The Opioid Epidemic in the USA Today
Opioids are prescription drugs that are used for the treatment of short-term and chronic pain. During the early 1980s, opioids became the drug of choice for short-term pain management, and they were believed to be well-tolerated. Early marketing is done by pharmaceutical companies guaranteed that opioids were not addicting and were generally safe to use. Eventually, prescriptions for opioids began increasing throughout the early 1980s to the early 1990s, as physicians were constantly being reassured that the risk of addiction to prescription opioids was very low. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that pharmaceutical companies began to release prescription opioids that were approved for long-term or chronic pain management use. This was a huge turning point for the opioid epidemic in the United States, as more and more of the general public began to gain access to these highly addicting medications.
The CDC reports that the use of opioids has increased significantly in the United States. Opioids were the cause of more than 70,200 drug overdose deaths in the year 2017 alone, and on average, about 130 Americans die from opioid overdose per day. Although increasing rates of dependence and death are associated with opioid use, Accelerated Neuro-Regulation (ANR) therapy is a new and innovative treatment option that can be considered by patients all around the United States.
The Risks of opioid dependency
Education on addiction, treatment, and recovery is provided to patients, health care providers, families, and friends.
Addiction to Opiates is a Medical Condition, Not a psychological problem.
The word “addiction” stems from a term called neuroadaptation. Neuroadaptation is the body’s ability to continue to perform properly when something new, such as a drug or substance, is introduced. The body will start releasing different chemicals to compensate for the newly introduced substance that it sees. In this case, the drug or substance we are discussing is an opioid that you, or someone you know, might be taking.
All individuals have a natural production of chemicals by their body. The chemicals that are released, also known as endorphins, will work to appropriately keep your body balanced. Endorphins are also known as “feel-good hormones” and have a significant influence on happiness and positive feelings. These endorphins are naturally produced by your body when you are exposed to some type of stimulus. For example, when you exhibit feelings such as anger, fear or pain, when you do physical exercise, or in this case, if you use an opioid.
When an individual takes an opioid, endorphins are produced and will attach to a receptor. A receptor is a protein within the body that allows chemicals such as endorphins to attach to it. When the endorphin attaches to the receptor, the body will create some type of response. In this case, when endorphins are released after taking an opioid, they bind to “opioid receptors” and reduce the perception of pain.
When the opioid is gone, the endorphins will return to the baseline level before you expose yourself to the opioid. Individuals that develop an opioid dependency will, over time, start to overwhelm the body’s natural response to produce endorphins. This means overuse of the opioid will cause an individual’s body to stop creating that natural production of endorphins while also increasing the number of receptors that the endorphins bind to.
As an individual increases the use of an opioid, more and more receptors become produced, while less endorphins are naturally released. The individual will then require greater doses of the opioid to satisfy this up-regulation of receptors. If the individual does not continue to meet this new demand, they will begin to experience unpleasant symptoms known as “withdrawals”. This means that the individual is now opioid-tolerant and will start to crave more opioids unless the endorphin-receptor balance becomes restored.
There is only one proven method, which was established by Dr. Andre Waismann, that has been shown to treat opioid “addiction” by regulating the imbalance caused in the endorphin system. This method is called Accelerated Neuro-Regulation (ANR).
How is ANR a Solution?
Accelerated Neuro-Regulation (ANR) is a medical treatment for patients that are opioid-dependent or have opioid “addiction”. The goal of ANR is to re-establish a normal balance between endorphins and the ability of receptors in your body that identify them since they become dysregulated with the overuse of opioids.
ANR has shown that it allows opioid-dependent patients to return to their activities of daily living without the constant fear of relapse and failure. ANR’s success as an opioid withdrawal treatment is associated with the ability to evaluate each patient and their endorphin-receptor balance. Regulation of these endorphin receptors has allowed us to appropriately optimize each patient’s chemical balance, giving them the ability to resume their lives free from opioid dependence.
ANR is a treatment option that has proven to help remove the dependency and cravings that patients feel trapped with.
Health care providers from all around the world have shown their confidence in Dr. Waismann’s new treatment in opioid-dependent patients. He has traveled all around the world and treated patients that suffer from this dependence. After treating 24,000 patients worldwide, Dr. Andre Waismann has chosen to bring this approach to mainstream medicine in the United States to confront the opioid crisis that is currently taking place in this country.
Dr. Waismann identified the biological roots of opioid dependency, Since then he has successfully treated more than 24,000 patients worldwide that are struggling with opioid addiction.
Throughout his career, he has lectured and educated health professionals in dozens of countries around the world to this day.
