Care+ Brand, Regular and Sugar Free. 140ml (Approx. 400mg Codeine)
I am a fan of codeine and have used this drug for years on and off, at doses regularly up to 400-500mg without any other issues than a bit of constipation or dry mouth.
Usually I use either pure codeine phosphate tablets if I’m lucky enough to get them from my doctor, or failing that I use a simple CWE of Nurofen Plus. I like the face they are 12.8mg per tab, and for me I feel safer CWE extracting Ibuprofen based tabs than Paracetemol.
I recently discovered that codeine linctus was freely available without prescription, with only codeine as the active ingredient, this was somewhat of a revelation as I thought, great, no CWE, very little money for 600mg of Codeine, what could be easier.
I managed to find several local pharmacies that stocked the product and began my first experiment.
I measured out 140ml of the regular version to give me a 400mg dose and drank it down. Same usual codeine feelings, same length of duration, come up and come down, after it had worn off I took 100mg of Amitriptyline as was being prescribed at the time to help with some short term stress. One of the side effects of the Ami was deep sleep, and that night was no different. I woke up the next day fine and considered the experiment a success.
Some weeks later I repeated the exercise, same dose, same product. The only difference is that I had since come off the Amitriptyline. Now, I can usually eat on Codeine quite happily after the first couple of hours and that night I had some KFC and Ice cream, which made me very thirsty in combination with the Linctus. I found though that it was difficult and painful to drink water. It felt uncomfortable in my stomach. I also noticed I couldn’t sleep. My mind was thinking crazy stuff and bouncing around, I would get twitches, I felt extremely nervous, time was moving either too fast or too slow, and it felt like I was half asleep, dreaming (unpleasantly, not frightening but repetitive and stressful), mild auditory hallucinations and massive nausea, I actually felt like I was spinning or falling. This went on for hours, I went to bed at ten and this was still happening until about three a clock. When I finally did get some sort of sleep, it was deeply unpleasant, almost a delirious state. Again, I have taken these doses of codeine in tablet form, without any other drugs lots of times and never experienced anything like this.
I put the experience down to the amount of other crap in the linctus and perhaps the extreme sugar hit combined with dehydration and thought no more of it.
About two weeks later I bought some sugar free linctus, same brand, this also had the benefit of having no chloroform as the regular version did. This time I took a similar 400mg dose, I made sure I was hydrated before and sipped water throughout, I avoided salty food and expected a regular trip. But again, the first sign something was up was the additional nausea, I like the light headedness of codeine but this was unpleasant, different. I went to bed at about 10 and read for an hour, I felt a bit stressed for some reason which is the opposite of how I normally feel on codeine. I tried to sleep and the same thing happened, my mind was racing with thoughts that made no sense, it was delirium not unlike severe sun stroke. I was twitching, I could hear music and voices that would appear and then vanish. I felt a sense of being in that half-way point between sleep and awake. It was a horrible and frightening experience. It appeared to come in short waves, the nausea would build, the noises louder, the feeling of anxiety, then it would go, then after few minutes it would build again. Once again I couldn’t sleep until about 3am and even then it was short bursts of sleep with repetitive and stressful thoughts and dreams. I woke up, feeling tired, a knot in my stomach and general anxiety and edginess.
I googled every single ingredient for side effects but have drawn a blank, the only ingredient that can cause those side effects evidently is the codeine itself, but I’ve taken lots of codeine and never had issues like this.
I can only assume that something in this linctus causes some reaction to make the product undesirable, maybe that’s a deliberate thing by the manufacturer as 600mg of codeine at that price should be much more popular and I’ve not read anything good about it.
I would urge anyone to be aware of the potential side effects. I will not be trying it again, I can honestly say it’s one of the worst experiences of my life, and I’ve tried most drugs in varying degrees.
As I said there is probably a reason for Linctus’s lack of popularity, and I think I may have stumbled upon this.
I am a fan of codeine and have used this drug for years on and off, at doses regularly up to 400-500mg without any other issues than a bit of constipation or dry mouth.
Usually I use either pure codeine phosphate tablets if I’m lucky enough to get them from my doctor, or failing that I use a simple CWE of Nurofen Plus. I like the face they are 12.8mg per tab, and for me I feel safer CWE extracting Ibuprofen based tabs than Paracetemol.
I recently discovered that codeine linctus was freely available without prescription, with only codeine as the active ingredient, this was somewhat of a revelation as I thought, great, no CWE, very little money for 600mg of Codeine, what could be easier.
I managed to find several local pharmacies that stocked the product and began my first experiment.
I measured out 140ml of the regular version to give me a 400mg dose and drank it down. Same usual codeine feelings, same length of duration, come up and come down, after it had worn off I took 100mg of Amitriptyline as was being prescribed at the time to help with some short term stress. One of the side effects of the Ami was deep sleep, and that night was no different. I woke up the next day fine and considered the experiment a success.
Some weeks later I repeated the exercise, same dose, same product. The only difference is that I had since come off the Amitriptyline. Now, I can usually eat on Codeine quite happily after the first couple of hours and that night I had some KFC and Ice cream, which made me very thirsty in combination with the Linctus. I found though that it was difficult and painful to drink water. It felt uncomfortable in my stomach. I also noticed I couldn’t sleep. My mind was thinking crazy stuff and bouncing around, I would get twitches, I felt extremely nervous, time was moving either too fast or too slow, and it felt like I was half asleep, dreaming (unpleasantly, not frightening but repetitive and stressful), mild auditory hallucinations and massive nausea, I actually felt like I was spinning or falling. This went on for hours, I went to bed at ten and this was still happening until about three a clock. When I finally did get some sort of sleep, it was deeply unpleasant, almost a delirious state. Again, I have taken these doses of codeine in tablet form, without any other drugs lots of times and never experienced anything like this.
I put the experience down to the amount of other crap in the linctus and perhaps the extreme sugar hit combined with dehydration and thought no more of it.
About two weeks later I bought some sugar free linctus, same brand, this also had the benefit of having no chloroform as the regular version did. This time I took a similar 400mg dose, I made sure I was hydrated before and sipped water throughout, I avoided salty food and expected a regular trip. But again, the first sign something was up was the additional nausea, I like the light headedness of codeine but this was unpleasant, different. I went to bed at about 10 and read for an hour, I felt a bit stressed for some reason which is the opposite of how I normally feel on codeine. I tried to sleep and the same thing happened, my mind was racing with thoughts that made no sense, it was delirium not unlike severe sun stroke. I was twitching, I could hear music and voices that would appear and then vanish. I felt a sense of being in that half-way point between sleep and awake. It was a horrible and frightening experience. It appeared to come in short waves, the nausea would build, the noises louder, the feeling of anxiety, then it would go, then after few minutes it would build again. Once again I couldn’t sleep until about 3am and even then it was short bursts of sleep with repetitive and stressful thoughts and dreams. I woke up, feeling tired, a knot in my stomach and general anxiety and edginess.
I googled every single ingredient for side effects but have drawn a blank, the only ingredient that can cause those side effects evidently is the codeine itself, but I’ve taken lots of codeine and never had issues like this.
I can only assume that something in this linctus causes some reaction to make the product undesirable, maybe that’s a deliberate thing by the manufacturer as 600mg of codeine at that price should be much more popular and I’ve not read anything good about it.
I would urge anyone to be aware of the potential side effects. I will not be trying it again, I can honestly say it’s one of the worst experiences of my life, and I’ve tried most drugs in varying degrees.
As I said there is probably a reason for Linctus’s lack of popularity, and I think I may have stumbled upon this.
