through precipitated withdrawal is in a medical center or a drug detox center, or if they have a doctor or access to another medical prescriber, they can ask for a dosage of buprenorphine.
What Are the Side Effects of Precipitated Withdrawal?
Others might be hesitant to prescribe it for a variety of reasons, including stigma around opioid use disorder. The most direct way to stop precipitated withdrawal is to consume an opioid, which is what makes this a tricky situation if you’re trying to stop using opioids. Jeff Juergens is a leading author in the addiction and recovery field, dedicating the last seven years of his life to helping those struggling with substance use issues find the help that they need.
Potential withdrawal symptoms
Tap into your social network to help support you through alcohol withdrawal. Find a supportive friend or family member to be with you while you withdraw and support your new non-drinking lifestyle. For people at low risk of complications, an office visit to your primary care provider, along with at-home monitoring and virtual choosing an alcohol rehab treatment program office visits, may suffice. People at high risk of complications should enter a short-term in-patient detox program. You don’t need to be diagnosed with alcohol use disorder in order to quit drinking. If alcohol is interfering with your health or your personal, financial, or professional life, consider quitting.
The symptoms are usually mild and tolerable for most patients, but symptoms vary depending on the person and might require more medical attention. In order for Suboxone to be most effective, it should be taken only when the stages of opioid withdrawal have begun. The best help that you can get for precipitated withdrawal comes at recovery centers.
Precipitated withdrawal may result from starting certain medications to treat opioid use disorder (OUD) too soon after using opioids. Additionally, you may be able to call your doctor to get prescribed an opioid withdrawal medication, such as buprenorphine. Although buprenorphine can cause precipitated withdrawal, it can also mitigate the symptoms. Opioid antagonists are crucial medications, but they need to be taken at the right time and in the right way to avoid precipitated withdrawal. But the dose of naloxone in the form of nasal spray, which is most common, is high enough to cause a sudden, painful, and frightening experience called precipitated withdrawal. In some cases, it may be appropriate to administer an opioid to relieve symptoms.
Others drugs, like buprenorphine, depend on which opioids you were taking. Based on your current situation, your doctor will be able to advise you on the safest antagonist to take and when you should start taking it. A possible reason for this reaction is that all the opioid receptors are blocked all at once in POW. Therefore, acute withdrawal symptoms may have a slower start before they fully kick in.
Suboxone is a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone and together, these substances are a powerful tool to help reduce an addict’s compulsive behaviors and keep cravings to a minimum. To begin the journey to sobriety, all illicit substances must be removed from the body followed by abstaining from further substance use. MAT therapies are just one way a treatment center might help an addict detox. While medication-assisted treatment is responsible for precipitated withdrawal, MAT therapies are not inherently bad.
Many over-the-counter medications are available to counteract the common precipitated withdrawal symptoms. For instance, consider taking loperamide or Immodium for diarrhea, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen, for aches and pains. Ensure you take them as prescribed how long do alcohol cravings last in recovery and do not exceed the recommended dosage. If someone is overdosing, it is important to give them an opioid antagonist like naloxone right away to save their life. However, some antagonists, like naltrexone, should only be used after you have not taken opioids for 7 to 10 days.
