Lakeview Health News

The Relationship Between Addiction And Your Physical Health Amid COVID-19
April 15th, 2020Addiction and your physical health are intertwined, with one directly impacting the other. Various types of drugs affect your body in different ways, and likewise, the effects that drugs cause varies from one person to the other. How a drug affects someone depends on many factors, such as general health, body size, and the strength
Read More
Substance Abuse and Compromised Immune Systems – What it Means for COVID-19
April 14th, 2020As the world faces a pandemic with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), many are concerned about how this may affect them. There who are at higher risk for contracting the virus and having more severe complications are those with a compromised immune system. This means for substance abusers, their risks increase if they do contract the
Read More
Managing Anxiety and Substance Use During Coronavirus
April 13th, 2020The last few weeks have brought about a head-spinning set of changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s hard not to feel increased stress amid uncertainties – from finances, to jobs and even our own health. For someone who suffers with substance use disorder, these added stressors can easily magnify anxiety and increase a substance
Read More
Safety at Rehab is Ideal Amid COVID-19
April 9th, 2020Amid the anxiety-driven COVID-19 fears, people struggling with substance use disorders can take comfort in knowing there is safety offered at a rehab facility. Lakeview Health is taking the current COVID-19 pandemic seriously, and our staff have implemented necessary protocols and precautions to continue offering treatment for those in need. We recognize that just because
Read More
Staying in Recovery While Practicing Social Distancing
March 20th, 2020As the country works together to reduce the spread of COVID-19, many are encouraging the practice of social distancing. However, for those in recovery, social distancing can often bring more questions coupled with anxiety than answers and calmness. Those in addiction recovery shouldn’t panic and let this concept scare them. One of the best ways
Read More
Lakeview Health Closely Monitoring COVID-19 (Coronavirus)
March 3rd, 2020In conjunction with our existing infection control policies, Lakeview Health is closely monitoring local, state and federal guidance regarding the coronavirus in order to enhance efforts in keeping our patients safe and healthy. Our physicians and staff are following CDC guidelines and each facility has added additional screening measures for incoming patients, such as review
Read More
It’s time for change. The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health
September 20th, 2018Substance misuse and its harms are a pervasive problem in the United States. Not only are individuals and families struggling with the consequences of this serious issue, but the effects also have far-reaching consequences on workplaces, the health care system, families, states, and communities. In the United States: Almost 67 million people reported binge drinking
Read More
International Overdose Awareness Day & Global Statistics
August 31st, 2018Sally J. Finn at the Salvation Army in St Kilda, Melbourne created International Overdose Awareness Day in 2001. Since its inception, it has become a public health movement to raise awareness on drugs and prevention through events held in countries around the world. The message is a simple, but powerful – the tragedy of overdose death is
Read More
Key Issues Addressed By The SUPPORT Act Legislation
July 24th, 2018Key Issues Addressed By The SUPPORT Act Legislation The SUPPORT Act (Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act) is a combination of 58 bills passed by the House of Representatives. If it becomes law, we’ll be one step closer to what organizations like the National Association of Treatment
Read More
Florida’s New Opioid Laws Effective July 1, 2018
July 1st, 2018Today, July 1, 2018, Florida’s new opioid laws for the regulation of the use of prescription opioids went into effect enforcing a three-day limit on most prescriptions and aims to hold the doctors more accountable to avoid reckless prescriptions. This would largely affect patients whose doctors prescribe opioids for acute pain. If a situation arises
Read More
Opioid Epidemic in New England Far from Over
March 26th, 2018Opioid Epidemic in New England Far from Over New England has been among the hardest-hit regions in the opioid epidemic. The rate of drug overdose deaths in the six northeastern states remains at or above the national average, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some encouraging news for Massachusetts
Read More
Our Response: A Seven-Step Plan for Ending the Opioid Crisis
February 27th, 2018Our Response: A Seven-Step Plan for Ending the Opioid Crisis In a recently published article, “A Seven-Step Plan for Ending the Opioid Crisis,” Michael Bloomberg strongly called upon Congress to take serious action in combating the opioid crisis in America. “The opioid crisis is a solvable problem. But to save lives, we need bolder leadership
Read More
With Drug Overdose Deaths Rising, Rehab isn’t About Giving Up One Thing
February 26th, 2018Drug Overdose Deaths Rising: It Isn’t About Giving Up One Thing Drug overdose deaths are occurring at record levels in the United States. According to the latest statistics provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), US drug overdose deaths surpassed the 50,000 mark for the first time in 2015, reaching 52,404 fatalities.
Read More
The Opioid Epidemic in Hays County Texas Continues To Rise
January 18th, 2018Opioid Epidemic in Hays County Texas Drug overdose deaths in Texas have been leveling off in recent years according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hays County—situated between Austin and San Antonio—seems to buck that trend. Local addiction counselor Tori Bowman told Communityimpact.com that a quarter of her patients
Read More
New Jersey Holds Town Hall Meetings on Reorganization of Addiction and Mental Health Services
January 16th, 2018New Jersey Holds Town Hall Meetings on Reorganization of Addiction and Mental Health Services By Michael Rass New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has said the opioid crisis will be his primary focus before he leaves office in January. In his final state-of-the-state address, Christie called that crisis “one that is ripping the very fabric of
Read More
What is the Heroin Triangle? A Georgia Epidemic
September 29th, 2017Photo: J. Tesla / CC BY-SA 4.0 What is the Heroin Triangle? In January, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal referred to the drug overdose crisis in his state as “an ongoing epidemic that ravages the hearts and minds of not only individuals but also the communities that they touch.” The focal point of Georgia’s heroin
Read More
Wisconsin Leads Midwest in Alcohol Misuse and Faces Growing Meth Problem
September 27th, 2017Wisconsin Leads Midwest in Alcohol Misuse and Faces Growing Meth Problem By Michael Rass Like many other states in the Union, Wisconsin has an opioid problem. Governor Scott Walker put it bluntly: “We’ve recently seen opioid use and abuse escalate throughout Wisconsin. The bottom line is this has become an epidemic, and every year we
Read More
New Illinois Survey Shows Many Directly Touched by Opioid Epidemic
September 25th, 2017A new poll from the National Safety Council (NSC) shows one in three Illinois residents has been directly touched by the opioid epidemic ravaging the nation. Illinoisans may have personally known someone who has become addicted to opioids, known someone who overdosed or died from an overdose or suffered from opioid use disorder themselves. Last
Read More
New York Provides Inexpensive Naloxone to Fight Opioid Epidemic
September 22nd, 2017Photo: MTA New York City Transit / Marc A. Hermann / CC BY 2.0 New York Provides Inexpensive Naloxone to Combat Opioid Epidemic By Michael Rass The New York State Joint Senate Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction reported last year that “virtually no corner of the state has been left untouched by the
Read More
New Pilot Program to Reduce Opioid Deaths in Jacksonville
September 19th, 2017New Pilot Program to Reduce Opioid Deaths in Jacksonville By Michael Rass Fact: Every day, an average of 12 people overdose on heroin or similar drugs in Jacksonville, Florida. The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department (JFRD) tracks overdose emergency calls. JFRD says in 2015, they had 2,114 overdose victims. In 2016, that number jumped to
Read More
Fighting Stigma and the Opioid Epidemic in Western Pennsylvania
September 13th, 2017More than 4,600 people died of drug overdoses in Pennsylvania last year, a 37 percent increase from 2015 according to a recent report published by the Philadelphia field division of the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the University of Pittsburgh. Heroin has been replaced by the synthetic opioid fentanyl (and fentanyl-related substances) as the number
Read More
Playwrights Battle the Opioid Epidemic in Ohio
September 12th, 2017More than 4,100 Ohioans died from accidental drug overdoses in 2016, a 36 percent increase from the year before. On average, eleven Ohioans died each day in 2016 from heroin, fentanyl, carfentanil, or other drugs. The crisis is apparently continuing to escalate. Earlier this year, the Columbus Dispatch contacted the coroner’s offices of all 88
Read More
Ohio’s High-Tech Opioid Technology Challenge
September 8th, 2017Photo: Lisa Chamberlain / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ohio has one of the worst addiction problems in the nation. The state has even been called the “face” of the opioid epidemic. Opioid overdose deaths in Ohio increased by an alarming 29 percent in a single year from 2014 to 2015. The crisis shows no signs of
Read More
The War Against Opioid Addiction in Arizona
September 7th, 2017The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) released its latest data on opioid overdoses in June. The 2016 Arizona Opioid Report showed the highest number of deaths in the state in ten years. In 2016, 790 Arizonans died from opioid overdoses. The trend shows a startling increase of 74 percent over the past four years.
Read More
Drug Overdose Deaths Continue to Rise in Pennsylvania
August 30th, 2017Photo: Fran Rogers / CC BY-SA 2.5 Last year, approximately 13 people died each day of a drug-related overdose in Pennsylvania, according to a new report by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the University of Pittsburgh. The state’s fatal overdose rate increased more than 26 percent from 2015 to 2016, accompanied by a 380 percent
Read More
Wisconsin’s Opioid Crisis And What’s Being Done To Combat It
August 21st, 2017Photo By: Dori / CC BY 2.5 Like other states in the nation, Wisconsin has been struggling with the impact of the opioid addiction crisis on the lives of its residents. Although 63 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties saw a decline or remained the same in the number of opioids prescribed between 2010 and 2015, the
Read More
North Texas Sees Rise in Heart Infections due to Drug Misuse
August 18th, 2017Texas lost 2,601 people to drug overdoses in 2014, many of them to heroin and other opioid drugs. That year, Dallas County had the second-highest overdose rate for opioids in Texas, after Nueces County. Those are not the only fatalities of the addiction epidemic in Texas and the rest of the nation. Dallas TV station WFAA
Read More
Opioid Crisis in Florida’s Miami-Dade County Worsens
August 15th, 2017Photo: Don Ramey Logan / CC BY-SA 4.0 Heroin deaths in Miami-Dade reached record level in 2015, with 83 recorded cases. That’s up from 11 in 2011. To deal with the escalating crisis, the county created a task force last December in attempts to formulate a plan for ending the opioid epidemic. The Miami-Dade Opioid
Read More
Chicago Mayor Emanuel Wants to Increase Access to Addiction Treatment
August 10th, 2017The number of opioid-related deaths continues to rise in Chicago. In response, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced new plans in July to intensify the city’s efforts to combat the epidemic and increase access to addiction treatment. “The opioid epidemic is destroying families across the United States, and Chicago is no exception,” Emanuel said in a statement.
Read More
Drug Addiction Leading Cause of Child Removal in Florida’s Duval County
August 7th, 2017Photo: Don Dearing / CC BY-SA 2.0 The number of children being removed from their homes in Northern Florida’s Duval County due to the drug addiction of their parents is increasing at an alarming rate. Lee Kaywork of Family Support Services told News4jax.com in May that drug addiction used to be the cause of 40
Read More
Massachusetts City Adjusts Trailblazing Drug Amnesty Program
July 31st, 2017Photo: Paul Keleher / CC BY 2.0 Gloucester, the historic fishing city north of Boston, made national headlines in 2015 when it introduced an unprecedented amnesty program that encourages substance users to turn in their drugs to the police without fear of arrest. The hope was that many of the people could be encouraged to
Read More
Central Florida Hard Hit by Fentanyl Scourge
July 26th, 2017Photo: Alvesgaspar / CC BY-SA 3.0 A new report from Florida’s medical examiners found that fentanyl overdose caused more deaths than any other drug in Florida in the first six months of 2016. Compared with the first half of 2015, occurrences of fentanyl—the synthetic opioid that killed Prince—nearly doubled, and deaths caused by fentanyl increased by a
Read More
“Crazy Dangerous” Opioid Carfentanil Appears in Houston
July 17th, 2017The extremely dangerous opioid carfentanil has been confirmed in Houston prompting immediate protective measures for forensic laboratories, and first responders. According to the Houston Chronicle, a presumed batch of methamphetamine tested by the Houston Forensic Science Center (HFSC) in June was found to contain carfentanil. The world’s most powerful commercial opioid is 10,000 times more
Read More
A New Way to Battle Addiction in New Jersey’s Union County
July 17th, 2017Photo: Donald Siano / CC BY-SA 3.0 There is new hope for people struggling with substance use disorder in New Jersey’s Union County. They can now give up their drugs and choose recovery without fear of getting arrested through a new initiative meant to alleviate the county’s opioid addiction crisis. “Citizens of Union County battling substance abuse
Read More
Drug Addiction: A “Common Enemy” in Ohio
July 10th, 2017Photo by: Ynsalh / CC BY-SA 4.0 Ohio is one of three states comprising the heartland of America’s opioid addiction crisis. In 2015, West Virginia (41.5 per 100,000), Kentucky (29.9), and Ohio (29.9) were among the top five states with the highest rates of death due to drug overdose. Florida—with its own drug abuse epidemic and
Read More
The Addiction Battle in Northern Texas
July 3rd, 2017The national opioid addiction crisis has not bypassed communities in northern Texas. In 2014, Dallas County had the second-highest overdose rate from opiate addiction in Texas after Nueces County. The situation in Tarrant County was only marginally better than in neighboring Dallas County. “Heroin and meth made big comebacks in the area recently, and—as elsewhere
Read More
“Our Neighbors Are Dying” – The Addiction Crisis in New Jersey
June 28th, 2017New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has dedicated the last year of his term in office to tackling the drug addiction crisis in his state. “Our friends are dying. Our neighbors are dying. Our co-workers are dying. Our children are dying. Every day. In numbers we can no longer ignore,” Christie declared in his state-of-the-state address
Read More
Opioid Crisis in Southwest Texas: Fentanyl and Carfentanil Posing Threat
June 26th, 2017Photo By: Argash / CC BY-SA 3.0 The national opioid addiction crisis is also affecting neighborhoods in San Antonio. In 2014, Bexar County had the third-highest overdose rate for opiates after Nueces and Dallas Counties. Twenty-one percent of intoxication deaths in Bexar County involved multiple drugs. The US Department of Health and Human Services is soon
Read More
The Link Between Chronic Pain and Addiction in East Texas
June 14th, 2017Houston is the seat of the internationally renowned Texas Medical Center, which contains the world’s largest concentration of research and healthcare institutions. More heart surgeries are performed at Texas Medical Center than anywhere else in the world. The fourth-most populous city in the United States also attracts a lot of patients with chronic pain many
Read More
Pill Mills Resurrecting Across Central Florida
June 6th, 2017Photo by Esmerelda Jade / CC BY-SA 4.0 Six years after shutting down most of the infamous pill mills, central Florida is going through another killer drug crisis. For many years, Interstate 75 was a notorious conduit for prescription drug trafficking, which earned the route the nickname “Oxy Express.” In hospitals along I-75—which runs from Miami
Read More
First Responders In South Florida Overwhelmed By Opioid Epidemic
May 31st, 2017The number of daily opioid overdoses in South Florida is overwhelming the police, reported Public Radio International in April. “Delray Beach is at the epicenter of a South Florida overdose epidemic estimated to have claimed more than 900 lives last year. Medical examiners are still counting.” According to official estimates, first responders in Palm Beach
Read More
North Florida Hit Hard By Substance Use
May 23rd, 2017Photo by Johnathan Zander / CC BY 2.0 Substance use in Florida is on the rise as the national opioid epidemic has claimed thousands of lives in Florida. Earlier this month, Governor Rick Scott officially declared a public health emergency, which allows the state to accept federal grant money for prevention, treatment, and recovery services totaling
Read More
The State of the Opioid Crisis in Georgia
April 19th, 2017Georgia—like many states across the nation—has seen a dramatic increase of drug overdose fatalities in recent years. As elsewhere in the United States, this trend is mostly driven by the misuse of opioids. Of the 1,307 drug overdose deaths in 2015 in Georgia, 900 (88 percent) were related to opioids, including heroin. A 2017 white
Read More