The medical professionals at our center for medical detox in McAllen understand that addictive forces tend to produce effect cycles. When used, drugs and alcohol send the brain to great highs, but then bring it crashing to depressive depths soon after. This forces users to resort to repeated use. The effects of these substances on the brain result in dependence, as well. The more one uses them, the more one wants them.
The addiction cycle can be powerful, and recovery depends on an ability to break it at some point. This is the purpose served by medical detox, the first step of rehab. Our experts in medical detox in McAllen often see patients and their families come in expecting to see medical detox serve as a cure for addiction. It's important that patients and their families truly understand what the process achieves.
The medical detox process is the first step of any treatment plan that addresses addiction. It serves two purposes. To begin, it removes the patient from an environment where access to drugs or alcohol is possible. Once the stage for withdrawal is set, the process itself ensures that withdrawal effects, which are the adverse physical effects of discontinuation of use, are managed for patient comfort and safety.
When you are addicted to alcohol, withdrawal can cause nightmarish symptoms — epileptic seizures, temporary paralysis, delirium tremens, pain, depression, insomnia and anxiety. Withdrawal from drugs can come with different combinations of these same symptoms.
Our drug rehab in McAllen deals with these symptoms both to help ease the pain of the withdrawal process, and to ensure patient safety. Harm to the patient's health can happen in a number of ways, co-occurring health problems being an area of significant concern. Addicts often come in with co-morbidities such as hepatitis, cardiovascular disorders or inflammations of the liver or pancreas. We screen for the possibility of this dual diagnosis in McAllen. Withdrawal symptoms not managed with the right medications and interventions can aggravate these conditions and pose a significant risk.
At our medical detox in McAllen, our medical professionals evaluate each patient entering a program for specific vulnerabilities, and devise custom plans to deliver the safest, most efficient treatments possible. Personalized medical detox for addiction is fundamental to patient safety.
With alcohol withdrawal, benzodiazepines are able to calm the system and counter seizures. Carbamazepine and other anticonvulsants help with delirium tremens in 1 out of 3 patients. Doctors overseeing patients use advanced techniques such as CT scans to ensure precise and timely medical help.
With addiction to drugs, the cravings of withdrawal are often treated with replacement drugs such as Suboxone or methadone, and withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety and pain are treated symptomatically. Sometimes, treatments as simple as fluid replacement and vitamin supply help ensure patient health.
Addicts and their families arriving at drug detox centers often expect these programs lasting between a week and a month to take care of an addiction once and for all. In reality, detox only provides a pause to the addiction cycle. It is up to both the rehab and the patient to make full use of the pause offered to attempt to turn things around.
At the end of a successful medical detox in McAllen, the patient is still considered an addict. Medical detox only buys the patient time for the real rehabilitation work of psychological rehabilitation that is to follow.
Drugs influence parts of the brain that deal with learning and reward. In other words, they "teach" the brain to pursue addictive behavior. These desires are not forgotten after medical detox for drugs and alcohol. It takes long-term investment in psychological treatment to achieve full freedom from drugs.
From counseling to psychological treatment and psychiatric treatment, long-term commitment to the rehab process is what achieves full freedom from addiction. We ensure our patients are equipped with all they need to stay sober with our programs for relapse prevention in McAllen. It's important to go in fully educated.
Call us at our medical detox in McAllen for a good, informative conversation about achieving true sobriety. Call us today at (877) 804-1531.