The sudden onset of symptoms can be a frightening experience.
Understanding how medically-assisted treatment with buprenorphine works is crucial to grasp how precipitated withdrawal can occur.
MAT can reduce the harm because of addiction.
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The most prevalent being precipitated withdrawal.
In short, medication-assisted treatment with naltrexone or buprenorphine forces your body to stop depending on opiates.
It will often start to subsidize within 6 to 24 hours.
Identifying Precipitated Withdrawal
Symptoms of precipitated withdrawal are often similar to symptoms of typicalsubstance withdrawal.
On the other hand, the latter occurs gradually when a person stops using substances theyve grown dependent on.
Naltrexone can also cause precipitated withdrawal in someone dependent on opioids who still has them in their system.
It also helps prevent overdose.
Causes of Precipitated Withdrawal
The use of drugs which can act as opioid antagonists triggers precipitated withdrawal.
Buprenorphine is a partialopioid antagonistwhich is used to treat opiate use disorder.
It is the most common medication used in MAT plans.
To understand how this opioid antagonist triggers precipitated withdrawal, you better understand how buprenorphine works.
Opioid antagonists work by blocking opioid receptors in your body from receiving reward signals from opioids in your system.
Althoughbuprenorphineis only a partial opioid agonist, it can produce similar results as opioid antagonists such as naltrexone.
The manner in which MAT medications are administered can help prevent precipitated withdrawal from occurring.
This is why its important to use them with with the guidance of a healthcare professional.
Treatment for Precipitated Withdrawal
Treatment for precipitated withdrawal is tricky.
Using more buprenorphine when experiencing symptoms of precipitated withdrawal can stop the symptoms.
However, this is counterintuitive as precipitated withdrawal is brought on by the buprenorphine in the first place.
However, its important only to use buprenorphine when under medical supervision.
A single dose can bring on symptoms of precipitated withdrawal.
How MAT medications are administered determines how effective the treatment will be and prevents side effects from occurring.
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