NORWALK — The pain started 10 years ago.

A degenerated disk in Michael Bloom’s neck sent sharp, shooting pains from his neck, through his left arm, to his fingertips. After two years, it became unbearable and he had two choices: a risky surgery to fuse two vertebrae in his spine or pain management medication.

He chose medication and kept working through the pain. After 18 months he was taking more than 100 milligrams per day of prescribed opiate-based pain medication. He was irritable, angry and, worst of all, still in pain.

“After awhile I felt guilty for being irritable and then I started to hate myself for being irritable,” Bloom said. “I felt like I was rotting away. My spirit and soul were gone, and the pain medications were eating away at who I was. So I finally went through with the surgery and the pain was resolved.”

His dependence on prescription painkillers, though, was not.

“If you take something four or five times a day for that long, you can’t just wake up one day and say, ‘I’m not going to take this anymore,’” Bloom said. “There’s no way to just stop taking it. You go into withdrawal and it makes you really sick, so you keep taking it. It’s not abuse, but there’s a stigma attached to it because it’s hard to judge who’s just trying to get high.”

Bloom finally sought help for addiction, and has been clean for four years. But the daily Suboxone pills he was forced to take to combat his body's physical demand for opiates were a constant reminder of his addiction. Now, the Norwalk native is the first New England recipient of a Probuphine implant, approved in May by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The implant, administered by Westport doctor Joseph Russo in June, is roughly one inch long by half an inch wide and inserted just under the skin on the inside of Bloom’s upper arm. It is designed to provide a constant, low-level dose of buprenorphine — the same drug in Suboxone — for six months.

“I’m back to the mind set I had pre-addiction,“ Bloom said. "With Suboxone I still felt like I was addicted because I had that daily interaction with pills.“

Russo, the CEO, founder and medical director at Saved From Addiction, Inc. and co-owner of The Recovery Center of Westport, said the treatment can be used to combat any form of opiate addiction from heroin to prescription painkillers. He said there are many benefits to the treatment, but the biggest is that it eliminates the possibility for human error.

“The strength of the implant is that it prevents relapse which can happen if you forget to take the pills or decide not to,“ Russo said. “For at least six months relapse isn’t even an option.”

According to the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, there were 208 opiate-related accidental overdose deaths in the first quarter of 2016, and opioid deaths in Connecticut grew from fewer than 300 in 2009 to nearly 500 by 2014, matching national statistics for what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls an epidemic.

On an average day in the U.S., more than 650,000 opioid prescriptions are dispensed and 78 people die from an opioid-related overdose, either from prescription opioids or illicit opioids such as heroin, according to the CDC.

The six-month Probuphine implant costs about $5,000, and doctors must order it directly. It's unclear whether many insurance companies will initially pay for Probuphine, and many insurance companies may not have considered coverage for it yet. Russo said the biggest risks associated with the implant are related to insertion, which is done in about 30 minutes under local anesthetic in his office.

“For me, when he asked if I wanted to try it, I said yes before he could even finish," Bloom said. “I wanted to prove I’m all in. I don’t ever want to go back to where I was with the painkillers.“

The treatment is available for anyone who is on 8 milligrams or less of Suboxone. When Bloom first started treatment, he took 16 milligrams and was down to 4 milligrams when Probuphine was approved. Russo said the medication in Suboxone and Probuphine, which works by suppressing withdrawal symptoms and opioid cravings, should always be part of a broader treatment plan which includes psychological therapy.

“Addiction is not a moral failing or a character weakness," Russo said. “It’s a chronic illness and if society could see it that way the stigma would be reduced. There’s too much shame associated with it and it prevents people from getting the help they need.”

Russo said he hopes the implant takes off as the go-to treatment for opioid addiction, and Bloom said he hopes sharing his story will encourage others to seek help without shame.

“That's another reason I’m taking about this now," Bloom said. “It becomes a personal struggle and you become embarrassed because of the stigma, but I'm tired of burying my friends who die from addiction. We have to talk about it and I hope that this helps someone find treatment.“