Dual Diagnosis Care With Medication Management MA

Breaking the Habit of Self-Adjusting Doses: Dual Diagnosis Care with Medication Management in MA

Medication mismanagement has caused people to end up fatally ill or even face death due to overdose. In Massachusetts alone, more than 2,100 individuals have faced this fate. So, it is no surprise that medication management is a need, not just a want, especially when it comes to dual diagnosis care.

When an individual is already battling co-occurring disorders, falling back into addiction is often the first domino to fall – and mismanagement of medicine leads to exactly that. Today, let’s discuss the scary side of self-adjusting dosages and how dual diagnosis care with medication management in MA is the ultimate solution.

Why is There a Need for Medication Management in Massachusetts?

The very first question is, why Massachusetts? Well, in Massachusetts, cases of medication overdosage have been around 2,125 confirmed and estimated opioid-related deaths in 2023 alone. Combine that with tens of thousands of individuals struggling with dual diagnosis, and the situation is not great. 

With such bad numbers already in place, Massachusetts residents are at a greater risk of facing serious health complications, loss of life, and increased hospitalization due to medication overdosage. As a result, there is a higher need for dual diagnosis care with medication management in MA.

Now, before we discuss how dual diagnosis care with medication management in MA helps individuals, let’s discuss what happens when you self-adjust medicine dosage:

What Happens with Overmedication or Self-Adjusting Doses?

People feel comfortable self-adjusting medication dosage because they believe their symptoms will subside faster and because they assume more medication equals more relief, which makes them feel temporarily more in control and less anxious. But the same self-adjustment of dosage is fatal. 

Take the example of benzodiazepines, a medicine often prescribed to individuals struggling with both anxiety disorders and substance use issues. In routine care, medical practitioners recommend this medicine in an amount of 0.5–1 mg twice daily, which is safe. 

But if and when individuals self-adjust it, they can end up experiencing severe drowsiness, respiratory depression, or fatal overdose if they ingest several times the prescribed dose.

The Hidden Dangers of Over-Medication 

Let’s say you are lucky and don’t die, do you know what dangers overmedication holds? Here’s a list of some of the hidden dangers one by one: 

1. Increased Side Effects: 

Commonly prescribed medicines like antidepressants and antipsychotics have side effects of mild dizziness, fatigue, and weight gain. 

However, overmedication can result in severe sedation and cardiovascular effects or even emotional blunting.

2. Masking of Real Symptoms: 

One of the biggest problems that occurs with dual disorders is that overdosage of medication can mask the real symptoms of patients. 

When you take antipsychotics, for instance, they reduce the effect of hallucinations or mood swings, which is accounted for by the doctor prescribing the medication. But when you adjust the dosage yourself, it makes it harder for providers to know what is working and what is not. 

This can delay necessary treatment changes and lead to ineffective recovery plans.

3. Disrupted Recovery: 

When an individual adjusts the dosage without discussing with doctors, monitored results show a completely different recovery projection. 

This means your temporary symptom suppression will appear as steady progress, and you may appear at an advanced stage of recovery. 

The result of such a situation is either a direct relapse when the symptoms return more severely or complete in-patient hospitalization once the system destabilizes.

4. Erodes Trust in Treatment: 

Here’s the thing: when a doctor prescribes you Duloxetine to help with anxiety symptoms, they may prescribe 30-60 mg daily, which doesn’t completely make anxiety disappear but helps you feel at ease. 

If you self-adjust the medication, it stops having the intended effect and instead makes you feel restless, emotionally numb, and physically unwell. 

In such situations, patients often conclude that medications “don’t work,” when in reality the problem lies in misuse and self-adjustment.

Dual Diagnosis Care with Medication Management in MA: The Safer Alternative

Research shows that correct medication management results in approximately a 33% increase in adherence to antidepressant medication at 6 months vs typical care. With the correct dual diagnosis care with medication management in MA, you can expect better symptom stability, reduced relapse risk, and improved long-term recovery outcomes. 

Moreover, it also helps in these critical ways:

1. Structured Oversight: 

With dual diagnosis care with medication management in MA, psychiatrists and nurse practitioners make sure that you receive the right dose at the right time.