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  • Trip Reports Moderator: Xorkoth

MDMA + MAOI - experienced - Straight to the ER

*=Regulator=*

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
2,347
e + MAOI - experienced - Straight to the ER

I’ve posted numerous times in The Dark Side about this experience but I’ve never written a trip report. Although this was an horrendous, frightening experience that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, it was still a ‘trip’ so I guess it’s worth a write up. I was ignorant when I did this and didn’t know the consequences. Please, please don’t try this at home kids.

Background
This was about my 20th e. I’d done LSD, Speed and was a regular pot user. I was in average physical condition – about 185cm tall and weighed about 85kls.
I’d just finished my first exam of the semester and had a large break before my next one. I decided to have one more night out before hitting the books.

+0:00
I called up my friend C and arranged a top quality import pill and planned our night out. We were going to chill at my place before going Sublime in Sydney.
He came over and I ate 1 pill and C had a couple. C also did a little bit of speed.

+0:20
The traffic lights began taking on that sharp, clear tone that they only do courtesy of MDMA. “This is kicking in already C. Going to be good.” C was a little doubtful that I had got my first alert only 20 mins after taking the pill. I could feel it coming on like a freight train.

+0:35
We pull into a car park in darling harbour. I was by this time well and truly FUCKED. I was breathing heavily and could barely speak. I remember sending an SMS to my good friend telling him how strong these pills I’d had were.

Funny, C had eaten 2 and wasn’t feeling it yet. Due to the intensity of my feelings we decide to wait in the car park until I was feeling a bit better. C calls a couple of out friends to come and chill with us in the car.

+0:45
I am hallucinating like crazy. C goes to meet our friends outside the club and as they are walking back I see them take ONE step from about 50 metres away and instantly arrive at the car. My brain is going absolutely crazy. Everything is moving at an unbelievable pace. I am trying to hold it together. This is definitely not fun. The others get in the car and I come down a little. I think I will be OK and that that was the peak – I will come down a bit now and have fun.

+01:00
I was wrong. I am 2x as fucked as I was before and 100x more fucked than I have ever been. I begin to panic and really try to calm down. Everything is moving at light speed and my brain feels like it is about to explode.

At this point I made the call: “C, I need to go to hospital”.

+1:15
C is driving to hospital. It was at this point that I totally wigged out. I began convulsing and screaming. I was convulsing so hard I kicked a hole in lining of the roof of C’s car. C is panicking now as well. Luckily we drive past an ambulance. C flags them down. I am screaming and fitting so hard that the paramedics call the police. My friend tells them that I have taken extasy and they begin laughing. A cop opens then passenger door and tells me to calm down so I can get in the ambulance. I staggered out of the car and made it.

+1:30
I am in the back of the ambulance and screaming over and over: “am I going to die?”. The ambulance officer tells me he doesn’t think so. This doesn’t have much effect on me. The ambulance officer, with my permission, straps me down to the bed.

+2:00-4:00
It’s all a bit blurry from here, but the paramedics gave me valium, put a drip on me and took my clothes off because I was sweating so hard. C was sitting by the bed and I remember asking him if we were in trouble with the cops. He said we weren’t. I was going up and down and convulsing every half hour or so. It was like I was having lots of little intense peaks. During this period I remember a paramedic looking to one of his colleagues and saying: “that’s why they call it ecstasy”.

+4:30
The valium has kicked in now and I have calmed down. I feel unbelievably exhausted and relieved. I said to a nurse: “This is going to sound so bad but I actually feel amazingly good”. The nurses shake their heads and laugh.

+5:00
They let me out and I thank them. I went back to my friends house and smoked some pot and had a few drinks. I eventually fell asleep on my friend’s sofa.

Aftermath

Following this I got a full blown panic disorder and became suicidal. To this day I have severe depression. I don’t think what I did was smart and I am not proud of it. I am not proud of the fact that I went home after all that had happened and took more drugs. It goes to show the importance of harm reduction. If I had known then what I know now it never would have happened. The only thing I can say is that I can squarely look even the hardest e user in the eye and tell them that I have been more fucked on e than they could ever dream of being. For the record, the only drug I use any more is Alcohol. Take Care.

[ntc> edited to fix puncuation errors caused by VB upgrade]
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sorry to hear you had a bad time, but thank you for taking the time to post about your experience.
 
just curious.....but what was the maoi, how long before ingesting the E did you take it, and why didn't you tell the e.m.t.'s about it?
 
The MAOI was Aurorix (active ingredient Moclobomide). I had been on it for about a month and I did tell the Paramedics but they didn't know what I was talking about.
 
regulator that is a crazy story.
one night i went to the er for appendix. the girl infront of me was rolln like woa. she was freakn out just like u said. i kinda felt bad for her. she told me her eye sight was fading in and out. she said she went to er cuz she thought she was goin blind.......i luv E..
 
Fuck man.. thanks for posting - I've always heard "MAOIs + E are bad m'kay, don't do it" but I didn't know why.
Hope you're getting better now.
 
Thankyou so much for this detailed and passionate post. I used to be on Aurorix too, but at the time, did not know the extent of damage that could be done by taking pills at the same time. I didn't even know it was bad until someone told me a few months in. I probably had 5- 10 pills during this time and realize now how lucky I am that nothing happened. This post scares me, but that's what it should do! Thankyou.
:/
 
Hi Regulator: just wondering what dose of moclobemide you were on? I know some people are combining moclobemide with MDMA on purpose to get a longer roll, the thought of which scares me silly. That was a really well written report.
 
Originally posted by babydoc_vic:
Hi Regulator: just wondering what dose of moclobemide you were on? I know some people are combining moclobemide with MDMA on purpose to get a longer roll, the thought of which scares me silly.
I'm not sure of the dosage by mg but I was on one standard Aurorix pill per day. The thought of someone actually wanting to emulate the effects I experienced makes me shudder. Seriously, this was not fun!!
Originally posted by missclaire:
I used to be on Aurorix too, but at the time, did not know the extent of damage that could be done by taking pills at the same time.
^^
Did you roll harder when you took a pill whilst on Aurorix? How many times did you do it?
 
Babydoc_Vic: I had a look for an old script but couldn't find one. All I can remember is that it I started off taking them from a promotional package that the doctor had received (BTW that doctor knew I was a regular e user when he prescribed me Aurorix and didn't fuckin say a word about any interaction - onus is on me i know but grr). I'm pretty sure I was on 300mg a day.
Re some earlier correspondence we had, I'm doing much better now, thanks again for your help.
 
Sorry to hear about your experience - I've seen some wierd stuff happening by people just using E and/or Acid.
I will confess: I've been on Aurorex for nearly two years now. I actually don't need it but due to the fact that I can easily confuse my GP I basically have a supply of Aurorex. I start out on 150mg per day. I didn't no anything about harm reduction (or this site or dancesafe) when I started out using E. When I had my 1st E I was taking 1 Aurorex daily. My trip was fine.
a few months later I "discovered via another site - that people were actually buying Aurorex in clubs - So on days I was planning to roll I doubled my intake to 300mg. I rolled up to 18 hours from 1 E !! No jokes this is true!
a few months back I when off Aurorex and (obviously) my rolling time decreased to about 3 to 4 hours per pill) I started taking MORE E spreading it over a longer period. - Basically ending up rolling for 12 hours. (We have really LONG parties). After a break of two months (of Aurorex) I went to the doctor and he gave me a six month presciption for Aurorex 300mg (He knows I use E) Thats is double the normal strenght.
What worries me here is that beside a very long roll I've never had a "bad" experience combining the two - BUT it seems that my 1st bad experience could well be my last....
There should be some type of balance - I was also advised not to use 5HTP with RIMAS... Is it a case of what is the better/safer of two evils?
 
Dracon + others:
I assumed that anyone that combined Aurorix with MDMA would have a similar experience to me. I'm confused as to why I had such an adverse reaction while others have actually enjoyed it. I know that everyone is different, but any ideas why some people can successfully pull off this combo?
 
^^I doubt it - Regulator's experience sounds like a typical case of serotonin syndrome: the sweating (hyperthermia), the agitation and confusion, and the "convulsions" (myoclonus).
Re: why Regulator got SS and Dracon didn't. Put it this way - some people get SS from SSRI anti-depressants, while millions don't. This is because SS is an idiosyncratic reaction, (definition of idiosyncratic = An abnormal susceptibility to some drug, protein or other agent which is peculiar to the individual.)
So Regulator is obviously sensitive to this reaction, while others are not as sensitive. However, people have died from combining MAOI's with MD**, so on the whole it is a combo best avoided.
Hey Regulator: I'm really pleased to hear you are feeling better. I told you so :)
[ 29 April 2002: Message edited by: babydoc_vic ]
 
I wanted to mail babydoc_vic privately with this personal message but decided that maybe other people might feel the same way as me and could benefit from her reply/advise. (or could identify with my feelings)
Dear babydoc_vic,
Thanks for you very knowledgeable input. Since this topic started I stopped taking Aurorex. thats about two weeks now.
Tomorrow is party night (we're paint the town red) and I'm sitting here wondering if I shouldn't take it again... maybe pop one tonight & in the morning again... I'm actually worrying that I will not enough my trip... I've got all this info (and a lot of experience of using the combo) and I've made a decision not to use the combo again - but it still keep popping up in my mind. I could possibily testify now that you can get addicted to the combination.
I will however stay strong ;) and NOT do it and report back.
This will (only) be my 2nd roll without Aurorex ... (must be my 50th time rolling on MDMA)
 
I and other have mixed MAO-A inhibitors (harmine, though moclobemide is also an MAO-A-I) with MDMA before on multiple occasions with no problems. Mixing an MAO-B inhibitor or a nonselective MAOI with MDMA could theoretically lead to a hypertensive crisis and could theoretically be dangerous and maybe even fatal... However, MAO-A inhibitors are (in theory) just going to make the MDMA affect you stronger (and add some psychedelic effects in the case of harmala alkaloids).
It sounds to me like what happened is you took a strong dose of MDMA after taking MAO-A-Is long term and had an unexpectedly strong reaction, leading to an epic freak-out. This certainly could be quite frightening, especially if you are not prepared for how much MAOIs can intensify MDMA. Many people dont realize MDMA is a psychedelic... when combined with MAO-A-I's, it becomes INTENSELY psychedelic. While not physically dangerous, this is far from the happy dance-drug experience many people expect from MDMA, as you found out the hard way.
If you do try mixing MDMA with MAOIs, be aware of these factors, and use low doses of MDMA (less than half what you normally would). Never use MAO-B inhibitors or nonselective MAOIs with MDMA - the only "safe" MAOIs to use with MDMA are MAO-A inhibitors such as harmine, harmaline or moclobemide. Taking MDMA with Deprenyl or any other substances that inhibit MAO-B could be potentially fatal, although no fatalities have been recorded (a few frightening physical reactions have been documented involving Deprenyl though). Taking MAOIs with MDMA is not a recreational experience, its a hardcore psychedelic trip. Don't experiment casually.
 
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