Where Can I Find A Sublocade Doctor In Michigan?
Hi, thank you for coming back for the latest edition of Beyond Primary Care’s blog- where can I find a sublocade doctor in Michigan. In Beyond Primary Care blogs we highlight healthcare news, advice for medical conditions, and how membership for care works! Beyond Primary Care is an insurance free, membership based family medicine clinic. Beyond Primary Care is the highest rated Direct Primary Care clinic serving patients in Ann Arbor and throughout Washtenaw, Livingston, and Wayne counties giving families and employers peace of mind about healthcare costs by providing affordable and accessible primary care services.
The primary purpose of the blog is to introduce healthy lifestyle concepts and answer common questions I receive from patients that I believe are important. I want to start discussions that will help educate, benefit, and improve your well-being.
In this blog post, I wanted to answer a common question…
Where can I find a Sublocade doctor in Michigan?
First, Sublocade Explained
Sublocade is a brand name medication available by prescription only from physicians or other professionals with a special Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) license. Sublocade is actually injectable Buprenorphine, one of the active medications in brand name medications such as Suboxone and Zubsolv. This medication is delivered directly to the physician’s office, and is typically given every 28 days- roughly once a month.
Sublocade is injected by a physician as a liquid right under the skin in a patient’s abdominal area. Once inside someone’s body, it turns into a solid gel that gradually releases buprenorphine at a controlled rate all month.
What is Sublocade used for?
Sublocade is used to treat opioid addiction, a type of substance use disorder that is classified as a neurobiological disease. Addiction has genetic, psychosocial, and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations.
A great way to think of how opioids and the medication works is to imagine your brain has a bunch of empty ice cream cones on it- we’ll call these ‘receptors.’ When the ice cream- we’ll call these ‘opioids,’ enters the space by the brain, they normally fit right into the empty cone. Unless you have a dairy allergy or are lactose intolerant, this will feel really good for most people.
This same mechanism is what happens for opioids (pills, drugs) in the brain, when they result in a release of Dopamine creating a sense of pleasure and reward.
Sublocade and the medication in it, buprenorphine, attaches to those ice cream cones making other scoops of ice cream less likely to park.
Why Sublocade Is Important
The simple answer is this medication is a method of harm reduction against opioid use disorder, and it saves lives. I previously talked about what ‘harm reduction’ is in a post about The Sinclair Method here.
According to the Centers for Disease Control:
40% of overdose deaths are due to natural opioids such as morphine and codeine or semisynthetic opioids such as oxycodone or hydrocodone
15% of overdose deaths are attributed to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl
10% of overdose deaths are attributed to methadone
35% of overdose deaths are attributed to heroin
While on Sublocade, individuals will receive a continual delivery of the medication buprenorphine all month, and it only requires a once-monthly injection by a trained physician.
This is important.
Why? The injection takes out any compliance issues for many folks battling opioid addiction such as:
Forgetting doses
Missing doses
Losing medication
The injection also results in a safer community through less diversion of the Buprenorphine films or tablets.
Where to find Sublocade Doctors in Michigan
You can always click through the Sublocade website and look for providers that way. In addition to being a board certified family medicine doctor, I am also a board certified addiction doctor. I utilize buprenorphine products such as Sublocade, Suboxone, and Zubsolv at my clinic, Beyond Primary Care in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I use an eclectic and personalized approach towards assessing and resolving your life changes and stressors. Not a ‘cookie cutter’ one size fits all plan. In addition to a thorough health history, I am going to ask about your family, where your quality of life is being most affected, and—most importantly—what you want to do.
Reach Out For Help
If you think some health concerns of what you may be experiencing may be due to excessive opioid consumption, or if you notice any coworkers, friends, or family members silently struggling, send them a link to this post so that they can join the conversation!
You can also contact Dr. O’Boyle directly. I look forward to hearing from you!
