CARMAhealth Observes Alcohol Awareness Month April 1st marked the beginning of this year’s Alcohol Awareness Month, a 30-day effort founded and sponsored by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD) to raise awareness toward alcoholism in the United States and reduce the stigma that prevents so many [...]

CARMAhealth Doctors Powell and Tirado Discuss the Importance of Medical Care in Addiction Recovery with Texas Medicine Magazine In a piece published in this month’s Texas Medicine Magazine, CARMAhealth’s Medical Director Dr. Steven Powell and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Carlos Tirado discuss the importance of seamless and expedited medical [...]

For Some Opioid Users, Opioid Substitution is Not An Act of Faith, It’s An Act of Courage In our practice, we always try to meet the patient where they’re at: this is not a tired cliché for us…we really do. We have the challenge of dealing with young people [...]

CARMAHealth Connects with Drug Czar Jim Carroll at National Conference Representatives from CARMAHealth and our partner organization Recovery Unplugged had the honor of attending this year’s National Cocaine, Meth and Stimulant Conference. The conference was a three-day event that took place from November 12-14 and was organized by the [...]

Doc… I’m Way Smarter Than You I want to share an encounter I recently had with a patient, a guy who has been struggling with heroin addiction for well over 20 years. He’s had years of success with abstinence, buprenorphine and methadone. Each approach had its place and relevance [...]

Lifesaving Measure For Opioid Overdose Available To The Public Without Prescription When the U.S. Surgeon General published a recent health advisory – the first such alert in the last decade – asking for the public’s assistance in tackling the nation’s growing opioid epidemic, Dr. Scott Walters from the UNTHSC [...]

Can Texting Help Increase Compliance and Attendance at Treatment Programs? Texting has become a preferred means of communication for people all over the world. A text can help quickly and concisely convey important information, keep personal conversations private and remind us about the important things in our lives that [...]

Physicians Facing Increased Legal Accountability for Over-prescribing Opioids Earlier this month, Manhattan Dr. Martin Tesher was convicted by a Brooklyn grand jury on 10 counts of unlawful distribution of oxycodone without legitimate medical purpose. Over the course of five years, the 82-year-old Tesher wrote over 14,000 oxycodone scripts which [...]

FDA Calls for Balance in Prescribing Opioids and Preventing Painkiller Abuse Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Scott Gottlieb recently issued a statement calling for substantive and common-sense reforms to prescription opioid dispensation in the medical profession. The statement came on the same day the agency hosted a Patient-Focused [...]

Can Vivitrol Suppress HIV? Yale researchers have discovered the extended-release naltrexone, commonly known as Vivitrol may help maintain or improve suppression of HIV among individuals at risk for relapse receiving HIV antiretroviral treatment. The findings were part of a study of inmates in Connecticut who suffered from co-occurring HIV [...]