This video is all about medication-assisted treatment. (specifically suboxone,
Subutex, and now Sublocade.
For those of you who don't know me, I'm Amber Hollingsworth, I'm an addiction counselor
and founder of Hope For Families Recovery Center. And my goal is to make
sure you have the tools, strategies, and supports to recover your life back from
addiction. So make sure you SUBSCRIBE, so you can get all those tools, supports, and
strategies. Okay before I go much further, I do want to say.... I am NOT a
physician. I don't prescribe medications. I am a therapist (a Master Addiction
Counselor ). The purpose of this video is to explain to you what these medications
are. Please by no means take this - as me saying to take any certain
amount of this, or that, or not take any a certain amount of this, or that. Of course,
you should consult with your physician before making any of these decisions.
Let's start with Suboxone. Okay, so Suboxone is really made up of
two medications. the main medication is Buprenorphine.
It is a long lasting opiate. Now why would you take someone off of opiates
and put them on more opiates? Well, Buprenorphine attaches to those
opioid receptor sites in such a way that makes it very
difficult to overdose. And so , it definitely increases safety for anyone
addicted to opioids or heroin. Another thing is... since suboxone has
a tiny bit of naloxone, which is an opioid blocker, which adds
a little bit more of a safety net (as an added protection for overdose and it decrease the ability for someone to abuse the medication) So if
you understand what suboxone is ...Subutex is going to be pretty easy to understand.
Subutex is Suboxone without the Naloxone. So, that means it's just the long-lasting opioid.
You might ask yourself well why would someone want to take it if
doesn't have the blocker. There are certain reasons why some people want to
do that. Sometimes if someone is pregnant, sometimes if someone has chronic pain
issue, there are some specific medical reasons, and there are some specific
clinical reasons, why a person might want to take Subutex versus suboxone. Well, I
guess one practical reason is.... From what I hear it's quite a bit less
expensive (because that naloxone stuff is expensive). So
remember Suboxone is Buprenorphine + Naloxone. Subutex is pretty much just Buprenorphine.
Then there's this new thing called Sublocade. What the heck is
that? I'm gonna give you the brief overview, but if you want to know more
about Sublocade, make sure you check out my interview with Mark Burrows (who is a
medication-assisted treatment specialist). He really goes into detail about
Sublocade. But basically Sublocade is suboxone that is given in a once a month
injection . Now, you might be asking yourself ...well, why would you want to do
it that way? Well, because it takes a lot of the
addictive type behavior off the table , such as taking a medication every day, or
thinking ...oh I'll take a little extra today. It keeps you from trying to take more when you're having a bad day. It keeps you from
running out early, and several other types of things that can cause
complications in the process. So basically, there are three different ways
of administering Buprenorphine (which is the main ingredient in all of these
medications). So if you're considering this route, I want you to think about two
things the first. 1. Is medication-assisted
treatment right for me in general? and in order to make that decision I'm going
suggest you look at two other videos I made. One of them is a really good story from
someone who's done both. Someone who's done medication assisted treatment and
12-step programs. He talks about his personal experience with both, so that
will give you a real well-rounded look at the situation, and then if you do
decide that medication-assisted treatment is the way to go, then you need
to 2. think about which one of these options might be the best for you .
Of course, this is when you would want to talk to your physician. Hopefully you
enjoyed that really quick overview of Suboxone Subutex and Sublocade. Make
sure you check out those other videos to get the real big picture (so you can make
the best decision for you.