Update (7/3): Listen to this post, courtesy of Bnarrator!
(Image Credit: Karin Kloosterman, via Israel 21st Century)
Regardless whether its a friend, co-worker or family member, drug addiction can be one of the most devastating things to happen to any relationship.
For those affected by their addictions, their “drug of choice” can easily warp their worldview, and coming clean from their addiction may not only be hard on the body, but often time consuming as well (which can drive up the cost of treatment).
Fortunately it seems as if Dr. Waismann (aka “Dr. Wash”), a doctor hailing from Israel is pioneering a unique way to help addicts of not only prescription opiates, but even heroin and methadone as well.
(Israel 21st Century) Supervised by Israel’s Ministry of Health, Dr. Waismann is a surgeon and intensive care doctor by training. “I use more than medicine,” he says. “Heroine [sic] addiction withdrawal symptoms lead to vomiting and are terribly painful,” he says. To rapidly overcome the pain aspect, Dr. Waismann puts his patients under general anesthesia for four hours and during this time he washes opiates out of their brain.
He then gives the patient a cocktail of medically approved drugs, to block the opiate receptors in the brain. The whole treatment from start to finish takes 36 hours.
Called the ANR Method for (Accelerated Neuroregulation), Dr. Waismann is at the same time able to reverse both the opiate dependency and its symptoms. The treatment works on heroine [sic], methadone, subutex and prescription opiates. While the cost of treatment is high at 8,600 Euros, Dr. Waismann also treats people with medical insurance in Israel, such as wounded soldiers who have become addicted to painkillers.
While there are rumors that Dr. Waismann is treating patients ranging from average people to celebrities (such as Amy Winehouse), Waismann is refusing to confirm the identities of the patients (to the sorrow of the paparazzi), guaranteeing privacy to individuals seeking help.
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