Traditional treatment methods for opiate addiction usually involve isolating the patient until the drugs have been eliminated from the body. This process can take several weeks or months and can make patients feel awful as they go through withdrawal symptoms that include overstimulation of the central nervous system, increased heart rate and high blood pressure. In some cases, withdrawal can lead to death because the body can't tolerate the symptoms and the lack of drugs. Another traditional treatment, methadone, often doesn't free the patient of the opiate addiction, it merely transfers it to another drug, Kaye said. It's another conventional treatment program that doesn't work very well.
People often stay on it for a lifetime.
Traditional treatments have a success rate of 12 to 20 percent. Kaye acknowledges that treating the physical cravings is only half of the battle. Therefore, every patient admitted to the rapid detoxification program must have a therapist waiting to provide post-procedure care to deal with psychological issues of addiction, he said. We also have our own mechanisms for seeing how patients are doing. We won't do this for anybody unless they tell us they have a commitment to be off the drugs.