Deep Brain Stimulation Helps Man Addicted to Opioids for 18 Years Find Sobriety
Oxycodone pain pills prescribed for a patient with chronic pain lie on display on March 23, 2016 in Norwich, CT. Communities nationwide are struggling with the unprecidented opioid pain pill and heroin addiction epidemic.
In the United States, the opioid epidemic claims more than 100 lives each day. However, doctors hope that through brain surgery, although risky, addiction can be treated, and later on put a dent in the figure.
Deep brain stimulation, a groundbreaking surgical procedure, helped Gerod Buckhalter find sobriety after being an ex-opioid addict for 18 years.
In this procedure, the doctors insert a long metal string into the patient's brain "to control his cravings."
The same wire also went into the portion of the brain involved in addiction and receives signals from the pacemaker in his chest.
Buckhalter is the first to undergo the said surgery in a clinical test at Western Virginia University. If the surgery turns out to be a success, doctors hope it could be rolled out more extensively, and solve the opioid epidemic in the country.
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The Risks That Come with the Surgery
The surgical procedure comes with some infection risks, which include bleeding and memory problems. Buckhalter became eligible for the procedure as he had tried everything to find sobriety.
According to brain experts, deep brain stimulation has existed for three decades, and it is used to treat illnesses like OCD or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, epilepsy, and Parkinson's disease.
However, this is the first time doctors are using it for the treatment of addiction, and Buckhalter is the first patient to go through it.
For almost two decades, Buckhalter had reportedly been high all the time on painkillers and heroin. He already tried all kinds of treatments for his opioid addiction, but he would always return to the drugs.
The first-ever deep brain stimulation patient said that some of the treatments he already tried included Suboxone, meetings, rehab, and therapy.
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How the Addiction Started
For this Dilliner, Pennsylvania native, the addiction started when he was in high school after he dislocated his shoulder from a football game and needed to undergo surgery.
For his dislocated shoulder, he was given oxycodone pills for a prescription, and he possibly got them a little longer than he should have. Right of the jump, he said he was addicted to prescription drugs.
It was in 1996 when Purdue Pharma first mass-produced opioids. With a then aggressive marketing promotion, the drug sales increased dramatically from $48 million to over $1 billion in just four years.
Buckhalter recalled the first time he took a dose of the drug, which helped him socialize so much easier.
He said all things that were difficult then became relatively easy, and he loved that. Opioids gave him a feeling that nothing in this world could ever come close to.
Addiction to Oxycontin
The man soon took a month's worth of Oxycontin, a generic form of oxycodone, 120-30 mg pills, in five days. Buckhalter admitted at the time, and he didn't even care if he died.
His addiction turned out to be a lifestyle that he had taken until his adulthood. It came to a point in his life when most of his income was spent on buying pills until he becomes jobless and could no longer afford to buy them anymore.
And since he no longer had income, he started to dabble in heroin since it was cheaper and, in fact, better.
When herealized that he was already so addicted that he had to take more to feel the effect—the amount he was taking that was already deadly—Buckhalter started calling his mom for help.
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Successful Operation
The neurosurgeon, Ali Rezai, who performed Buckhalter's surgery, started to show him images of different drugs. As part of the procedure, the neurosurgeon took note of biological signals that Buckhlater's brain would respond with.
According to Rezi, they were able to stimulate and block that craving coming from the patient's brain that would make him want to do the things that he does.
Hours later, the surgery was announced a success. And for the first time since his teenage years, Buckhalter has afforded to stay clean. Exactly last month, he just celebrated his 11th month of finding sobriety.
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