Misc (DXM) anyway ideas of what i'm experiencing?

[tartaglia]

i abused dxm heavily from december 2020- june 2021. heavily being every day/couple of days. so it's safe to say that this drug has done a number on me.

i was sober for 45 days until tonight, where i decided to give it another shot after my break. i figured my tolerance might be lower and the negative side effects may not be so bad.

well i was wrong. it was basically the same as the last trip i had, only with projectile vomiting this time.

as for what i'm experiencing, it started a month or so before i decided to take a break.

whenever i'm on the come down, or even just half way through my trip, i notice the left side of my face and head feels numb and tingly. it feels like my sinuses are swollen, but they aren't clogged and if anything, they feel dry. i can also feel it in the nerves of my upper left molars.

i've read so many things that this could be, but none of them make sense and with the limited amount of information on dxm abuse there is, it's a struggle to know what i need to look into. i've read that it could be high blood pressure or migraines but i don't know if that's what it is.

i've also freaked myself out thinking it was a stroke before, but i'm always fine within 48 hours of dosing.

if anyone familiar with dxm and how long term abuse can affect you, i'd appreciate hearing it.

also, i do take wellbutrin as well. this side effect started occurring after i was prescribed it. it's crossed my mind that may be the cause but i'm still not sure if it'd do that

 

[sekio]

wellbutrin and dxm are not a good mix. can cause hypertension

 

[simstim]

Was DXM the only active ingredient in what you took? Projectile vomiting makes it sound like possibly some other ingredients adding side effects?

 

[sekio]

well after all DXM is actually much more potent as a SNRI than it is as a dissociative so presumably that plays a part

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

Strange I had this (almost) exact same experience back in May, only I was using methamphetamine & not DXM at the time.

It started with a tingling sensation in the back left side of my head. Every time I touched my scalp it would tingle back there.
The tingling got worse every time I took more of the meth.

Mine lasted about a week & a half. The tingling eventually spread to the side of my head and also down into my teeth on the left side of my head. My teeth on that side also started to hurt, especially deep down in the gum area. It also started to feel like there was pressure in the side of my head somewhere.

I also felt what I can only describe as 'being aware that I was two halves of a brain" and that the left side of my brain had a "knot" in it. It's really hard to explain because it was subjective. It was like rather than feeling/being aware that I had a whole brain & a whole body, it felt like I was two halves of a body and that the left half of my body was not in proportion with the right side. Wish I could explain it better.

I asked people on here what it could be and some suggested a mini stroke, which made me think that's what it could have been & scared the hell out of me. But then others suggested it was most likely not a stroke & something else.

So I have no idea what it was. I have read that neurotransmitter imbalances can cause scalp/head tingling as well as electrolyte imbalances (which sounds reasonable since meth made me severely dehydrated). Although I've never experienced it before within the 20+ years I've used drugs.

So I still don't know what it was, but I eventually returned back to normal.

My suggestion is to maybe lay off of the DXM for awhile. Also mixing wellbutrin with DXM can potentiate the DXM to dangerous degrees due to enzyme inhibition and could also cause a seizure. Both drugs alone are capable of causing seizures. I wonder if the tingling I had was some how seizure related, as the only thing that seemed to calm it at the time was clonazepam.

I use to abuse DXM at the same frequency you described and once I ended up with leg convulsions instead of a trip. My legs started shaking very bad and I could not walk. Every time I tried to take a step, my toes would curl up tightly and my leg just couldn't stay still. So I laid down and took a clonazepam to abort the trip and within a few hours was able to walk again.

No telling for sure what happened to you, but as long as you say it goes away, I would try not to stress too much about it. If your prone to anxiety, it will make it worse. What happened to me might not be exactly the same thing you experience (I didn't have any sinus issues) but I thought it was odd that a lot of the other symptoms you described were identical to mine. I wondered if maybe I had some kind of infection in my teeth/gums that spread into my head, but who really knows. I have not used meth since and haven't felt as though any lasting damage occurred but then again it's hard to know for sure since I've probably done plenty of damage to my brain over the years.