Work-Drugs-Life, lol.. but it pays the bills!

  Today is Monday and this means back to work for me. The morning wasn't so bad at all, less than 30 patients before noon, which was very unusual. The afternoon was a bit more busy. We are an internal medicine practice, but we also have a spa and yes a "Methadone and Suboxone Clinic" , That's right...

What are these drugs you ask?
Suboxone is buprenorphine and naltrex (or Narcan) in a 4:1 ratio. Our brains have 3 different receptors that accept opiates, delta kappa & amp; mu. Mu seems to be the receptor that causes the body to become dependant on different opiate substances. Since suboxone is a "partial-opiate" it only acts on delta and kappa receptors, thus relieving the users withdraw symptoms. The Naltrex(or Narcan) which blocks opiates from binding to receptors, stops them from working. Naltrex(narcan) has a half-life of 2-3 hours... which means it is active in your body for 6 hours, 8 hours just to be safe. This drug is used to treat addiction's to Opiates, for patients whom use opiates but have no "real pain".

The other drug -Methadone -

Methadone is used to relieve moderate to severe pain that has not been relieved by non-narcotic pain relievers. It also is used to prevent withdrawal symptoms in patients who were addicted to opiate drugs and are enrolled in treatment programs in order to stop taking or continue not taking the drugs. Methadone is in a class of medications called opiate (narcotic) analgesics. Methadone works to treat pain by changing the way the brain and nervous system respond to pain. It also works as a substitute for opiate drugs of abuse by producing similar effects and preventing withdrawal symptoms in people who have stopped using these drugs. The difference between the two is that Methadone is for patients whom really have pain, and need to come off of opiates.

It's so crazy because we do see more than 25 of these "program" patients in a day, and it seems as if they are all from the same area of Georgia., none are local to Macon or Warner Robins. Mostly, South East Georgia. I don't really care for the program or the significance for the use of it either. The good thing for our office is that these are cash patients, as Insurance will not cover their visit , nor will it cover the medication.
So anyway, enough about my office.  Tomorrow I am off until 2 pm, I love the 2pm -7pm shift. It flies by. Wednesday I am off, I will spend it cleaning and reorganizing. Thursday and Friday back to work 7-5, I dislike like starting the day at 0700, mostly because these early patients are usually here for a complete physical. I love having a day off during the week, that's my main reason for working where I do.