Jan Dunbar [not her real name] was a psychiatric nurse in Vancouver. “I had a happy life, great family, supportive friends,” and no medical issues, she said. Then came the car accident and, with it, “chronic pain syndrome and burning mouth syndrome, due to nerve damage in my neck.” Her physician prescribed an opioid pain reliever. Thus, innocently, began what she calls her descent into hell.

Around 800,000 Canadians use prescription opioid drugs, such as oxycodone, codeine, morphine and Suboxone^®, for pain says the Vancouver Sun. More than 240,000 Canadians admit to abusing those drugs. In fact, Canada has displaced the United States as the world’s leading consumer of opioids, according to the International Narcotics Control Board. Correspondingly, Dr. Irfan A. Dhalla, of St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, notes a 5-fold increase in opioid-related deaths in Canada.

Physicians use Suboxone^® as a pain reliever. However, some try to treat one form of addiction (such as heroin) by substituting dependence on Suboxone^®. Unfortunately, most physicians don’t realize that Suboxone^® is more highly addictive than traditional opiates. This means that trying to break Suboxone addiction is even more difficult – and the withdrawal symptoms are more severe – than breaking your original dependence.

Pharmaceutical literature reports many side effects from using Suboxone®. Those side effects include drowsiness, dizziness, weakness, constipation, headache, nausea, or vomiting, slow and shallow breathing, mental and mood changes, depression, stomach/abdominal pain, dark urine, yellowing eyes and skin, vision changes, and trouble breathing.

Just across the border, in Michigan, the medical staff at the Rapid Drug Detox (RDD) Center records patients reporting additional symptoms, including profuse sweating, decreased libido, lack of motivation, sadness, low energy levels, decreased hormonal levels such as decreased testosterone in men and estrogen in women, decreased muscle mass, tone and strength, lack of zest for life, apathy, feeling hopeless, and urinary retention.

Dr. Michael Trew, Alberta’s chief addiction and mental health officer, warns that such replacement therapies have risks. Opiate users lose their tolerance to the drug quickly after they stop using it; if they should relapse and go back to taking the same dosage, it could be enough to kill them.

The truth is that trading one opiate drug for another is never an acceptable treatment.

Yet, as nurse Jan Dunbar learned, quitting isn’t easy—even working in a hospital, she couldn’t do it alone. Setbacks happen frequently and most of those who try to quit alone fail.

The reason is no mystery: Suboxone® / Subutex / Buprenorphine withdrawal can be painful. Withdrawal symptoms typically start within 36 hours of your last use and can last over five weeks. Those symptoms include severe anxiety, sweating, malaise, depression, cramp-like pains in the muscles, leg kicking as your body tries to “kick the habit”), severe and long lasting sleep difficulties (insomnia), diarrhea, goose bump skin (“cold turkey”), cramps, abdominal pain, dehydration, convulsions, fever and thoughts of suicide.

Like most of those addicted, Jan needed professional medical help. Unfortunately, Canadians waiting for funded addiction treatment usually wait a long time. One client reported waiting for over a year.

Fortunately, many Canadians have found that help is available, without a long wait and at a reasonable cost, just across the border.

Three days to “drug free”

Why would men and women suffering from drug addiction come from all over the world to a small town in the U.S. to put an end to their drug addiction? Perhaps because the Rapid Drug Detox (RDD) Center there has developed a “detox” method that works. It’s fast, it’s effective, and it’s almost pain free. So it’s not surprising that nearly 98% of their patients cross at least one border to get there.

At the RDD Center, the medical procedure takes place under anesthesia, and that eliminates most of the withdrawal symptoms. After a brief, painless series of tests, you’ll be admitted to the operating room (O.R.). There, an experienced, board certified anesthesiologist gives you a medication to relax, and then administers a light, general anesthesia, while you rest comfortably for approximately 60 minutes. While you rest, a team of experienced doctors “scrubs” the opiate receptors in your body, using an infusion of intravenous medications.

With the Suboxone® removed from your receptors, the worst of the withdrawal is over. And you’ve slept through it all.

After the procedure, you recover under direct medical supervision. The RDD Center team of experienced medical professionals monitors your vital signs and your overall physical and mental reactions. In the days that follow the procedure, you may sleep more than usual.

Administered by experienced, medical professionals as part of a long-term drug-addiction recovery strategy, the RDD Method™ has proven to be significantly more effective than older methods.

Because patients who undergo RDD treatment leave the Center clean and free of any opiates, they are free of their addiction and their former cravings. If you’re considering detox treatment, it’s important to question any treatment centers you’re considering. Learn the truth about their programs. Trading one opiate drug for another should never be an acceptable treatment. The RDD Center’s physicians consider it misleading and the patients we see have rarely found it successful.

Will the RDD Method™ work for you? The answer starts with a phone call. When you call, you get to talk to a professional nurse or an experienced intake coordinator. The call is toll-free. Click here now to contact the Rapid Drug Detox Center or call Rapid Drug Detox at 1-866-399-2967 now and take the first step toward a lifetime of freedom from addiction.

The RDD Center makes sure that nurses are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and that the Center’s knowledgeable, licensed medical professionals are always available to answer all of your questions.