I've got an idea since there are so so many people struggling with loperamide addiction AND lots and lots of people looking to hop on the loperamide train to ride out withdrawals from other opioids, I wanted to start a thread that was all about the possible negative health effects, possible complications, and signs and symptoms of these complications that come with high dose loperamide use. A place that would lay out all of the currently known health problems sustained high dose use of loperamide causes, and then an in depth description of what the health effects are, what they do, how loperamide causes them, and then symptoms of these health effects along with advice for seeking medical help/treatment.
Obviously I'd make it a point to stress *NOT ACTUAL MEDICAL ADVICE, SEE EMERGENCY PROFESSIONALS IF YOU ARE SICK* and that I'm not a doctor. Also, I'm going to make it a point to make the thread in such a way that people reading it wouldn't see the advice given in the thread as a substitute for real medical help and advice, because I know that if I can avoid seeing a doctor, I'm going to avoid seeing them, despite it being a real stupid idea on my part. '
Would anyone be interested in this? And if so, I need some guidance on it:
1) Would a thread like this violate any of the points in the BLUA or specific Forum rules? Im pretty sure with the proper disclaimers it would be fine, but just checking before I put in the effort.
2) Where would be the best place for this? I think Other Drugs is A-OK, but maybe not....
3) Adding Citations and references for the info, is there a specific way to reference them? I just want to make sure I dont break any rules sourcing my info and somehow sourcing something else, probably not a huge problem but I'm checking anyways.
I feel like putting this on BL would be helpful, as everyone could add to it and make it as comprehensive as one could hope to make it.
I keep running into posts where I read people who are switching to loperamide from X, Y, or Z opioid and is going to "just use it as long as it takes to taper and be out of withdrawal", but then I see posts months later where they are still tapering, or still taking the maintenance dose, or (worse) raising the dose, and are justifying it with A, B, and C reasons and maintaining that it wont become a problem, or that they wont experience the complications that others have. Its gotten to the point that I can see a post of someone stating " I took X mg of Loperamide for my {insert opioid here} withdrawal and it completely stopped withdrawal! I've been on X mg for Y days but I'm going to taper off soon" and more or less predict the way their story will play out. Not always but frequently I'm seeing them getting stuck on loperamide or they oscillate between their DOC and loperamide. Just like me and my friends.
Maybe having a comprehensive list of complications and how to catch them will help people 1) not use high dose loperamide, 2) treat loperamide with more respect in terms of its abuse potential, and 3) help high dose users recognize when they are endangering their health,and will hopefully recognize these dangers IN TIME before permanent damage happens.
thoughts?
