Dr. Meg Patterson
NeuroElectric Therapy
FDA-approved medications for opioid use disorder work for many people, but not everyone. There’s a need for alternative treatments for those who want to stay opioid-free without medication.
The NET Device is a transcutaneous alternating current stimulator that is intended to be used in patients experiencing opioid withdrawal. In a 2023 pivotal clinical trial, receiving active stimulation for at least one day was strongly correlated with 12-week outpatient opioid abstinence. This study population had high rates of polydrug exposure on admission, including fentanyl (71%) and methamphetamine/stimulants (50%).
Drug Free
The Story of NeuroElectric Therapy and Other Addiction Treatments
Author: Lorne Patterson
In the mid-1970s Scottish surgeon Meg Patterson made her name as a pioneering doctor who treated a number of music legends for their drug addiction with an astonishing and controversial transcranial electrostimulation technique she had developed called NeuroElectric Therapy (NET). Then she largely disappeared from public view.
Now, in the depths of a global drugs crisis, NET is news again.
Drug Free reveals the facts behind this fascinating story. The book also draws out the emergence - and sometimes disappearance - of other significant addiction treatments in an absorbing year-by-year record that uses the words of key participants to underscore historical milestones in the entangled, myth-distorted, and highly politicised story of drug use, dependency, withdrawal and craving, treatment, relapse - and recovery.
The Final Fix
Directors: Norman Stone, Tim Neeves
Narrator: Ewan McGregor
“The Final Fix follows five chronic substance abusers through a trial of N.E.T. (Neuro Electric Therapy), a non-pharmaceutical treatment invented by the award-winning Scottish surgeon, Dr. Meg Patterson, 45 years ago. Boldly claiming to take people off any drug of addiction (including opioids) within a week, with minimal or no withdrawals and no future cravings, this compelling story could change the plague of addiction forever.”
“An unflinching investigation into a radical treatment for drug abuse that could change the future of addiction and recovery.” - 1A Productions
“riveting.” - Kentucky Today
‘Clinical trial for medical device may prove worthy alternative to medication for opioid abstinence.’
Interview with Professor Mark Greenwald, Principal Investigator, NET Clinical Trial, USA.
‘Presently, OUD treatment engagement levels are unacceptably low – only about 15% of persons with OUD in the U.S. are in treatment. Many individuals want effective non-medication treatment options – for instance, think of participants in 12-step programs, which generally eschew medications – but these are presently limited. This could lead many OUD patients to not seek treatment or to drop out of treatment. So, we need to ‘meet patients where they are’ to get them into treatment and stay in treatment…
Our initial work launched in early 2019 focused on analyzing the benefits of NET for opioid detoxification. We found that its efficacy for reducing opioid withdrawal and craving is comparable to FDA-approved medications. However, because opioid use disorder is a chronic relapsing disorder, we decided that focusing on the short-term benefit of detoxification might not be enough,” Dr. Greenwald said. “We decided to tackle the more challenging issue of seeing whether NET versus placebo stimulation during the inpatient detoxification period could have longer-term efficacy on outpatient opioid abstinence. If that’s the case, that would make a big impact, and would lead to the first-of-its-kind treatment in this disease space.’
Wayne State University School of Medicine News
LINK to full article
How Does a Lie Become an Internet ‘Fact’?
Unaccountable Wikipedia editors persist in maintaining their ‘fact’ that Dr Meg Patterson ‘claimed to be able to treat drug addiction using electrical shocks’ – not only have these editors not been able to produce any evidence to support their ‘electrical shock’ assertion, but they refuse to publish the plentiful evidence that NET has always been benign, low-level current controlled and regulated at a subjective level of comfort.
‘..a steady, pleasant tingling in the ears’ - Meg Patterson. Addiction Can Be Cured: An Interim Report. Lion Publishing, 1975.
And thus propaganda remains on the web as an internet ‘fact’…..