Grief is a complex emotion that can be challenging for teens to navigate. According to the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model (CBEM), 1 in 12 children and teens in the U.S. will experience the death of a parent or sibling by age 18. While grief is usually...
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Residential Treatment Length for Teens: How Long Is It?
If your child is about to begin a stay at a residential treatment center, you’re bound to have a lot of questions. What types of therapy will be involved? Will our family be allowed to visit? And, of course, how long is a teen residential treatment program? A...
Is Residential Treatment Considered Inpatient or Outpatient?
If you’ve never engaged with residential treatment centers before, it’s common to ask: is residential treatment considered inpatient or outpatient? Our residential teen treatment centers are considered inpantient because teens stay at our houses during the course of...
When to Choose Residential Treatment Over Other Treatment Programs
When seeking help for your teen, it’s important to know which mental health conditions can be treated by residential treatment. For teens suffering from mental health disorders, behavioral disorders, psychological disorders, or addiction issues, there are a variety of...
Does Insurance Cover Teen Residential Treatment?
How Much Does Residential Treatment Cost? Cost of Residential Treatment The cost of residential treatment varies between each Residential Treatment Center (RTC). It may range from free (which is very uncommon) to tens of thousands of dollars per month. And if you are...
3% of Teens Identify as Transgender or Gender Nonconforming in America
How Many Transgender Teens Are There? Approximately 150,000 American teens (ages 13 to 17) identify as transgender in the United States today. Of course, there is no general age in which people typically “discover” or “come out” as transgender. Nonetheless, more and...
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It is very common for young people to experience occasional moodiness or periods of sadness. Yet with depression rates on the rise amongst adolescents and teenagers (approximately 12.5% of youth today have experience at least one major depressive episode), it is vital...
Distinguishing Between Signs of Depression or “Moodiness” in Teens
Parents often wonder how to distinguish normal teenage mood swings and rebellions from actual symptoms of depression. Fortunately, there are several ways to tell. As many as 1 in 5 teenagers will experience depression at some point during adolescence. Unfortunately,...
Social Anxiety in Teens: Signs, Symptoms, and How to Help
What is Social Anxiety? Social anxiety disorder (SAD) affects 1 out of 3 adolescents between 13 and 18 years old. Over 19 million people across America suffer from social anxiety disorder (SAD) today. It is the most common anxiety disorder and third most common mental...
Teen Depression Prevention: Parent, Friend, and Support Tips
At any given time, one out of every five teenagers is experiencing major depression. If you are a parent to an adolescent or teenager, you are likely familiar with the moodiness inherent to this age group. Mood swings are common, as teens are experiencing a vast...
How to Talk to Your Teen About Depression
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Managing Expectations With Your Adolescent
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There is no simple test to tell if a child is transgender. Experts often refer to the idea of insistence, consistency, and persistence in terms of gauging whether a child is just going through a phase or not. This means the more insistent a child is, and the longer...
What is A Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility?
A psychiatric residential treatment facility (PRTF) provides out-of-home psychiatric care to children, adolescents, and young adults in a non-hospital, highly structured setting. PRTF’s serve clients whose mental health needs require more intensive treatment than can...
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Why Surgery Can Be the Gateway to Teen Opioid Addiction
Naturally, getting any sort of surgery is a complicated process that carries with it a unique risk of further complications. But one common complication that is often overlooked by many individuals in the medical field doesn’t come from the actual surgery itself, rather, it comes from the medications used to treat its after-effects.
Across the United States, opioid addiction has become a rapidly growing problem. In fact, many people argue that our nation is currently undergoing what has been claimed to be an opioid epidemic. One of the things that makes opioid addiction so inherently risky is that it can often be triggered even when following the doctor’s exact orders—taking a prescribed amount each day until treatment has been completed, and then hoping you can stop once the pills have run out.
But unfortunately many people can find themselves unable to stop once they run out. They begin having trouble sleeping, feeling constant pain, and can literally become sick to their stomachs. Their body is actively communicating to their brain that they need to get more opiates, and even if their prescription has expired, this signal is so strong that it can drive them to search for substances elsewhere.
According to a recent study conducted by the University of Michigan, approximately 1 in 20 teenagers who are prescribed opiates will end up with some sort of lasting addiction. Even when these teenagers have not had any history of substance abuse, the proven addictive qualities of opiates can quite frequently be too strong to overcome.
Substance abuse problems that are formed during the teenage years carry with them a unique set of problems. For teenagers, these addictions can be noticeably harder to overcome due to their underdevelopment in rationalizing delayed gratification. Furthermore, because both their brains and their bodies are still actively developing, teenagers who adopt substance abuse problems can experience a wide variety of long-term developmental issues.
All of these very real problems associated with opioid addiction put both doctors and parents of teenagers in a remarkably difficult situation. On one hand, teenagers who are forced to undergo surgery are inevitably going to be experiencing a tremendous amount of pain when they wake up, and opiates are something that can diminish this pain better than seemingly every other option. On the other hand, knowing the risk of substance abuse, no parent nor responsible doctor will be very enthused about the need for a prescription.
Common opiates prescribed after surgery include oxycodone (OxyContin) and hydrocodone (Vicodin). Though in some situations, these prescriptions are simply unavoidable, there are a number of things that parents can do to help mitigate the risk of addiction.
Depending on the condition, personality, and medical needs of your teenager, you may want to consider holding onto the pills themselves and distribute them only when they are asked for. This can create a sort of “checkpoint” between your teenager and their medication that will allow you to make sure they are not taking too much at once.
But if you don’t want to control your child’s access to a medicine they likely need—especially if you are going to be at work or absent for long periods of time—you can also be actively looking out for potential signs of addiction. If your teenager begins experiencing dramatic changes in mood, changes in sleeping patterns, and changes in their normal behavior over time, then they may have developed a problem.
Having a teenager undergo surgery is no easy task for any parent. Having a teenager develop an opiate addiction can be even harder. But with the proper wherewithal and proactive behavior, you can be part of the solution.
If you think your teenager has already developed a substance abuse disorder, it is important to get help immediately. Polaris’ Residential Treatment Centers specialize in adolescent mental health rehabilitation for teens. Our team of certified experts are well-versed in treating co-occurring disorders such as substance and alcohol abuse. Let us help your teen live a happy and fufilled life. To learn more about our program, or to speak to our admissions specialists, contact us here.
Polaris Teen Center is a residential treatment facility for teens and adolescents suffering from severe mental health disorders. Our highly accredited facility is fully licensed and certified in Trauma Informed Care and is a part of the Behavioral Health Association of Providers (formerly AATA).
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A Parent’s Guide To Navigating Grief In Teenagers
Grief is a complex emotion that can be challenging for teens to navigate. According to the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model (CBEM), 1 in 12 children and teens in the U.S. will experience the death of a parent or sibling by age 18. While grief is usually...
When to Choose Residential Treatment Over Other Treatment Programs
When seeking help for your teen, it’s important to know which mental health conditions can be treated by residential treatment. For teens suffering from mental health disorders, behavioral disorders, psychological disorders, or addiction issues, there are a variety of...
Does Insurance Cover Teen Residential Treatment?
How Much Does Residential Treatment Cost? Cost of Residential Treatment The cost of residential treatment varies between each Residential Treatment Center (RTC). It may range from free (which is very uncommon) to tens of thousands of dollars per month. And if you are...
3% of Teens Identify as Transgender or Gender Nonconforming in America
How Many Transgender Teens Are There? Approximately 150,000 American teens (ages 13 to 17) identify as transgender in the United States today. Of course, there is no general age in which people typically “discover” or “come out” as transgender. Nonetheless, more and...
How To Treat Teen Depression (A Guide for Parents)
It is very common for young people to experience occasional moodiness or periods of sadness. Yet with depression rates on the rise amongst adolescents and teenagers (approximately 12.5% of youth today have experience at least one major depressive episode), it is vital...
Distinguishing Between Signs of Depression or “Moodiness” in Teens
Parents often wonder how to distinguish normal teenage mood swings and rebellions from actual symptoms of depression. Fortunately, there are several ways to tell. As many as 1 in 5 teenagers will experience depression at some point during adolescence. Unfortunately,...
Social Anxiety in Teens: Signs, Symptoms, and How to Help
What is Social Anxiety? Social anxiety disorder (SAD) affects 1 out of 3 adolescents between 13 and 18 years old. Over 19 million people across America suffer from social anxiety disorder (SAD) today. It is the most common anxiety disorder and third most common mental...
Teen Depression Prevention: Parent, Friend, and Support Tips
At any given time, one out of every five teenagers is experiencing major depression. If you are a parent to an adolescent or teenager, you are likely familiar with the moodiness inherent to this age group. Mood swings are common, as teens are experiencing a vast...
How to Talk to Your Teen About Depression
Talking to your teen about depression can be a difficult and intimidating task. The adolescent and teenage years are some of the most difficult, due to the immense amount of changes going on in both the brain and the body. These changes affect how teens think, learn,...