Detoxification is the most effective way to neutralize drugs in your body. But, it’s not advisable to detox by yourself.
The average detox program comes with severe (sometimes life-threatening) side effects. A medical expert will have to supervise the detox process to manage these consequences.
In this article, you’ll learn more about how detoxing neutralizes drugs in your body and what happens to your body when you detox. You’ll also see the necessary steps to take when planning for detox.
How Do You Neutralize Drugs in the Body?
The illegal use of drugs like opioids is fast becoming a source of worry to the Canadian government.
Opioids are originally pain relief drugs, but when you use them without prescription, it gives a euphoric feeling that can be quite addictive. And it’s not just opioids. Cocaine, alcohol, heroin and marijuana are other common addictive substances.
Illegal drug users or addicts take these drugs using different methods like smoking and snorting. Some prefer injecting hard drugs directly into their veins because it provides the fastest result, and it’s more potent that way.
It may seem like it’s all fun and games, but constantly shooting up can be dangerous to your health. It can even start to have adverse consequences on your life and health.
Many addicts find it difficult to maintain jobs and relationships simply because they want to get high, and that’s all they care about.
A wise step to take is to find ways to neutralize the effects of hard drugs in your body. The basic steps to flush hard drugs in your body include:
Detoxification
The basic thing you need to understand about detox is that no clear-cut pattern works for everyone. The uniqueness of the human body causes patients to respond differently to detox. Also, factors like the intensity and time frame of the addiction problem can affect the detox process.
Detoxification, also known as medically supervised withdrawal, is the beginning of treatment for people with drug abuse problems. It’s the process of taking a person off the drug they abuse. The essence of detoxification is to manage the signs of withdrawal a person with a drug use disorder may experience when trying to quit.
Medication-Assisted Treatment (M.A.T)
Certain medications play an important role when you’re trying to rid your body of addictive toxins. It all depends on the drug you abuse and the severity of the addiction. These parameters determine whether or not your detox expert will administer the following medications to neutralize drugs in your body.
Methadone
German doctors were responsible for creating methadone during the second world war. These days, medical experts include it in their addiction treatment programs. Methadone affects the nervous system and your brain, causing it to block pain receptors. As a result, doctors usually prescribe it for people in severe pain.
Aside from the pain-blocking feature, methadone disrupts the high effects of drugs like heroin, morphine, oxycodone and other opioids.
Methadone is not a cure for addiction. It only gives a feeling similar to hard drugs, thereby keeping you from cravings and withdrawal symptoms. Methadone comes in different forms like liquid, tablets and powder. It’s not advisable to use methadone without your doctor’s prescription.
When you follow the doctor’s dosage instructions, methadone will help you neutralize drugs in your body by mitigating your intake of harmful drugs. Specialists can administer methadone to you for a whole year while you try to recover.
Buprenorphine
Buprenorphine is a safer opiate that supplants the illegal use of harmful opiates. In addition, buprenorphine is a partial opioid agonist, and it partially stimulates the opioid receptors in the brain. Then it causes the victim of opioid use disorder to experience a ceiling effect.
Buprenorphine plays a very important role when an individual is trying to neutralize drugs in their body. Medical professionals mostly combine buprenorphine with another opiate antagonist, naloxone.
Naloxone/Suboxone
Naloxone nullifies the effects of other drugs. In addition, it suppresses cravings and gives many individuals the opportunity to switch from their addiction lifestyle back to normal life and safety.
Naloxone also comes in handy during a withdrawal emergency. Even physicians have had the right to prescribe the naloxone and buprenorphine combination since the year 2002.
Related Article: An Overview of Outpatient and Inpatient Detoxification
Healthy Habits That Helps to Neutralize Drugs in Your Body
In addition to safe withdrawal and medication-assisted treatment, below are other ways to neutralize drugs present in your body:
Increase Your Consumption of Prebiotics
Eating healthy is important to keeping your body healthy during detox. It’s because the human intestinal cells naturally have an excretion and detoxification system that protects you from harmful toxins.
Prebiotics foster your health system by controlling the bacteria in your intestinal cells. Prebiotics help beneficial bacteria to form nutrients known as short-chain fatty acids. Without good hygiene and healthy dieting, you’re limiting the activity of beneficial bacteria in your body.
So, it’s good to consume food that’s rich in prebiotics when you want to neutralize drugs in your body. Food rich in prebiotics include:
- Bananas
- Tomatoes
- Asparagus
- Onions
- Oats
- Artichokes
- Garlic
Cut Down of Processed Foods and Sugar Intake
Cutting down on your sugar intake and consuming processed foods is another healthy way of detoxifying your body. Excessive processed food and sugar intake can lead to cancer, diabetes, and heart diseases.
These diseases negatively affect your body’s ability to detoxify itself. It does so by affecting your body’s vital organs (liver, kidney) responsible for detox. For instance, consuming excess sugar can result in fatty liver, which negatively affects the liver’s function.
When you reduce junk foods, your body’s detoxification system stays healthy. Keep this in mind when next you’re rushing to the store to get food. It’s better to stock up on more nutritious food choices like veggies and fruits.
Exercise
Excess fat in your body can affect the absorption and release of medication in your body. That’s the reason staying healthy is very important, and exercising plays an important role as regards.
Lack of proper fitness or exercise can lead to fat storage in your body, which increases how long drugs stay in your system. So, one very important way to neutralize drugs in your body is to exercise regularly.
Drink Water More Often
The main purpose of water isn’t just to quench your thirst. Water plays a vital role when you’re trying to neutralize drugs in your body. Water also helps to regulate your temperature, helps with digestion, lubricates your joints, and lastly, it detoxifies your system.
Staying hydrated is super important while detoxing. It helps you flush out waste in your body and keeps you fit as you observe other steps to flush the drugs in your body.
Limit Alcohol
Too much alcohol in your body adversely affects your liver and causes heart problems by causing fat build-up, scarring and inflammation.
When this occurs, your liver will experience difficulty in functioning properly, and it won’t be able to play its vital role in flushing drugs from your body. Reducing your alcohol intake will strengthen your body’s natural detoxification processes.
Eliminate Triggers
Keeping drugs around you may trigger you to restart abuse, thereby defeating the aim of detox. Therefore, during the medical detox process, always ensure you don’t come in contact with drugs.
Try to keep away anything that may cause you to relapse. For example, avoid passing through those street corners where you used to buy drugs.
Sleep More
Even your detox specialist will urge you to sleep more during detox. A healthy sleep routine keeps your health and natural detoxification system in check.
Sleep is super important. It’s not enough to just take medications for detoxing. If your natural detox system is unhealthy, you may not be able to neutralize drugs in your body.
Factors That Affect the Detoxification Process
Depending on a few factors, it may be easier for you to neutralize drugs in your body:
Age
Studies show that the older you get, the more metabolism slows down in your body. A slow metabolism means drugs will take longer to leave your body.
Gender
Both genders process and absorb drugs differently due to biological factors. For example, pills can last longer in women than men. So when you’re trying to detoxify your body, have it in mind that your gender plays a major role.
Genetics
Genetic contributors that relate to race play a significant role in how long it takes to neutralize drugs in your body. Some people’s body systems may be slower in processing drugs, while it may be faster for others. Genetic traits can be responsible for such situations.
What Happens to Your Body When You Detox?
Withdrawal symptoms come in once the opioid is no longer active in your brain. These symptoms set in because drugs cause the brain and entire body system to be dependent on them. So, if you stop taking them abruptly, your body will start reacting.
Then detoxification is a safe toxin removal process from the human body system. It helps you to manage body reactions that may be life-threatening. A professional will administer medication, diet and other treatment routines to enable you to detoxify safely.
The professional will also provide treatment and care after you apply for a medical detox program.
The detox program will enable the professional to monitor your health progress by looking out for withdrawal symptoms. See a list of withdrawal symptoms below.
- Restlessness
- Nausea
- Fatigue
- Irregular appetite
- Vomiting
- Feverish feeling
- Mood swing
- Irritability
Planning for Detox Treatment
Before you sign up for a detox treatment program, here’s what you need to know:
First Stage
You know that your addiction is becoming a problem in this early stage, but you’re in denial. You’re still unsure whether to go for treatment or not.
At this stage, you may lose one or two friendships, miss appointments more often or realize you can’t go a day without drugs. But you still won’t have the ability or courage to stop. You may bulge and start considering addiction treatment after one or two compelling experiences.
Second Stage
If you get to this stage, you have to start asking questions and gathering information on detoxifying properly. But you have to be careful about the information you receive because some of it may be misleading.
You need to gather information on the cost of addiction treatment, the right treatment program and integrate them into your immediate plans. Then you have to start planning on the best and most cost-effective way to go about getting treatment.
Final Stage
After careful consideration, you now have to choose a medical detox program that’ll suit you. There are different types of detox programs available. They include-
Inpatient Detox Program
The inpatient detox program involves all-around-the-clock care from medical experts. You’ll have to reside in the treatment facility till your treatment program is complete. The inpatient detox treatment program is best for severe addiction cases.
It has a higher success rate, and it’s more expensive than the outpatient program. Proper inpatient detox programs also offer therapy and counselling sessions which are very helpful during addiction recovery.
Outpatient Detox Program
An outpatient detox program isn’t as expensive as an inpatient program because you don’t have to live within the treatment premises. It’s more flexible as you can still maintain your job and normal life. It’s better for people with light addiction issues.
Related Article: Proven Treatments for Addiction Detox
Final Thoughts
Drug addiction is unhealthy, and it’s smart to make conscious efforts to flush it from your system. We recommend detoxification under medical supervision.
Don’t try to neutralize the drugs in your body by yourself. Contact Medical Detox Ontario to learn more about our safe, effective detox programs. If you have any questions, we’ve got you.
