naltrexone implants

[suzy]

Hi, as a supporting partner of swim I am desperate to know what to do. Can anyone help/advise?

Swim has been addicted to heroin for about 10 years, is injecting and smoking, also smokes cocaine. Swim wants to have a naltrexone implant, I would like to hear from anyone who has experience of this please. I am at the end of my rope with swim's using, all life-savings have gone, swim's moods are getting stranger - one week swim loves me but the next swim wants to break up, is this just the heroin/coke talking?

I feel suicidal most weeks - please post back some good advice!

Thanks suzy.

[cz-one]

I've been considering an implant as i feel i'd have more chance of successfully getting clean if i had that choice removed from me,and so couldnt use even if i wanted to,which is whats so good about these implants,but,you need to be damn sure its what you want,and your not just doing it to please someone else,cause once its in,you cant go back, for someone in your position,with a loved one with a chaotic habit,has swiy got a keyworker at the local drug treatment centre? if so,ask them for advice on the people who do well with the implants,or wether something else would be more effective.

[suzy]

Hi cz-one,

Thank you for your reply. No my partner doesn't have a keyworker, he did up until recently because he was on methadone but has stopped it and sacked the drug treatment unit. I agree with this as they were hopless and were actually making him worse. He is working away and instead of supporting him to get his meth they made it very very difficult. So when they cocked up his supply over a bank holiday weekend he just turkyed off it.

I have been with him to 3 different units all in different areas of the UK and I was shocked at the 'treatment' they dish out there - I can honestly say that the thought of being at their mercy is enough in itself to put me off ever trying heroin etc.

We are now pinning all our hopes on an implant but we have to go private for this as the NHS won't provide it - God only knows why.

I am sorry if I sound cynical but I am - because of what I have seen being done to my partner and others, plus talking to many of them in the receptions of the drug units.

My biggest shock was when we first went to a drug unit and my partner asked the receptionist how many people they had got clean in the last year. She said she didn't know and my partner prompted her to ask - when she did no one else knew either!!

Unbelievable!

I do think that the only way out of this horror is to go private and these implants seem brilliant. I would like to know what others think of them though as all the people I have asked about them have never even heard of them.

Anyway thank you so much for your reply I am very grateful.

Take care.
Suzy.

[cz-one]

Some drug treatment centres in the uk are able to now able to provide the implants on the NHS,but like most medications its down to where you live and how in debt the local health authority is,and i hear what your saying about the clinics in the uk,i've experienced 3 places around the uk,and at each one the attitude is'throw a prescription at it and see if it goes away!',and you'll find for most treatment options the relapse rates to be high,wehter thats down to the nature of the beast or the treatment being crap i dont know.At the end of the day though if someone really wants to quit,any method could be used to work,if methadone didnt work,try subutex,or before trying the implant try the tablet version of naltrexone.