The senior population is the group most often prescribed controlled substances. About 17 percent of seniors over the age of 60 will be affected by prescription drug abuse according to one study, and another study says that 11 percent of women over the age of 59 are currently addicted to prescription drugs.

Recognizing prescription drug addiction in seniors is tricky but hugely important. The health effects can be devastating and the money spent on unnecessary prescriptions crippling. If you or someone you love is over 60 and dealing with prescription drug addiction, call us at The Canyon for treatment.

Senior Prescription Drug Addiction: Unnecessary Prescriptions

A recent study done on a group of seniors over the age of 60 showed that about half of all tranquilizer, sedative and painkiller prescriptions were prescribed unnecessarily or should have been prescribed for a shorter period. Seniors seeking prescription pills only need to mention pain to get the drugs they’re looking for. It is, unfortunately, extremely easy for seniors to begin and perpetuate prescription drug addiction due to the high number of prescriptions given to people in their age group.

Recognizing Senior Prescription Drug Addiction

It’s difficult to recognize senior prescription drug addiction. Family and friends aren’t always around so they may not notice changes. Few work outside the home so their addiction doesn’t show up in front of co-workers. Seniors also seem to get fewer driving under the influence charges, so it isn’t always recognizable that way. For this reason, it is important to notice other signs of addiction: mood swings, depression, irritability or agitation, inability to concentrate or stay involved in a conversation. Too often, these symptoms are brushed off as nothing more than signs of old age, but in many cases, they are far from normal.

Senior Prescription Drug Addiction: Risks of Drug Addiction

The risks of senior prescription drug addiction are huge. In advanced age, it’s easier for people to get hurt while under the influence or have accidents that hurt those around them, and accidents later in life can be deadly.

Mixing prescription drugs is especially dangerous for seniors as well. About 10 percent of Americans over the age of 60 drink heavily, defined as 12 to 21 drinks per week. When combined with sedatives and opiates, this can easily lead to an accidental overdose. Sedatives or sleeping pills are warned against for seniors for this reason. Even taken alone, accidental overdose through a misused prescription is a danger for seniors.

Senior Prescription Drug Addiction Treatment at The Canyon

Most seniors will not admit to prescription drug addiction or addiction of any kind. Even fewer will willingly opt for drug addiction treatment. However, withdrawal symptoms can also be devastating for those over the age of 60, so it is extremely important that seniors get medical drug addiction treatment if they are addicted to their prescriptions.

If you would like to help the senior in your life get the prescription drug addiction treatment they need, call The Canyon today.

Greg Giraldo, insult comic and former lawyer, died after he experienced complications from a prescription drug overdose. He was found unconscious in his New Jersey hotel room and remained nonresponsive after being taken to a hospital in New York. He died September 29, 2010, in the hospital.

According to The Examiner, Giraldo’s overdose occurred while he was having a party in his hotel room after his first performance at a charity event promoting drug addiction recovery.

Giraldo was well-known for his stand-up comedy and his performances on Comedy Central “celebrity roasts,” in which such performers as Pamela Anderson, David Hasselhoff and Joan Rivers were celebrated through comedy routines.

Giraldo was also a judge on NBC’s “Last Comic Standing.” The producers of that show released a statement that said: “Greg was one of the most talented comedians of our time. He was truly brilliant. His work will surely continue to influence and inspire us. We will miss our friend. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.”

Prescription Drug Overdoses Don’t Just Happen to Addicts

A longtime proponent of alcohol addiction recovery, Giraldo was also a Harvard Law School graduate and the father of three small children. While he was in recovery for alcohol addiction, the prescription drug overdose is considered accidental. It is not believed that he abused the prescription purposely but experienced complications as a result of the drug.

Giraldo’s death can serve as a lesson to those left behind. If someone who was well aware of their fragile status as an addict, an intelligent person with a Harvard degree, and a longstanding career in activism against alcohol abuse could still inadvertently overdose after taking a prescribed drug, what a slippery slope it must be for those who purposely abuse their prescription drug prescriptions or take opiate or stimulant medication without a prescription.

Prescription Drug Addiction and Prescription Drug Addiction

If you are addicted to your opiate painkillers or to a stimulant prescription, the only way to ensure that you will not experience a prescription drug overdose is to stop using your prescription with the assistance of a prescription drug rehab program. Opiate detox and prescription drug detox at a medical treatment facility will give you the assistance you need to make sure that you not only stop using your prescription unsafely but they provide you with a detox plan that is efficient and healthfully designed.

Please do not stop taking your prescription without the assistance of medical professionals. Especially in the case of opiate painkillers, the possibility of complications is a serious consideration and the result can be fatal if the opiate detox is not done correctly.

Prescription Drug Rehab at The Canyon

At The Canyon, we offer a number of drug and alcohol addiction treatment programs. For those living with prescription drug addiction, we have an inpatient prescription drug rehab that includes drug detox and drug addiction treatment. Call us to find out more about our opiate painkiller addiction treatment program and our stimulant addiction rehab here at The Canyon.

According to StopAgingNow.com, the consistent rise in prescription drug addiction and the rise of home invasions may be directly linked. It seems that thieves may now be targeting the homes of the elderly and others who are more likely to have opiate prescription painkillers in their medicine cabinets.

Janet T. Mills is Maine’s attorney general. She told the New York Times that, “home invasions, robberies, assaults, homicides and thefts — all kinds of crimes are being linked to prescription drugs.”

How do we fight the problem of prescription drug addiction and protect those who are legally using opiate prescriptions for medical purposes?

Raising Awareness of Prescription Drug Addiction with National Take-Back Day

What’s to be done? The DEA has decided that awareness of the issue is the first step in fighting it. They have instituted a National Take-Back Day, which will occur annually on September 25. On this day, everyone is encouraged to bring in old medications and prescriptions for proper disposal. In this way, thieves may be less tempted to take advantage of the back stock of pills in any one home. With no more than a month’s worth of any one medication in the cabinet, the idea is that thieves will look for alternate sources for their prescription pills.

The Drawbacks of Take-Back Day: The Real Fight Begins

While fewer drugs to steal may be a little bit helpful, it certainly isn’t a defense on par with the magnitude of the problem of prescription drug addiction, and the crime wave that is one of its many consequences. In addition to awareness of the existence of the problems, moving forward on a few other fronts will help to truly fight the core of the problem:

• Over prescription of opiate painkillers like OxyContin and anti-anxiety medications like Vicodin.
• Cracking down on the illegal distribution of opiate and stimulant prescription drugs online and on the streets.
• Treating the prescription drug addiction of those who are doing the crimes rather than throwing them in jail with other drug addicts and criminals to create more complex schemes.

Fighting Prescription Drug Addiction Where You Live

Though you may not be able to do much about the legal issues surrounding prescription drug distribution – especially if you are living with an active Vicodin addiction, OxyContin addiction, Percocet addiction, Lorcet addiction or a combination of prescription pills – you can do something about your own personal issues with prescription drug addiction.

If you or someone you love needs a Vicodin detox or a methadone maintenance program to stop using opiate painkillers successfully, then choosing a prescription drug rehab that provides that service is essential. The important thing to remember is that detox alone is not enough to fight off a prescription drug addiction. Prescription drug addiction treatment that includes behavioral therapy, personal sessions, group treatment and more gives you a real opportunity to learn how to live without prescription drugs and create a new life for yourself.

Contact The Canyon for more information about our prescription drug addiction program. We can help you change your life starting today!

Yet another doctor has had a run-in with the law but this one went further than just having a few too many patients on prescription painkillers or overmedicating someone who eventually succumbed to a drug overdose. Lawrence Carl Runke, 66, of Arizona decided to take his pharmaceutical knowledge and apply it to an illegal pharmacy. For his trouble, he got himself five years in prison and four years of probation.

The Charges: Illegal Painkiller Prescriptions

Runke was found guilty of 12 criminal counts. These included charges like money laundering, sale of prescription drugs, possession of prescription drugs for sale and possession of dangerous drugs for sale as well as conspiracy.

Where did Runke get the drugs to fill the prescriptions at his illegal pharmacy? The same place many Americans go to get their illegal painkillers when they can’t get a legal prescription in the United States: India. The way prosecutors tell it, Runke purchased drugs for his pharmacy, Global Medicines, LLC, from unapproved Indian suppliers and then resold them here.

Runke’s medical license was suspended long ago and he was never licensed as a pharmacist in Arizona. This is what originally started the investigation in 2005. Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations and the Phoenix Police Department worked together on this one and found that Runke’s little business was potentially creating serious health problems for his clients.

The risks that Runke took with patients’ health certainly wasn’t hurting his bank account: he generated over $1.5 million dollars since 2005.

Arizona and Illegal Prescription Painkillers

Arizona, it seems, is a new hotbed for these illegal pharmacies. With the spate of busts recently that close down illegal pharmacies, Arizona is making quite a name for itself.

Another Arizona doc, Dr. Albert Szu Yun Yeh, was shut down last year with 14 felony counts for opening a clinic (only on Tuesdays) that managed to fill 100 prescriptions weekly for drugs like OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin. He wrote the prescriptions, in some cases, without even seeing the patient and refilled them without checkups; both of these actions are practices that violate the Controlled Substances Act when opiate painkillers are in question.

Fighting Prescription Drug Fraud in Arizona

Due to the many arrests and illicit pharmacies recently as well as the fact that 50 percent of people entering drug rehab are doing so for prescription drug addiction, law enforcement has been working harder than ever to fight the problem. They have built a statewide database to track painkiller and stimulant prescriptions that are often abused, making it more difficult for an individual to receive multiple prescriptions for the same or similar drugs from different doctors and even harder for doctors to prescribe copious amounts of addictive drugs to hundreds of patients.

Databases have worked to limit prescription drug fraud in some states and is a good preventative measure, but it’s not enough to eradicate the problem of prescription drug addiction. Drug rehab for prescription drug addiction is the only way to break free if you have been struggling with painkiller or stimulant addiction. Call now for more information.

Former Oklahoma State basketball coach Sean Sutton, 41, was arrested for trying to get prescription drugs illegally from out of state. He spent the night in jail and was reportedly dealing with withdrawal symptoms like nausea and vomiting and profuse sweating when he was released.

Sutton arranged to pick up about 40 pills under a false name. The pills in the package included clonazepam, an anti-anxiety medication and two types of the stimulant Adderall and another drug.

Sean’s arraignment is set for next week where it is expected that he will be charged with “obtaining a controlled or dangerous substance (CDS) by fraud, possession of a CDS, attempted possession of a CDS and use of a communication device to facilitate a felony,” according to New York Breaking News.

Drug Addiction and Genetic Predisposition

Sutton is not the only one in his family who has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction. His father, Eddie Sutton, was also a former Cowboys coach until May of 2006 when he was in an alcohol-induced car accident and was forced to relinquish the position.

After the car accident, Sean replaced his father as the Oklahoma State basketball coach but had to resign in April 2008.

Now, he is dealing with legal issues due to drug addiction as well. Considering how difficult prescription drug addiction is on the system and the severity of the withdrawal symptoms, hopefully his first stop will be at a prescription drug detox and addiction treatment center.

Drug Addiction Treatment

Whether your issue is alcoholism or prescription drug addiction to drugs like OxyContin, Valium, Xanax, hydrocodone, Percocet and other pills, drug addiction treatment is the only way to safely change your life. Even if you are committed to breaking your addiction to your drug of choice, it is not recommended that you stop using an addictive drug by yourself if you experience withdrawal symptoms. It is recommended that you instead enroll yourself in a drug detox and addiction treatment program that provides you with an holistic treatment program.

The Benefits of Holistic Treatment

Holistic drug and alcohol addiction treatment programs allow you to get multiple layers of treatment for your addiction. This multi-faceted approach makes your experience at drug rehab as well rounded as possible, allowing you to explore many different types of therapy and treatment.

The more time you spend learning how drugs of addiction affect your brain and body and honestly exploring your own personal experience and drug history, the better equipped you will be to learn new tools to fight off relapse when you return home. The more time you spend in treatment and the more varied the therapies you undertake during your rehab experience, the more likely you will be to stave off relapse for long periods. Statistics show that the more immersive your treatment, the better you will do in recovery.

For more information, contact The Canyon today.

It’s well known that regular and continued use of prescription painkillers like Vicodin, oxycodone, codeine, Percocet and others ultimately lead to prescription drug addiction if it continues unchecked. But a new focus for the medical and substance abuse treatment community is how the presence of prescription painkiller use, abuse and addiction can actually lead to the increase in the experience of pain.

Painkillers and the Increased Experience of Pain

The Behavioral Health Central website says: “Some pain medications can actually cause or increase the pain that they are using the medication to manage.”

Some doctors have even named the phenomenon: opiate-induced hyperalgesia. Basically, this condition means that you are more sensitive to pain after a long period of taking pain management medications. In some cases, this can even mean that things that didn’t cause pain before you started taking painkillers are now painful for you. In studies, this response occurs in some animals after just one high dose of an opiate painkiller.

How Do You Identify Opiate Induced Hyperalgesia?

This condition is generally identified when you are on painkiller medications and yet continue to experience pain despite consistently increasing the amount of your dose.

It has also been identified in people who actively used opiates like heroin and prescription painkillers for years before getting treatment. After treatment, it is sometimes difficult to get effective relief from pain, especially for chronic pain.

Treating Opiate Induced Hyperalgesia

For those who are currently on high doses of prescription painkillers and are having difficulty getting any relief from pain, prescription drug rehab and immediate detox are usually recommended. The idea is that through reducing your tolerance, opiate painkillers in more moderate doses may again work for you. In some cases, non-opioid based painkillers are preferred so as to avoid the risk of opiate painkiller addiction.

Prescription Painkiller Addiction Treatment

Treating prescription painkiller addiction can be scary to those who are worried about the withdrawal symptoms associated with painkiller detox. When you stop taking a drug upon which your body has come to depend, you will experience different symptoms of illness that will vary in type and intensity based on a number of factors. For example, those addicted to high doses of opiate painkillers like Vicodin, oxycodone, hydrocodone and others may begin to feel nauseous, get a headache, start to sweat, get stomach cramps or feel nauseous, and experience bone and muscle pain within the first few hours after their missed dose. The best way to combat this is with a medical detox at a certified substance abuse treatment center that understands opiate addiction.

When you have completed painkiller detox, you can begin addiction counseling and alternative treatments to help you further cement yourself in sobriety before returning home. A big focus of prescription painkiller addiction treatment is relapse prevention, which provides you with the tools you need to fend off the urge to pop a pain pill when you feel stressed. For those with chronic pain, it can also include learning more holistic ways to address pain management without addictive drugs.

If you would like more information about our painkiller rehab here at The Canyon, contact us today.

A petition has been going around in Scioto County in Ohio to fight drug addiction. The drug of focus is prescription painkillers and Scioto County residents and residents of surrounding counties are hoping to fight off the rising problem of prescription drug addiction in their state by asking Governor Ted Strickland to help them better control the distribution of prescription drugs.

They are called the Citizens Against Prescription Abuse and they are working hard to stop prescription drug abuse and addiction in their state.

Bob Walton is a Porter Township trustee and a community organizer for Citizens Against Prescription Abuse. He says: “It’s sad. It’s frustrating. It’s an uphill battle. But it’s a battle we’ve got to fight or we will lose a generation.”

Their plan of attack on local prescription drug abuse is mainly focused on pain clinics that provide prescriptions for opiate painkillers and fill them. Their petition requests that Governor Strickland better regulate the pain clinics that they believe hand out prescriptions far too easily and often, leading to a high rate of prescription drug addiction and abuse as well as increased hospitalization due to overdose. They want an investigation into the local prescription drug addiction problem opened by everyone: the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, state medical and pharmacy boards, the DEA, the IRS and the FBI.

They also want changes in Ohio law that further restricts new clinics from opening and regulates the operation of current painkiller clinics.

About 700 signatures had been gathered by the time of this posting, but Walton is hoping for about 2000 signatures total by the end of the month.

Walton cites the numbers for support of his proposition: Scioto County has nine pain clinics.

Lisa Roberts is a registered nurse and an injury prevention specialist for the Portsmouth City Health Department. She backs up Walton’s plan, stating that the county has the second highest rate of prescription drug overdose in Ohio and that Southern Ohio distributes four times as many prescription drugs as Northern Ohio.

Says Roberts: “We have a very high addiction rates in addition to the death rates. A lot of young people are addicted. Our treatment facilities are overwhelmed. The court systems are overwhelmed.”

She also says that many of these prescription pain clinics are owned by people with past convictions for drug trafficking and staffed by doctors with medical licensing issues.

Dr. Robert Mullins is a local emergency room doctor who is also interested in fighting against the prescription pain clinics and resulting prescription drug addiction.

He says: “This is a problem that, once it’s created, it’s very hard to get out from under. Maybe [the petition] will actually help and maybe it won’t but if we stand by and do nothing, I assure you it will escalate.”

If you would like more information about Scioto County’s fight against prescription drug addiction or if you would like to sign the petition, you can do so online.

If you would like to learn more about prescription drug addiction treatment at The Canyon, contact us today.