Medication Assisted Treatment With Suboxone
What Our Valued Patients Say
What Is Medication-Assisted Treatment?
Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is the use of medications such as Suboxone or Vivitrol in combination with counseling and behavioral therapies. MAT is effective in the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) and can help people struggling with opioid addiction get into and maintain recovery.
What Is Suboxone?
Suboxone is a medication that includes buprenorphine and naloxone, both of which are used to treat opioid addiction. Suboxone comes as a sublingual (under the tongue) tablet or film.
How Does Suboxone Work?
Suboxone is a medication that works in the brain to treat opioid use disorder. Opioids a person may be addicted to include heroin and prescription pain relievers such as hydrocodone, oxycodone, morphine, and fentanyl.
Buprenorphine is the active drug in Suboxone. Buprenorphine is known as a partial opioid agonist. This means buprenorphine partially works like an opioid, but the effect of buprenorphine is weaker than full agonists like heroin and methadone.
Buprenorphine has a “ceiling effect,” so the opioid effect levels off even with more doses of buprenorphine. This reduces the risk of misuse, dependency, and side effects.
Buprenorphine reduces opioid withdrawal symptoms and cravings to use opioids without having full opioid potency or effects. Suboxone helps people who take the medication abstain from using other opioids.
How Long Does Suboxone Work?
According to a medically reviewed article, the effects of Suboxone last for 24 hours or 1 day.
After one dose of Suboxone, no trace of Suboxone would be expected to be found after 5 to 8 days in healthy people or 7 to 14 days in people with severe liver disease.
What Is a Typical Dose of Suboxone?
According to prescribing information for Suboxone, people dependent on short-acting opioid products (examples of short-acting opioids include: morphine, hydrocodone, oxycodone, etc.) who are in opioid withdrawal have a Day 1 administration of up to 8 mg/2 mg Suboxone sublingual film in divided doses. On Day 2, they will be administered up to 16 mg/4 mg of Suboxone sublingual film as a single dose.
For maintenance treatment, the target dosage of Suboxone sublingual film is usually 16 mg/4 mg as a single daily dose.
What Is the Difference Between Taking Suboxone vs. Other Opioid Drugs?
According to an article by Dr. Peter Grinspoon, MD, it is much more difficult to overdose on Suboxone compared to other opioid drugs.
The reason for this is that Suboxone is a partial opiate receptor agonist; thus, there is a built-in "ceiling" effect. This means that a person cannot achieve the same “high” while taking Suboxone like they could while taking other opioid drugs.
When taking Suboxone, there is a limit to the amount of opioid receptors that can be activated. There is not as great of a risk of having slowed breathing while taking Suboxone in comparison to taking other opioid drugs. There is a much greater risk of having slowed breathing when taking more potent (stronger) opiates such as heroin, oxycodone, or morphine.
When people overdose on Suboxone, it is almost always because they are mixing Suboxone with sedatives such as benzodiazepines, which are medicines that slow breathing.
Addiction Treatment at Curative Behavioral
Curative Behavioral provides comprehensive addiction treatment services in Arizona, including counseling, medication-assisted treatment (MAT), and psychiatric services.
MAT at Curative Behavioral is tailored to meet the individual needs and goals of clients. Our MAT clinic treats both short-term clients visiting for outpatient detox from opioids and clients that require a long-term treatment plan to continue to achieve success.
In Scottsdale, Arizona, we have a psychiatric nurse practitioner on-site that is able to evaluate clients and provide a medication treatment plan.Get Started With Curative Behavioral
How Common Is Opioid Overdose and Death in Arizona?
According to the Arizona Department of Health Services, in 2021, there were 3,379 verified non-fatal opioid overdose events, 1,917 confirmed opioid deaths, and 9,021 emergency and inpatient visits involving suspected opioid overdose.
Clearly, these numbers are daunting. For those reading this information, these are not just numbers. These stats could represent a family member, a friend, or even you.
Change is possible. Addiction treatment can be the necessary bridge to gaining sobriety and ultimately living a healthier life in recovery.
Advantages of MAT (Including Suboxone)
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is clinically effective. There are several advantages to using Suboxone, which is one type of MAT.
The advantages of participating in MAT include:
Payment & Insurance
You can quickly and privately check your insurance benefits to see if you're covered for addiction treatment services. We’ll be able to tell you if your provider is in-network with Curative Behavioral Curative Behavioral. We also accept Medicaid including most AHCCCS plans.
FAQs
We believe treatment should be available to everyone, so we accept most commercial insurance and AHCCCS plans (Medicaid). We also offer affordable self-pay rates. If you will be receiving MAT on an ongoing basis at our clinic, a payment program can be established that suits your financial situation.
We can usually schedule an appointment the same day or within 24 to 48 hours.
Appointments can be made by calling our intake team at (877) 781-5821.
Visits with the provider can be weekly, every other week, or monthly, depending on the MAT plan prescribed by the provider. This varies based on each client, so it is best to discuss how often you will come in during your first appointment.