• 🇬🇧󠁿 🇸🇪 🇿🇦 🇮🇪 🇬🇭 🇩🇪 🇪🇺
    European & African
    Drug Discussion

    Welcome Guest!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
  • EADD Moderators: Shambles

Experiences of Addiction and the Medical Profession

P

pjd555

Bluelighter
Joined
Feb 3, 2015
Messages
80
Split from here .....

englandgz74 said:
You've come to the right place then!!!

Trying to understand the myriad of ABCD123-XYZ. research chemicals that I now come across on the road was one of my reasons for sticking around too. When your front line and someone had hurt themselves by taking some drug you've never heard of this education can save lives.

I have discussed many times with folk on here the utter meltdown that will ensue (and has already started to Ensue) with people buying benzos (or nor-benzos) online in gram quantities....Some of these drugs are active at sub milligram doses so it's just mind boggling. Before this people's benzo consumption was limited due to supply but now supply is virtually unlimited. An analogue law would be utter, utter carnage.

I'm sick of trying to defib some young kids heart after he's taken some unknown combo of whatever and telling his parents hes gone. Overdoses seems to have increased exponentially in recent years to the point that a colleague of mine was tellingly yesterday that when they come across an unconscious patient on the street in Manchester they bang 300 of narcan IM as a FIRST line treatment....Just in case before they even start baseline obs or ECG... That's how bad it's become.

Breaks my heart it really does. The sorrow that comes from dealing with families that have lost their loved ones to some random cocktail of whatever is something that affects me profoundly and the day it no longer does is the day I'll leave this job.

Please take care out there folks
Click to expand...

It never ceases to amaze me that people are surprised that the medical profession is littered with alcoholics and drug addicts. Old people diee and you get used to that, mostly. If a 55 year old, obese, sweating man makes his first visit to a GP in 25 years I have estimated how long he has to live before he's even sat down. You get used to that. But the waste of life from so many causes that ends the lives of so many people that don't deserve such an early demise is something I have never got used to.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
englandgz74 said:
That Gee's Linctus must have tasted pretty rank though mate :)
Click to expand...

Far from it. Is actually delish <3

My then ladyfriend was so taken aback when I briefly quit (was on four bottles a day throughout our relationship until that point) when she finally tasted "me" when we kissed. She thought I tasted somewhat of menthol n stuff prior to that :o

OTC opium tincture ftmfw <3

And yeah, we would've been collared for nobbling the stash we drove but not on the day we nobbled it and that is as far as junky thinking goes for the most part. I need it, I take it. But we didn't cos we knew it was for genuine need for people who hadn't put themselves in that position. Don't get me wrong, I robbbed folk left, right and centre at times. But I - we - need to justify those actions to ourselves when alone in bed at night no matter what. There are degrees of wrongness...

pjd555 said:
Pregabalin is a shitty little drug, horrifyingly expensive, next to useless as an anticonvulsant in cost/benefit terms in comparison to other drugs and, yes, it certainly does have abuse potential. Thankfully, it is a third line option and it is up to the consultant to prescribe it for GAD. I don't see the world as a better place because of its existence.
Click to expand...

Oh I agree. I fukkin loathe the shite both "recreationally" and "therapeutically" but it is the industry response to increasing benzo restriction and suspicion hence being widely prescribed to people now cut off from benzos despite it being a worse option with less clinical effectiveness and similar levels of abuse potential and w/d issues. Just bizniz as usual.
 
Better to cut off a relatively small number now, rather than wait another 10 years and have a whole generation enslaved by pseudo-benzo's. It might sound harsh to those of you who are addicted to them now, but when has being selfish and only thinking of your own pain ever not been an addicts schtick?
 
One Thousand Words said:
Better to cut off a relatively small number now, rather than wait another 10 years and have a whole generation enslaved by pseudo-benzo's. It might sound harsh to those of you who are addicted to them now, but when has being selfish and only thinking of your own pain ever not been an addicts schtick?
Click to expand...

Harsh? It's mindless. Even though benzos have been prescribed far too often for decades very little is known about abrupt withdrawal for long term, high tolerance users because the incidence of dangerous side effects forces doctors to intervene. The most serious side effect of stopping this type of drug after long term use is CSE. Even when someone calls an ambulance one fifth of people with CSE will die. There is no reliable information available which allows a reasonable prediction of the increased mortality rate that such a ban would cause. People will die but how many is unknown.
 
So you prefer more people self diagnosing and accessing it from the internet?

I'm not saying that there won't be a painful transition, but looking around Bluelight I see nothing but pain, suffering and worse from the general public having such easy access to these family of drugs. The number of people who use these drugs now pales into insignificance to the number who will be on them in 10 years time.

Even those Bluelighters who I would consider smart enough to know better (as well as the ones who have been fairly warned) seem to dig themselves deeper and deeper into benzo slavery. They aren't generally ordering the conventional prescription ones either since they have "legal" access to the rejected ones.
 
OTW - by illegalising RC benzo would be like sending millions to their deaths - or at least high potential for seizers, as well as criminalising many people who will still find a way to purchase them n get caught. It would also possibly overpower the hospitals / doctor services with millions trying to get access to legalised benzos.

I do get what you are trying to say but illegalising them will not work because of the danger of abruptly stopping.

Also a lot of the medical profession / addictive services are still very much unfamiliar with many research chemicals as well as them not showing up on a drugs tesr.

That does, however, bring me to a disturbing point that needs highlighting. My friend (wont as he's a member here) has been denied treatment in terms of legalised benzo taper / opiate maintenance due to RC opiates n RC benzos not appearing on drug tests. This is a major problem because how many are addicted n not getting the necessarily treatment. If any
Medical profession was to argue that these people "brought it on themselves," well the same could be argued for heroin/ opiate addicts n we have access to maintenance treatment.

I am aware that it must be difficult for addiction workers / other medical professionals, but surely it's their job to find out what's going on in order to keep with the times n help these RC addicts? Rather than talk of illegalisation, there needs to be talk of keeping with with the times, keeping knowledgable about the latest "legal highs" n find ways to help so many addicts out there currently struggling.

I mentioned having a friend who's struggling tapering off this stuff on his own, whilst having financial issues as a consiquence. How many more????

Evey
 
About 1% of ITU admissions are CSE patients and a fifth of them die within 30 days. If a sudden ban only doubled that admission rate hospitals would be very stretched and the cost in terms of money and life would be appalling. We cannot simply ban these drugs without first having an extensive public information campaign, a promise of prescribed substitution benzos and assurances that forced tapering will not happen.
 
pjd555 - it might be worth explaining what a CSE is a many people won't be aware...

A good definition can be found here...

http://www.epilepsy.com/learn/impact/seizure-emergencies/status-epilepticus

It's a nasty condition which I have seen several times (although often not attributed to benzo withdrawal) and is as you say not easy to treat....

What's known as a "scoop and run" case.
 
No worries...

I think most people know that benzo withdrawal can lead to seizures in a broad sense but it goes a bit deeper than that. I think the seizure risk is underestimated / understated in many cases too.

With the doses and quantities now been consumed via the "RC" route tye dangers are.very real.

As Pjd555 states, the result of a ban would be more than harsh....it would be deadly....

Right. Must go and revise :)
 
My apologies. Medical shorthands like CSE, MI, TIA et al almost type themselves and I sometimes forget to replace them with more widely known phrases.
 
Nice to see some health care pro trying to understand the addiction side and not every ''junkie'' is a down and out, or are the same really. I know what you do englandz top man, twice your lot literally saved my life.
 
^^^^That's ok, no need to apologise. We appreciate your input.

------

Was this the thread where naloxone take-homes were discussed? Would just like to say that they are given to addicts here as a means of harm reduction. Also people were given training on how to use them appropriately. It's done at a place called DIP and also clean needles and what-not are handed out in exchange for dirty needles. Is it possible that the naloxone take-homes are currently only given in Wales as I've seen few members, living in Wales, state that naloxone is given to addicts, in their current location. It's shocked it isn't the case everywhere as I would have thought it was but I suppose with all the cuts etc, that's probably why. Apologies if this convo was in another thread but I'm quite tired at mo and thought it was important to mention it.

Will look tomorrow for the petition that was going round, and put my name down.

Evey
 
fightingthetoot said:
Nice to see some health care pro trying to understand the addiction side and not every ''junkie'' is a down and out, or are the same really. I know what you do englandz top man, twice your lot literally saved my life.
Click to expand...

No worries mate, I enjoy it......we get paid as well :)

Funny with abbreviations though, you just tend to use words like TIA, CVA, MI, CA, ECG, BM, SATS, BP etc.. all the time. It's not so much that they are anything terribly complicated or anything but like owt in life they only make sense if someone tells you what they stand for first...

Don't get me started on acronyms though.....AVPU, SAMPLE, SLIPDUCT, ABC, FAST, or my personal favourite..... DCAP-BLS- TIC. :)

I can remember the acronyms no problem but they're only any good if you remember what they bloody letters stand for...(which sometimes I can't). :)
 
Yea the NHS are full of acronyms. When I worked as admin everything was acronyms it was like a different language. After working there it was hard not to stop in acronyms as was so used to doing it with various things.... and I was just an admin goodness knows what it's like for you doctors, paramedics LOL....

Evey
 
pjd555 said:
About 1% of ITU admissions are CSE patients and a fifth of them die within 30 days. If a sudden ban only doubled that admission rate hospitals would be very stretched and the cost in terms of money and life would be appalling. We cannot simply ban these drugs without first having an extensive public information campaign, a promise of prescribed substitution benzos and assurances that forced tapering will not happen.
Click to expand...

Never going to happen (rightly or wrongly). It changes from area to area obviously but on the whole it's impossible to get a maintenance script for anything these days, especially benzos. You get given a script on the understanding that you are going to taper whether you like it or not.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top