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The same phenomenon is largely true for cocaine addiction and overdose, which have also increased substantially in the past decade. There is also no FDA-approved medication used to treat cocaine overdose or addiction. It is largely a coincidence that the drug has shown promise exactly as the meth crisis has flared. NIDA, easily the country’s largest funder of addiction research, first awarded a grant to a team of UAMS researchers in 1999. The new strategies are being implemented amid a dramatic rise in methamphetamine-related deaths, which roughly tripled between 2015 and 2019, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Drug deaths that involve methamphetamine are now at an all-time high of roughly 24,000, and are expected to continue climbing.

Long-Term Effects and Risks of Meth Use

Listed below are the short-term and long-term effects of using meth. However, recreational use of meth is illegal because it is a highly addictive drug that impairs brain function and changes the person’s thoughts and actions. Although research shows that CM interventions reduce meth use, it isn’t clear whether this continues once treatment has ended. Your doctor can assess your overall health by performing a physical exam. They can also refer you to a treatment center and answer any questions you may have.

About NIH Research Matters

In 2020, about 1.5 million people in the United States over the age of 12 had meth use disorder. For instance, your heart rate may speed up, slow down, and then speed up again, because your body metabolizes each drug at different rates. These rapid changes can put a lot of strain on your body, to the point where you need emergency medical attention. For instance, you might feel energized, confident, and more alert than usual. Healthline does not endorse the use of any illegal substances, and we recognize abstaining from them is always the safest approach.

Combination therapy for methamphetamine use disorder

Despite the skyrocketing use of meth, a stimulant particularly common in the western U.S., there’s no medication currently approved to treat meth overdose or aid in long-term recovery. Patients who seek help often leave hospitals hardly better off than when they arrived. Substance use disorders and addiction aren’t choices you make — they’re mental health conditions that can have long-term effects on your health and well-being. In that study, researchers led by Dr. Beth Han and NIDA Director Dr. Nora D. Volkow examined methamphetamine overdose deaths in the U.S. between 2011 and 2018. They found that such deaths rose nearly 5-fold during that time among adults aged 25 to 54.

• In 2020, about 1.5 million people in the United States over the age of 12 had meth use disorder.
• By cultivating awareness and acceptance, individuals can develop a more balanced relationship with their experiences, reducing the likelihood of relapse.
• What’s more, combining meth — a stimulant — with depressants like alcohol, opioids, or benzodiazepines can have a tug-of-war effect on your bodily functions.
• This new medical treatment strategy arrives at a time when addiction to methamphetamines has come roaring back, fueled by cheap imports from Mexico.

Even optimistically, however, the drug is years away from winning approval and achieving widespread use, Gentry said. Those patients, he said, often need to be restrained or treated with sedatives — and their impairment makes them unable to consent to joining a medical study using an experimental treatment. Because scientists have not been able to develop treatments for methamphetamine addiction specifically, clinicians have turned to existing drugs to see what might provide some benefit.

Meth Addiction Symptoms

The treatment helped 13.4% of patients with their addiction, compared with 2.5% of the meth abuse placebo group. Behavioral therapies like counseling are often involved as well. And with stimulants in particular, a practice called contingency management, which pays people or provides other rewards if they remain abstinent, has been shown to be effective. One of the challenges of using naltrexone to treat opioid addiction is that, because of the way the medication works in the brain, people can’t have used opioids for several days before getting the injection. Otherwise, naltrexone can cause debilitating withdrawal symptoms.

• For the first time, a medication regime has been found effective for some patients with meth addiction in a large, placebo-controlled trial.
• If you’re not sure where to begin when looking for meth treatment, contact American Addiction Centers.
• A combination of two medications, injectable naltrexone and oral bupropion, was safe and effective in treating adults with moderate or severe methamphetamine use disorder in a double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase III clinical trial.
• Doctors can prescribe drugs already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for other purposes “off-label” to try to treat methamphetamine addiction.