Alternative Medicine Options That Can Help With Prescription Opioid Addictions

When a person in your life, whether it is you or someone else, is suffering from an addiction to prescription opioids, you may wonder what treatment options are available to help. While there are standard treatment options like medical detoxification and mental health therapy, there are also alternative medicine treatment options that can help a person overcome an addiction to prescription opioids. Get to know more about a few of these options.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture can play an important role in the treatment of addictions, particularly an addiction to prescription opioids. Many people who develop such as addiction do so when they already suffer from a legitimate pain condition. And, acupuncture is an alternative medicine treatment option that is excellent for pain management as well as for addiction treatment.

The tradition of acupuncture dates all the way back to ancient China and has spread across the globe as a way to treat a variety of health issues and conditions. It involves the idea that human bodies are made up of energy that flows throughout the body connecting all of the different systems. Those energies are meant to flow in a balanced way but can sometimes get thrown out of balance, causing pain, illness, and even contributing to the development of an addiction.

Acupuncturists help to restore that energy balance by inserting tiny needles into energy points throughout the body. These needles trigger the body to restore energy flow and get back in balance. In more modern terms, the needles trigger the nervous, circulatory, and immune system to react and help reduce pain and fight off illnesses that could be disturbing a person's health. For a prescription opioid addiction, this means acupuncture can help relieve the pain that led a person to develop the addiction in the first place. It can also help restore a chemical balance in the body that the opioid addiction disrupted. 

Massage Therapy

The process of detoxification and the subsequent treatments for a prescription opioid addiction can leave a person feeling stressed and tense. That tension can settle in the person's muscles leading to further physical discomfort and an overall sense of malaise.

To help reduce that physical tension as well as emotional and mental tension, it may be helpful to incorporate massage therapy into the prescription opioid treatment process. A massage therapist will work to find sources of muscle tension and rub the tension out of the muscles. Sessions with a massage therapist can help a person going through addiction treatment to feel calm and relaxed and can help relieve the physical pain of detox at the same time.

Now that you know a few of the alternative medicine treatments that can help with an addiction to prescription opioids, you can be sure that they are a part of the treatment program for the person in your life who is so afflicted.


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