DR. Gooberman... rapid detox...

[skylar]

This was posted on another thread earlier:
Rapid Detox Story




by Amy Cortney
June 24, 2001

I was a prostitute on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden, New Jersey and I used to stand on a corner right under an enormous neon colored billboard that screamed out, "Heroin Detoxification-Confidential Four Hour procedure". I would sometimes laugh to myself and say that I should be getting paid for all the free advertising I was giving to Dr. Lance Gooberman, otherwise known as Dr. Detox.

Standing there everyday and every night I was a glaring example of Heroin Addiction and I, at the very least, thought that he should give me a free procedure. I remember seeing Gooberman on T.V. talk shows hawking his Ultra Rapid Opiate Detox as the closest thing heroin addicts had to a cure. I also knew that there was no way I would ever be one of the fortunate few who had it performed because it cost almost $3,500. UROD was reserved for kids whose parents had the money to pay for it and they were exactly who Gooberman geared his billboards to. After all, the billboards were placed strategically on the highways on the way to and from the drug sets. Those of us who lived in the drug-infested areas didn't venture out to the highways very often. That is unless, of course, you were a prostitute and worked there.

I had a regular guy that picked me named Bob who became a very good friend. He wanted nothing more than to help me get out of the life. He used to say that he saw something more in me and I would just turn my head and nod knowing that my eyes would betray me if he saw them. I knew that I didn't belong there but I had long since abandoned any shred of hope. After all, I was a heroin-addicted, crack-addicted, homeless prostitute with no chance of getting out.

Though Bob saw something in me and he didn't give up. On one of our regular dates, he brought a brochure with him that had those same words that my familiar billboards had. Bob offered to pay the $3,400 for the UROD procedure and I agreed. I looked at it as the secret cure that women like me never got the chance at because we didn't have parents who were willing to pay for it. Our families got long since given up for very good reason. We were sick, hopeless and a very high-risk investment to spend good money on. Though Bob was willing. One can call him stupid or naïve or as I would like to call him, an angel in disguise.

Bob made an appointment for me and they wanted him to bring the full payment in without even seeing me once. They never examined me, took any blood or urine and never even had a conversation with me. Though, they took his non-refundable $3,400 cashier's check with no questions asked.

Gooberman doesn't perform the procedure in a hospital. It is all done in his office in a very large room aligned with beds. They schedule about twelve people on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on the other days they replace implants that have dissolved.

I walked in to the office and the first thing I noticed was the enormous sign that had the Twelve Steps on them. I wondered why they were there because I assumed I wouldn't have to go to any meetings. I was going to be cured, right?

I had a brief meeting with Gooberman himself and he recited a very rehearsed speech about the side effects and the risks associated with his procedure. I don't remember any of it because he was talking way too fast and I was starting to get very nervous. He then wrote about five prescriptions and handed them to Bob telling him that he needs to fill them at the pharmacy up the street. Apparently, it was the same pharmacist that worked with Gooberman to develop the famed Naltrexone Implant. I wondered why I was going to need all those prescriptions since I was going to wake up free and clear of all sickness and disease.

The nurse then came in and escorted me into that room with the beds. I was the first person there and was led to a small bathroom where I was to remove all my clothes and put them in a milk crate. Then, I was handed a diaper and a hospital gown that was so big I had to wrap it around myself almost three times. I was shown to a hospital bed where I laid down. The room was freezing and I was shivering from the cold and from fear. The nurse, who was very nice and helpful, was attempting to start an IV and was having much difficulty finding a vein. One would think that with the clientele they see they would be more proficient in finding difficult veins. She finally was able to find a vein in my neck and by then I was near hysteria. I was scared, cold, and wanted so badly to just get up and leave. Though, they gave me a sedative to relax me and started to explain what they were going to do.

First, the anesthesiologist would administer the medication that would render me unconscious for 4 hours. People on Methadone or who have had any Methadone in their system had to have a 6-hour procedure. After that, the nurse would administer the Narcan and Naltrexone. Those medications would block all opiate receptors in the brain and the mind and body would begin ridding itself of all opiates. Then, while under anesthesia, the doctor will come in and cut a small incision in the abdomen. The Naltrexone implant then gets shoved as far into the patient as possible. They need to get it as deep as possible so that it would be more difficult for patients to rip it out themselves. I was told that I wouldn't feel a thing and I would wake up free from opiates ready to start my new life.

I assume that they either aren't aware of what people really go through or they just don't want to scare people to death. The truth is, it was a nightmare. Though it was true that I wasn't aware of anything, I wasn't totally "out". My subconscious mind was alive and well and was actively responding to having it's whole pleasure center eliminated. What went on inside my brain can only be compared to one's most horrific nightmare multiplied by a thousand. Everything I feared and everything that made me unhappy was showing itself and I had no ability to get out of it. I was told later that they had to restrain me because I was flailing around so wildly they were fearful that I would hurt myself. I remember when I was starting to wake up I kept hearing the most dreadful noise I had ever heard in my life. It sounded like an animal in sheer agony. When I heard the man in the next bed say, "Why is she making those noises?" I realized that they were coming from me. The next thing I heard was the nurse say, "Oh my God, she is nowhere near finished yet" and they sedated me for a couple more hours.

The next time I woke up, a tall male nurse that I hadn't seen before was dragging me into the bathroom. He handed me a diaper and told me to change myself. Apparently, I had soiled and wet myself to the point that I was leaking. The nurse treated me like a child that had done something disgusting and needed to be punished. I cannot recall how I managed to get the diaper off and the new one on but I was back in my bed again crying my eyes out because I was in the most excruciating pain I had ever known. The next thing I knew, the same nurse came back and told me that I had to walk on my own before they would release me. He seemed a little impatient about it too as if I was keeping him there past quitting time. I don't know how I walked, but I'm pretty sure he actually dragged me. No sooner than I was out of bed, I was in the car and on my way home.

Everything else that happened, Bob had to tell me about later. I have no recollection of coming home and getting into bed. Bob said that I kept hitting him and trying to bite him. He said I was like a wild animal and when I think about it now, I really was. That is what those people reduced me to. I came to them a human being with a disease and left there an animal with the same disease untreated. Nothing could prepare me for what I was to endure over the next few weeks.

I was still in full-blown withdrawal only it was unlike any withdrawal I had ever endured before. This time I had all the typical symptoms topped off by such extreme insanity that I really don't know how I didn't kill myself or someone else. I think what "saved me" was my inability to navigate a trip to the bathroom let alone a suicide or homicide.

I started to feel relatively human again after about three weeks. Though, nothing improved. In the absence of the physical pain, I went into a complete psychological and emotional crisis. I heard voices all around me at all times warning me of impending doom. I kept hearing these voices tell me that I'm a horrible person not worthy of anything good and that I really should just kill myself. I eventually ended up in a dark room, in a corner, drinking and smoking crack until I was ready to jump out the window. I have no idea why or how I lived through that.

There is so much more to this story and I know I could go on and on describing this experience. Though, I will share one more story and finally stop being haunted by the past. I am hopeful that I will be able to close the book on that time in my life and move on to a life filled with joy and free from fear and pain. I thank God with every fiber of my being that I was able to find Methadone, a humane, effective treatment for heroin addiction that has been the closest thing I have known to a cure…A REAL cure.

About three weeks after I underwent the UROD procedure that was supposed to "free me from active addiction", I stood in front of my dearest friend Bob and told him through tears that if there was a gun and a bag of dope sitting on the table and I had to choose between his life and that bag, I would blow him away. I said those words with total conviction and without hesitation and with such disdain for his life that I knew then that UROD not only robbed me of my ability to feel any joy whatsoever, it robbed me of my humanity.

Only time and proper medical treatment with Methadone has allowed me to regain all I had lost and then some. I recently heard that Dr. Lance Gooberman is no longer performing the UROD procedure due to seven deaths associated with it. I can only hope that through their deaths, the powers that be will stand up and take notice of a barbaric procedure hiding under the guise of medicine and put a stop to it at long last. Only then will I be able to truly say that it was all worth it… Amy Cortney
June 24, 2001


Wow! that is the same doc i almost did the rapid detox in!. Only at that time he was practicing in merchantsville. They DID stop him from performing it. I later came back to see him though for a bup detox ( to no avail).

Anyway, he did kill many people during those rapid detox sessions. I think Amy will be happy to know Dr. gooberman has had his medical liscence revoked, and is no longer practicing medicine of ANY kind.

Just thought I'd throw that out there...

[angelgirl]

What a completely horrible animal that dr was huh??
Maybe he had some anger, or hatred for addicts, and this
is why he did this?? I just can't imagine.. Seems like something out
of a bad dream, nightmare..

I am happy to hear he was revoked, and terribly sorry for the poor addicts,
who only wanted to get their lives together, and get clean. Who can blame anyone
for wanting to get clean, if you believe it will be done in 4 hours, and oh so easy,,
But it wasn't.. I still say, anything that sounds to good to be true, usually is..

I can't believe it wasn't more highly publicized?
But like I also said in the other post, I always wondered why I only
heard about this procedure, but never actually heard anyone that went through it,
talk about it.

Thanks,, Good info for everyone!!

Love
Becky

[geofite]

more about rapid detox and gooberman.



<CENTER>Trial of UROD Provider Underway

</CENTER> Dr. Lance Gooberman’s trial began in January [as of this issue going to print, the trial has not concluded]. Dr. Gooberman performs the so-called UROD (Ultra Rapid Opiate Detoxification) treatment, where opiate addicts are placed under anesthesia and given intravenous opiate antagonists, which “knock” opiates out of receptor sites--resulting in immediate, severe withdrawal. Methadone Today has printed several accounts by individuals who underwent UROD--nearly every one of them could be described as “horror stories”, and all of the individuals’ experiences with UROD were negative (see page 3 of the February issue for one such story).



As reporter Iver Peterson explains in “Malpractice Case Begins for Specialist in Addiction Who Used a Cold-Turkey Method”, Dr. Gooberman is not being tried for a crime; rather, the trial will determine whether Dr. Gooberman will lose his medical license (obviously, if he lost his license, it would be illegal for him to perform UROD--or any other medical treatment or procedure). Peterson states that, “the two of them [Dr. Gooberman and a staff member] have been charged with using unproven medical treatments, administering general anesthesia without proper supervision and discharging their patients without providing for adequate after-care.”

According to this article, the State of New Jersey asserts that at minimum, Dr. Gooberman’s UROD treatments are responsible for seven deaths. At issue is not only the UROD procedure, “[but] the outpatient nature of Dr. Gooberman’s practice.” He allegedly would routinely release UROD patients into the care of a friend or relative with no training or medical background very shortly after the procedure, when they should have been monitored by professionals in an inpatient setting.

Yet, according to the aforementioned article, Dr. Gooberman denies any wrongdoing and has apparently prepared a vigorous defense. He blames some of the deaths on the use of “non-opiate drugs, such as cocaine, immediately after the treatment” and also blames some of the deaths on undetectable “medical problems.” (It should be noted that UROD has been associated with deaths outside of Dr. Gooberman’s practice.)

We at Methadone Today question the safety and efficacy of UROD. From patient accounts, we also gather that UROD is not a humane procedure. But what we dislike the most about UROD is that many providers of UROD, particularly Dr. Gooberman, are dishonest with prospective patients about the treatment. Most of the UROD stories we receive indicate that UROD providers deliberately misrepresented various aspects of the treatment so that the prospective patient would agree to undergo the procedure. For instance, most UROD providers claim that once the procedure is over and the patient has awoke that any remaining withdrawal symptoms are fairly mild, yet in nearly every UROD story we received, the patient was in severe withdrawal following the procedure. Many of the individuals who sent us their stories felt that they had been tricked into undergoing the procedure--spending a large sum of money for a treatment that turned out to be inferior to conventional withdrawal. As for Dr. Gooberman, we were appalled at his shameless hawking of UROD on television programs like “Montel” and the poor treatment of patients in his care. Perhaps this will be the end of his UROD practice. *“Malpractice Case Begins for Specialist in Addiction Who Used a Cold-Turkey Method,” Iver Peterson Ercerville, January 4, 2001.
http://www.methadonetoday.org/v6_n03.htm#Trial
<CENTER>UROD Story: The Lies and My Ordeal

</CENTER><CENTER>by J. D.

Reprinted from MIE (Methadone Information Exchange)</CENTER>

In April 1995, I paid $4,000 to Dr. Lance Gooberman, the highly specialized doctor in the world of ultra rapid [opiate] detox. I would like to share my story about what he did to me.

When I called and spoke to him, he told me I would be heroin free in four hours and that I would be going out to dinner that night. Boy, I was the happiest guy in the world when he said that to me. He told me to be at his office at 6:00 a.m. to start the procedure.

At 6:00 a.m., I'm taken back to a room to put on a giant diaper and a patch on my back for pain [I'm thinking "what pain; there's not supposed to be pain"]. Anyway, I go into another room and hop onto a bed where Dr. Gooberman is standing and assures me I'll have a new life when I wake up.

As I'm laying in bed, the doctor says that should anything go wrong, there's a hospital two blocks away and they would rush me there. He never told me this when I spoke to him about the procedure days before [lie#2]. Next, a mask was put over my mouth and Dr. Gooberman squeezed my throat. In the meantime, they were looking for the $4,000 that I was supposed to pay him, so they sent in my friend that took me there. According to my friend, when she entered the room and looked at me, my eyes were taped shut, my body was shaking uncontrollably, tubes were in my nose, I was sweating terribly, my body was four times its normal size, and my eyes were black and blue. She asked Dr. Gooberman if I was okay because she thought I was going to die.
At 9:30 a nurse was shaking me to get up; at 9:45 she got me out of bed, and the diaper I was wearing was full of human waste [to put it nicely], and there was a smell coming from my body that made me throw up. I was put into a bathroom, with my clothes in a milk case on the floor and told to clean myself up and get dressed. I was dizzy and in pain but left alone to clean myself up and get dressed, so I called my friend to help me. From there I was put in a wheelchair and thrown [like a piece of garbage into a dumpster] back into the car that took me there. That was the humiliating part of it.

Dr. Gooberman had told me I would be swimming in my bed - when I got home thirty minutes later - and that I was. For about thirty hours, my body would stretch out like I was swimming UROD Story (from p. 1)
and screaming at the same time; the pain was unbearable - it was like I had been hit with the flu twenty times at once. I had body aches, a headache, the runs every fifteen minutes which caused my ass to bleed, and when I would ****, my penis would burn like there was no tomorrow. In addition, I could not sleep or eat for twelve days, and I could not talk for the first three days due to the pain in my face and nose. On three occasions, my friend was ready to call an ambulance because she was so afraid I was going to die! I should have died --I was one of the lucky ones (six of his patients allegedly died).
When I left Dr. Gooberman=s office, he gave me two prescriptions--one for three needles to inject for the runs [they did not work] and one for trazadone, an anti-depressant that would make me sleep [yeah right]. In addition, the [naltrexone] implant became infected and had to be removed at the emergency room.

The first nine days, I had a fever between 104-107E --my body was on fire. There is honestly no way to express the pain in my body other than being hit with the flu twenty times all at the same time. All I remember is wanting to die--to take a gun to my head and pull the trigger. All this went on for twelve days, during which several calls were made to Dr. Gooberman, who did not return them until two days later and then all he said was that I had to ride it out. I begged this man for help and all he kept saying was there was nothing he could do and to ride it out; he promised me I would be okay in a day or so!
Well it took fifteen days before I took my first shower and was able to get out of bed. On my sixteenth day, I was at it again using heroin and after another two weeks was strung out again--so much for the $4000 I spent. He told me that once your body is clean of heroin, you won=t have the craving for it [lie #4 or 5].

I spent about six months using again until a friend of mine told me about a clinic where you can get METHADONE and not get sick anymore. The next day I went there and was put on methadone maintenance. Since I started taking methadone, I lost all my craving for heroin and getting high; I am able to live a normal life again without chasing drugs. It's been close to five years now, and I have been clean and live the good life that we all should be living.

The famous Dr. Gooberman is awaiting trial for the deaths of those poor six people. At a medical hearing, he told the state board of medical examiners that doctors from all over the world call him and ask how to do ultra rapid detox (UROD), so chances are that today, doctors all over the world are trying his research and like him, but they really don't know what they're doing. IN MY OPINION - IF YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT UNDERGOING UROD, YOU MAY DIE FROM UROD, AND THERE IS NO PAINLESS WAY TO DETOX FROM OPIATES OTHER THAN METHADONE. There are other web sites [in addition to MIE and including Methadone Today] you can read that are about UROD and what people go through. Read all you can on the subject before you even think about going for it! Also think about the people who have died from it.

Thank you for letting me share my story with you. If I change one person's mind, I may have saved a human life (besides the risk of dying from UROD itself, the pure hell of suffering may result in the person taking his or her own life). UROD is used today to fill the doctor's pocket with money - it's been proven it does not work, so please research it thoroughly before you do it. Editor's Note: For clarification's sake, we must state that it has not been proven that UROD "does not work," (e.g.: is ineffective) at least from a medical research standpoint. Notwithstanding the author's strong opinion, which is understandable given his experience, it is probably not true that UROD is always ineffective--no doubt there are patients who have had success with the procedure. However, we have been hard pressed to find UROD success stories; overall, we believe that this author's experience is fairly representative and that UROD is generally an inhumane and ineffective treatment.


http://www.methadonetoday.org/v5_n10.htm#Ordeal

[Alera]

Four hour procedure? Yeah, that's ultra-rapid all right.

And ultra-dangerous.

BTW, the "famed" doctor is now just pushing the naltrexone pellet implants on his website without mentioning UR detox

He's also no longer treating patients

From his website:

Dr. Gooberman's patients are now being cared for at
the NaltrexZone (TM), utilizing his patented techniques and methodologies.

If you look at his fee schedule, all he does now is testify at DWI trials.

[Alera]

Originally Posted by angelgirl

What a completely horrible animal that dr was huh??
Maybe he had some anger, or hatred for addicts, and this
is why he did this?? I just can't imagine.. Seems like something out
of a bad dream, nightmare..

Even worse. He used to be an addict too.
From Wired Magazine

One of them was Lance Gooberman, an American MD who concluded that the danger of Loimer's rapid detox method was outweighed by the fact that addicts were dying on the streets every day. Gooberman knew the risks of drug dependence first hand - he was an alcoholic and had been hooked on methamphetamines before he began treating other addicts. He understood that many junkies wouldn't even consider kicking - conventional detox scared them too much. A faster, less painful withdrawal could mean the difference between going into treatment and death for many. So in 1994 Gooberman took Loimer's experimental work and turned it into a business.

Clicking on the link is actually a very interesting article about regular (not ultra) rapid detox.

And the famed doc. only had his license revoked for two years.

Google Dr. Lance Gooberman for lots of interesting info.

[mendingheart]

Oh my ......my heart goes out to all of you. Does anyone know if this is the similar procedure in the MROD clinics still out there? Was this just his practice, or are there others ?
We had checked into the MROD center in Chicago and Detroit. I am so grateful we chose another path!

[Alera]

Mending Heart. It is very similar. The only difference is that this joker did it in his office instead of inside a hospital. Besides that, its basically the same.

You can read a MROD Chicago horror story here
http://heroin-detox.com/topic.asp?AR...&TOPIC_ID=2491

BTW, Gooberman was a "pioneer" in the field of rapid detox.

[Alera]

More on Rapid Detox. If you google MidWest Rapid Opiate Detox you will find many article on our "friend" Dr. G including the original article in Wired I linked to above. You will also find there is one study and it found Rapid Detox dangerous and slightly less effective than other detoxes. From USA Today

But the technique can be life-threatening, is not pain-free and has no advantage over other methods, a new study of 106 patients found.

this article was peer-reviewed and published in JAMA the Journal of the American Medical Association. Here is the full article. You need Adobe Acrobat Reader if you can't see the article when you click on the link,

http://www.csdp.org/research/903.pdf

[skylar]

great info alera, nice research! But, in the end gooberman DID get his medical liscence back then?

[larry g]

Alera,
Great info. Guess all is not as advertised.
Have you heard or read anything about Florida Detox other than what is on their site?

What about rapid detox for cocaine and alcohol? Its also mentioned?

Alera---really appreciate all your research. This Gooberman is a scary guy... The chat site was verrrrrrrry interesting. A lot of passion from hurting people.
Thanks,
larry

[Alera]

Florida detox has both regular and rapid detox. The Wired article doesn't mention Florida Detox by name but much of what they do can be assumed by the other articles since it is the same method (anesthesia, Narcan, etc.).

Both MROD and FD are based on Gooberman's work.

[skylar]

As someone already said, gooberman was a pioneer in rapid detox. Un fortunately many people suffered horrible consequences in his "testing" phase. Oddly enough alot of gooberman's work has led to many new and improved treatments for detoxification. Unfortunately he let his ego get away from him, and let it get ahead of his work. he's resposible for the invention of naltrexone and the implant which is now commonly used with success. a friend had the implant done with success for him. When these patients died under rapid detox it was many years ago. I did my bup detox with gooberman in 2001, and he had already been shut down as far as the RD procedure. Stranger still, is that "his" clinic in merchantsville is still treating patients with bup, just a different doc there now.

[Alera]

Originally Posted by skylar

great info alera, nice research! But, in the end gooberman DID get his medical liscence back then?

No but he will.

Rapid Detox has been medically shown to be more dangerous and no more successful than regular opiate detox. If anything, it is slightly less effective. This was published in JAMA in 2005.

In addition, it can be quite painful even in the current form. It does not take away all WD's as a google search will show you.

I'm glad it worked for your friend. However, with all the medical risks and a success rate slightly lower, or equal to other forms of detox I would not recommend it myself*.

BUT it does work on some people. And your friend is an example of that. Just because it does not work on most people does not mean I will slam it in any way. I dont' find NA to work for me, but it works for many many people. Same with Rapid Detox.

* I did not have an opinion one way or another until I read the JAMA article, which is peer-reviewed. Any treatment which does not have a much higher success rate AND an increased medical danger is not one I would recommend. This would be true if it was SMART recovery or NA.