Richmond clinic accelerates drug detox
 
Reported by: Kathryn Barrett

05:01 PM EDT on Friday, May 13, 2005

Deidre Kline is in the first day of a unique three-day process to get off OxyContin.

She's been addicted to the pain medication for three years.

"I graduated top of my high school class, top of my radiology class in college. I never dreamed of this."

The 23-year-old woman is the tenth person from her small town in West Virginia to come to The Coleman Institute in Richmond. Back home, the drug is called "hillbilly heroin." She said she tried it just one time and that was all it took to become hooked. Getting the pill became the most important thing in her life.

Dr. Peter Coleman says that's typical. "We're dealing with a disease that overtakes the will to live. It's incredibly powerful."

Dr. Coleman pioneered a treatment called accelerated detox. "We use a cocktail of things that help them feel better that we've evolved over the last five years."

It's different than rapid detox, which takes place in a hospital and under anesthesia. The accelerated detox program takes place over three days and is outpatient.

Dr. Coleman says rapid detox worked, but it was very rough on the patients.

Both treatments clean opiates from the body and the brain. "When we use naltrexone, it goes to the brain and kicks all the drugs out off the brain receptors in about 5 to 10 minutes. It's an amazingly dramatic process."

Stacey Lilly is in her second day of accelerated detox. She feels nauseous and anxious, but she's not in pain.

She was coming off of a second round of addiction. She'd been drug-free for nearly five years. But then she had a kidney stone removed last fall and the cycle began again when she got pain killers for the post-operative recovery.

For Michael, it's the final day of the eight day methadone detox program. "On the last day, we put an iv in their arm. They get pretty sleepy and we flush the rest of the drugs out over a six to eight hour period."

Dr. Coleman calls methadone government-sanctioned drug addiction. "Well that does decrease crime and some of the social costs, but, a much better deal is to have them straight and dealing with their problems."

The final step in getting straight involves the drug Naltrexone, which gradually flushes the rest of the drugs out of the system of the sedated patient.

Micrograms, not milligrams, are given over six to eight hours.

Just a couple of hours later, Michael is awake and talking. After eight days of detox, he's methadone free.

The experts agree that accelerated detox alone is not the answer. All it does it get out the drugs out, then it's up to the user to stay drug free.

Dr. Coleman believes a pellet of medication implanted under the skin may help detoxed people.

"It releases a slow, steady stream of naltrexone for about eight weeks so they can't relapse."

For Ralph Carroll, who was addicted to OxyContin, the pellet blocked opiates. In other words, if you take heroin, OxyContin or similar pain killers, they don't have an effect.

Critics say the implant may block a high but it doesn't solve the problem.

Dr. Coleman recommends the pellet and a 12-step recovery program.

"You have to be clean before you can actually start working your life issues," he said. "If people don't work their program thoroughly then they have a high relapse rate.

The Coleman Institute recommends replacing the implant every other month for a year, saying that's what is necessary to really make changes in the rehab phase of treatment.

For Rochelle Watson, one implant didn't work. She's willing to do what it takes to stay clean.

"It may take a year of doing this, but if that's what it takes, that's what I'm going to do."