Opioids Opiate "panic attack"

[Yuusha]

Hi,

I'm new here. I've ended up on Bluelight several times before when I have used Google to try to find answers to some of my drug related questions, but haven't actually registered until now. I'm sorry if this is the incorrect subforum for this question, please move it if that is the case.

I signed up mostly to ask about a strange experience that I've had, and that a friend of mine also had yesterday.

A few weeks back, I was snorting some Suboxone. Suboxone is very popular as a recreational drug among those who are not opiate dependant in Scandinavia. I have a lot of previous experience with Tramadol, and had also done Suboxone a few times before. My dosage was pretty high, a typical dosage for Suboxone when you have no tolerance is 1mg. I had a tiny tolerance, but gradually snorted more and more during the evening until I reached a total dosage of 3mg. I have dosed this high before without any complications.

However, this time, things went a bit bad. I started having cold sweats, and my whole body started shaking. I was also hyperventilating and got very dizzy. I was very scared at first, but then reminded myself that this was not a fatal dose in any way and calmed down. I kept showing these symptoms for about an hour.

I asked my friend who is experienced with opiates about this, but he had never heard about anything like it before. I quickly forgot about the event and thought nothing of it.

However, yesterday, a friend of mine decided to try opiates for the first time. She had a bottle of Cocillana, a cough medicine we use here in Sweden. It contains 2.5mg of ethylmorphine per ml, and she drank 75ml. This is a common dose.
She felt very good for the first five hours, but then she started experiencing the same thing I had on Suboxone. I had not told her about my experience, so she was not influenced by my experiences, this came completely out of the blue.

My first thought is that it seems a lot like a panic attack. I didn't feel any anxiety, and neither did my friend, but I figure the opiates may take away the feelings of anxiety while still allowing the physical symptoms of anxiety to show. It's weird, though, because while I do have some trouble with anxiety occasionally, I haven't had a "real" panic attack in about a year. I mostly just get a tiny bit anxious nowadays. My friend also has occasional trouble with anxiety, and she does get real panic attack, but she never, ever, ever gets anxiety when she's alone in the comfort of her home.

So I'm wondering, has anyone else experienced anything like this? What could it be? Is it simply a panic attack, but without the feelings of anxiety? Is it caused by the opiates, or is it just a coincidence that both my friend and I experienced this while on opiates?

It might be worth noting that neither of us were being "paranoid". I was feeling great right until this started happening, and the same thing applies to my friend. It just came out of nowhere for the both of us.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

 

[Ksa]

Did you extract the etmorphine or did you drink the 75mL?

 

[Yuusha]

Did you extract the etmorphine or did you drink the 75mL?

Well, I haven't tried ethylmorphine myself, my friend who had the same experience I did on Suboxone did.

She didn't extract the ethylmorphine, she drank the 75mL. That's what you usually do with Cocillana here in Sweden.

EDIT: Cocillana contains the following: Ethymorphine, cocillana extract, senega extract, sucrose, ethanol, water, citric acid, levomenthol, ammonia

To my knowledge, none of the ingredients should be a problem when consumed in high doses, which is why no extraction is performed.

 

[Ksa]

Well, I haven't tried ethylmorphine myself, my friend who had the same experience I did on Suboxone did.

She didn't extract the ethylmorphine, she drank the 75mL. That's what you usually do with Cocillana here in Sweden.

EDIT: Cocillana contains the following: Ethymorphine, cocillana extract, senega extract, sucrose, ethanol, water, citric acid, levomenthol, ammonia

To my knowledge, none of the ingredients should be a problem when consumed in high doses, which is why no extraction is performed.

You've got to be kidding. The panic attack mostly comes from the crap you swallow, once the etmorphine effects wear off.

 

[blight12]

Panic on opiates seems like an impossibility or contraidiction however i have experienced it myself so i get it. For me it seemed to be related to a contradiction of some kind and dose small enough to allow the anxiety to still be felt.

Some potential cause perhaps?

1. Tainted or incorrect product
2. Some sort of contradiction with something else you had in your system
3. Mood, setting etc (prob unlikely with opiates...)
4. Suboxone not usually being a recreational opiate? A simple Google search resulted in another report of panic and anxiety from Suboxone.

I must say however your symptoms sound like anxiety which is very strange for opiates

 

[Yuusha]

You've got to be kidding. The panic attack mostly comes from the crap you swallow, once the etmorphine effects wear off.

So, a few points here:

1. What is the problem with ammonia and citric acid? Citric acid is just a conservative that also serves to provide a better taste. It is not toxic or psychoactive. Ammonia is toxic, but does not cause problems in humans because mechanisms in our body prevent it from building up in the bloodstream. Ethanol shouldn't be problematic either, as it is in small quantities and doesn't usually cause panic attacks. Both my friend and I can handle ethanol usually.

2. No one does an extraction with this cough medicine, they just drink is as it is. I'm not even aware of a working procedure to do this. It is commonly used as a recreational drug AS IS, yet no one else seems to encounter these issues.

3. I have experienced the exact same thing with Suboxone, which only contains Buprenorphine and Naloxone.

 

[Yuusha]

Panic on opiates seems like an impossibility or contraidiction however i have experienced it myself so i get it. For me it seemed to be related to a contradiction of some kind and dose small enough to allow the anxiety to still be felt.

Some potential cause perhaps?

1. Tainted or incorrect product
2. Some sort of contradiction with something else you had in your system
3. Mood, setting etc (prob unlikely with opiates...)
4. Suboxone not usually being a recreational opiate? A simple Google search resulted in another report of panic and anxiety from Suboxone.

I must say however your symptoms sound like anxiety which is very strange for opiates

Yeah, I agree it is very strange. The thing is, I know what anxiety feels like. I felt no anxiety, but I had all the physical symptoms of anxiety. The same thing applied to my friend, who got the same symptoms with Ethylmorphine.

Suboxone is commonly used as a recreational opiate in Scandinavia. It works quite well, at least with "sane" dosing. 1mg is quite nice if you're opiate naive. The only problem people tend to have is nausea, which tends to be worse with Suboxone than with other opiates. Some people also experience really bad headaches. I've never had a problem with Suboxone personally, except for this weird phenomenom that has only occurred once.
Also note that my friend experienced the same thing, but with Ethylmorphine.

I'd like to see that report you mentioned, though! I've done some searching, but I wasn't able to find anything.

 

[4evrLkn]

Sounds like to me an excessive dose in an opiate non-tolerant person.
3mg's of suboxone is quite a bit for a non opiate user.
Also if your friend has never done opiates she has NO tolerance. I don't think this has to do with anxiety, symptoms might be similar, but to me sounds like a slight 'overdose'.

Just take smaller amounts next time, and I promise you'll avoid these symptoms. Suboxone especially has a super long half-life, so it will build up over time, so be especially careful with this.
Be safe!

 

[blight12]

Ahh, ok, if there was no anxiety then it would indicate you got "sick" from it for some reason, causing the physical symptoms. Unfortunately the cause could be any number of things like those i mentioned before. If the same substance doesnt normally cause this then i would guess tainted product perhaps.

 

[Yuusha]

Sounds like to me an excessive dose in an opiate non-tolerant person.
3mg's of suboxone is quite a bit for a non opiate user.
Also if your friend has never done opiates she has NO tolerance. I don't think this has to do with anxiety, symptoms might be similar, but to me sounds like a slight 'overdose'.

Just take smaller amounts next time, and I promise you'll avoid these symptoms. Suboxone especially has a super long half-life, so it will build up over time, so be especially careful with this.
Be safe!

I agree that the problem probably lies in taking a minor overdose, at least in my case. 3mg was way too much. The Ethylmorphine dose my friend took is supposed to be a good dose for a beginner according to all the information I've looked at, but then again, some people are more sensitive than others.

So yeah, taking too much is probably the problem. I guess I'm mostly curious about what particular mechanism causes this. I guess it doesn't really matter, but I'm a very curious person.

 

[blight12]

^ But as far as I know an OD level opiate dose for a newbie wouldnt feel uncomfortable would it, unlike taking to many stims might? Am i wrong? Wouldnt you just feel very euphoric, very high, maybe pass out?

 

[4evrLkn]

Yes, you're friend might just be very sensitive to opiates. That's why she felt like that. As far as why it happens? It's all to do with the chemical releases in your brain, and neurotransmitter's. if you're curious as to why it happens, I'm sure a quick google search 'what happens in brain on opiate overdose' would pop up some exciting reading! Lol.... My suggestion is just keep your dose low next time, and your friends too.

I am the same way with benzo's, if I take like .5 mg of Xanax I'm knocked out for the night. But with opiates I can handle quite a bit. I think tolerance has everything to do with this, plus people's make-up of their brain chemistry,

 

[4evrLkn]

^ But as far as I know an OD level opiate dose for a newbie wouldnt feel uncomfortable would it, unlike taking to many stims might? Am i wrong? Wouldnt you just feel very euphoric, very high, maybe pass out?

That's why I said slight overdose. Or overdose in quotations. But it's hard to say, a major overdose, yes they could just feel light headed then pass out. But they could also have light-head, dizzy, sweats, shakes, etc.... On a 'mild' overdose. Although its still an overdose none the less.

 

[Yuusha]

^ But as far as I know an OD level opiate dose for a newbie wouldnt feel uncomfortable would it, unlike taking to many stims might? Am i wrong? Wouldnt you just feel very euphoric, very high, maybe pass out?

From what I've heard from other people, it seems to vary a lot. I USUALLY don't feel bad if I take too much. Sure, I can get a bit dizzy and nauseus (usually not, I always take an antihistamine which takes away the worst of it), but I usually still feel great. With the exception of this event. I've talked to a lot of other people though who start feeling like crap when they take too much. They get headaches, get reaaally nauseus and can throw up for hours and generally feel like crap. So it seems to be an individual thing.

 

[InHerOwnWrite]

If your friend drank the whole bottle, i believe that's almost 190mg of ethylmorphine, so if she was opiate naive that was probably too high of a dose and made her uncomfortable as a result.

 

[Yuusha]

If your friend drank the whole bottle, i believe that's almost 190mg of ethylmorphine, so if she was opiate naive that was probably too high of a dose and made her uncomfortable as a result.

I'm a regular at a Swedish forum called Flashback. There's a stickied thread there about Ethylmorphine that specifically adresses Cocillana as Cocillana is where you usually get Ethylmorphine in Sweden. The thread has a dosage table for opiate naive people, and it looks like this:

Tröskeldos[ Threshold ] - 30 ml
Lätt[ Light ] - 40 till 50 ml
Vanlig [ Common ] - Allt mellan 60 ml lite under 1 dl.
Lite starkare [ Stronger than average ] - 1 dl till ungefär 1,4 dl
Stark [ Strong ] ~1 ½ dl
Starkare [ Stronger ] - 1 ½ dl och uppåt.
Dödsrisk [ Risk Of Death ] - 500 mg EtylMorfin

According to this dosage table, 75ml is at the lower end of a "common" dose for an opiate naive person. I guess the table might be incorrect, but I've seen many opiate naive people drink 100ml and turn out fine.

So I think it's a (generally) good dose for someone who is opiate naive, but my friend may be sensitive.

Oh, and also, she felt good for the first five hours. Ethylmorphine is quite short acting, so the high should have dropped considerably at that point. Maybe it's some type of "hangover", I've noticed some people tend to get some kind of hangover after taking opiates, some opiates seem to have a higher tendency to trigger this. I've never experienced any type of hangover myself, though.

 

[love10s]

I have had panic attacks with opiates. However I've only taken lorcets, hydrocodone, oxycodone etc orally but in pretty high doses. 40-120 mg in 12-14 hr period. The times I ended with panic were usually times I was already tired and had most likely overdone my dosing. Not sure if this helps but I had the exact symptoms you're describing.

Sidenote: I am in no way opiate naive . Been taking them almost daily for 2 years at a minimum dose of 40 mg per 12 hr.