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Tools Reversing the opiate effect
Ball took an indirect route into the practice of addiction medicine. The family practice specialist became interested in the addiction medicine sub- specialty when he was providing primary care to patients infected with HIV at Whitman Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C. A high percentage of those patients were intravenous drug users who contracted the virus from using contaminated needles. Intravenous drug users tend to be a challenging population to treat, for several reasons, says Ball, a graduate of Howard University College of Medicine. Non-compliance is a complicating factor, with the difficult, addict lifestyle often causing patients to miss medical appointments and neglect taking prescribed medication. And, intravenous drug users often have other health problems, such as high blood pressure and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), putting them at-risk of heart attack and strokes, says Ball.
Robert J. Ball, M.D., an addiction medicine specialist at All Joshua, provides medication-assisted treatment – in the form of suboxone and vivitrol – to clients who are in the early stages of recovery from opiate addiction. The two FDA-approved medications are designed to ease opiate withdrawal symptoms and prevent cravings that can lead to relapse. Suboxone (generic name buprenorphine) is widely used as a replacement for methadone. Vivitrol is an injectable form of naltrexone.
“It’s a big-time advantage that our medication clients can get counseling while they are waiting.” - Robert J. Ball, M.D., staff physician, All Joshua
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