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  • Trip Reports Moderator: Xorkoth

DXM / Tramadol / Zoloft - Experienced - Serotonin Syndrome

JasperTheReckless

Bluelighter
Joined
Nov 1, 2011
Messages
339
Not sure if this should go in trip reports or the dark side, so i'll post it homeless.

I was fifteen.

I was heavy into my first Dextromethorphan binge. Back when we knew we were invincible and could take anything.
We sought maximum intoxication so we used the heavy hitter, Delsym. We had a great time the first few weeks, we would dose twice, three times a week, doing about 500mg each. We found it was a magnificent combo with weed, and begin to use more frequently.

I didn't notice my fuck up until it was far too late. DXM builds up in you, and after a while, you will stay high for a few, maybe several days in the comedown stage. This is on it's own. There are severe contraindication warnings for DXM and Zoloft (SSRI) as well as DXM and a pain medication called Tramadol, which I had recently acquired a ton of. But lastly, there were contraindications between Zoloft and Tramadol. Crushed in the center, with the walls falling in, was me.

I had been in a fight with my parents and refused to take my meds recently. I was off Zoloft for a week when the binge began. I didn't know the binge began really, I had never fallen in one before, and didn't know the signs. I was too young to see how I treated people while fucked up and how dangerous my thinking had become. I got over the shit with my parents and began taking my meds again, and unfortunately I began my Zoloft in the few days before we broke into dosing daily. I though DXM was a great anti-depressant, because it literally made me happy. The euphoria made me able to cope with all the stresses of life.

We came across writings of the plateaus and decided to go for a fourth plateau trip and simply assumed, more. More, more more. We would dose two five ounce Delsym's (1,776mg) each and put on music, and fuck around on the trampoline, and on the computer all night. We did it in a group at first. But only two of us really stuck with it. We began doing this everyday, because school hadn't started yet, and we could sleep over almost every day, and could steal syrup easy enough anyway.

When i'm high I like to read trip reports on Erowid. I read about the drug i'm on, and try to imagine how other peoples trips felt and went. About a week into the binge, I came across a report of someone having a severe reaction to zoloft and DXM. And somewhere, in the depths of my mind I had a flicker of recognition for some of the words used.

Halloween came around and we went to one house. Too high to walk. Me and my syrup partner spent the night at another friend's house and got high with him. Night was great, and we had fun despite. But early that morning, my friend and I were wide awake, because I was panicking, I felt, I believed, I knew that if I closed my eyes my heart would stop beating. It seemed like fact.

It was the first gift of psychosis.

We got the second warning sign an hour later. After the panic subsided, we went to wake tony, because we had done three bottles each we were still fucked up, so, so, so dexxed out. We woke him and and he wasn't high anymore.
Just wasn't

What

?

?


We decided to not get high today, because we hadn't even come down from last night. By noon, our friend had cleaned up and all that. But we were still sky high. Third plateau was in the basement, and we were somewhere between the roof and the sky. The high felt different. That afternoon, walking home, we had our first breakdown. We lost it. It was sinking in that something was wrong. We hadn't come down at all, and to be honest, were higher than that morning. We dropped our backpacks on the sidewalk and cried. My friend thought we might be OD'ing, and was scared. But I was mortified, because I knew OD meant seizure, blackout, stroke, but I saw the potential to be so much scarier, I couldn't even make sound. I thought I had finally done it, and gotten brain damage, and a hell of a job at that. To complicate things, I had ruined a friend's life as well. I wanted to throw up, and I fell down. I told my friend I'm calling our parents, and he said not to, he didn't want to get in trouble. I told him that this could be serious, and explained what I thought. I told him I had to, and cried again, I apologized, again and again. I called his mom and asked her to pick us up and take us to my house.


We were three blocks from the friend's house we spent the night at.
We had left the house for mine, four hours earlier.


We cried the whole time, explaining to our parents what we think happened. My friend had a nervous breakdown and was prescribed xanax to help cope in the weeks after. He didn't come back to baseline for nearly 8 days. He said he felt above second, maybe third plateau until day six.

*three weeks earlier*

I had found my dad's Tramadol, which he never bothered to take. I always used that to justify stealing them. 50mg Tram, 180count. We took five or six at a time, and withing a single week were up to ten a dose. Found out that a couple on Delsym makes it warmer and friendlier.

Chink in the gears, a broken cog, little warning signs in the far back of my mind this whole time, but I can't make out why, I can't remember what it is I need to connect to understand. Don't do what?

I had been faithfully taking my Zoloft to please my parents. The Euphoria and empathy granted by the syrup made me want to be the perfect son.

*Original timeline resume*

It's now six days since the last dose, and I am still above a third plateau. Doing the math and the recall, I was stuck in the lower echelons of sigma. Trapped, and not moving anywhere but up. Lots people think hey, I wish I could just stay high, it'd make life so easy. Don't wish that, it's a force, it's one that just toys with you. We take doses that we feel comfortable with, because the drug will always win in a tug of war on your body and mind if left unchecked. My mom's friend, tells her, after some consultation with her boyfriend, who was a pharmacist, she recommended stopping the Zoloft until I can see a doctor.

Click, a gear clicks into place.

She also told them I should remain awake for as long as possible, because if it was how it seemed, I might be in deep this time.
The doctor said I should attempt to remain awake as much as possible, sleeping only when it's agonizing, because the something in my checkup suggested that one of these times I may suddenly not wake up.

What the fuck? Here I am, higher than i've ever been in my life, approaching the 500+ hour mark of being above a third plateau, and I have to accept that I might die in my sleep all of a fucking sudden?

No body I tell believes me that i'm still high, they say i'm trying to make things worse by pretending. The only friend who would understand, abandoned me. He didn't stand up for me, and I never forgot that. I'm so scared. I cry alot at night, because i'm too scared to try to sleep.
My dog cries when I do. I think she understands when I hurt.

a week later I am removed from my high school and placed in the psych ward at a nearby hospital. I can't hold a conversation because every letter of each word I think or read is burned into my field of vision in lazers seemingly, blinding me and startling me. Such vivid OEV's and even more alarmingly intense CEV's. I am still climbing, higher. I have accepted that I have severe brain damage, because it's the only think that I could imagine would be this bad. But I got something different. In retrospect, I got the far less severe punishment for my actions.

When the brain has too much serotonin, a condition can arise, called, Serotonin Syndrome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin_syndrome


It's now two weeks since the last dose and I'm higher than I was at the +12 hour mark after the dose on halloween night.

I'm in the Acute care part of the inpatient psych ward. I am reacting badly to every medication I am put on, and become violent on some.
I was physically restrained for the first time this visit, for throwing chairs and swearing at staff. I never really found out why I became angry to begin with.
A week goes by and i'm getting worse. I am now getting as needed Thorazine and Haldol shots, along with Ativan IM four times a day. I was prescribed 2mg Klonopin in the morning, and 2mg at night, and a 1mg as needed dose was allowed. I am on 1200mg daily of Seroquel, half in the morning, half at night. I take my night dose and hear voices, I take my morning dose and hallucinate in my peripherals, it feels strikingly similar to Diphenhydramine. I sleep alot. I am slurring my words and get confused extremely easily, I would literally forget to eat and drink.
I give up hope. Three weeks since the last dose and I'm just as fucked up. I am still drowning in the darkness of Plateau Sigma, with a triple attack of Serotonin Sydrome. I am beyond destroyed, My life is ruined. Every minute feels like an hour, and I can't even complete my own thoughts inside my own head. Can you comprehend how terrifying it is to not be able to talk to even yourself? So lonely, so scary in raw mindspace. I can't even write down my feelings in groups.


I am sent to residential treatment. A locked psych ward for adolescents in Wisconsin. It's six weeks since the last dose. I am still in sigma. I have reached a plateau in intensity in the past weeks, but maybe i'm just too lost to tell. I black out intermittently. I spend a week in a rented house with family before the spot opens in the residential. I steal my meds from my parents, five, ten klonopin here, four ambien there. I black out for hours a day. I know that when you go to a new place, they re-order meds, so even if I use them all I won't run out at the place. The addict functions while the human dies. I fall over alot, and my shins are all bruised along with my arms from stumbling and falling. I reach the Residential and reach the glass floor of Sigma.

A week later I crack through to Third plateau, and remained trapped at the peak of third plateau for a month more.

I am moved to a residential facility out in nowhere wisconsin and remain there for ninety days. During this time I am switched from Seroquel to gabapentin, and my Klonopin is discontinued. At the forty five day mark I was down to mid to lower second plateau.
By Graduation time I was Baseline.

This is perhaps the worst experience of my lifetime, rivaled only by my 25i overdose.

We were doing daily doses of 1,500mg+ with no thought to the dangers it posed. For two weeks, fourth plateau worthy doses daily.

I was never prescribed Zoloft since.

I never took Tramadol again.

I fell into many more DXM binges however.


I never came 100% back. Something was ruined in me, I was broken, crushed by the reality that I am not indestructible. I lost my heart, my fight. DXM is no longer euphoric since.

This happened in 2009. I still feel wrong inside sometimes. My depression took a dive because of this event, I began thinking about suicide seriously for the first time in the months after this experience. The next year I took a whole bottle of ambien one night after my mom told me my dad didn't love me, in a fight. The day before, My mom had told me i'll end up just like my biological dad. He died from a heroin OD when I was two, and I live with my adoptive parents.

DXM is possible the darkest substance I have consumed. It tells you you are happy while it feeds on your mind. You break free and are lost in hell while you piece together your life.

Thanks for reading. Hope you liked it. Ask any questions and I'll answer best I can.

-Chris

Tagged by Xorkoth
substancecode_dxm
substancecode_dissociatives
substancecode_tramadol
substancecode_opiates
substancecode_zoloft
substancecode_sertraline
substancecode_antidepressants
substancecode_ssris
substancecode_pharms
_combo_
explevel_experienced
exptype_negative
exptype_healthissues
exptype_bodyload
exptype_difficult
exptype_disaster
exptype_addiction
exptype_overdose
roacode_oral
 
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I'm sorry this happened to you, sounds very intense. I hope this educates people about DXM binges in the future.
 
This is a real eye opener, I'm sorry all this happened.

I'm sure as hell discontinuing use of DXM, I can tell you that much.
 
You described these events so articulately and it should be used to educate others. It relates in a way thathopefully other users can understand. Make sure that in all this darkness you have experienced that you also take this gift you have for expressing it and use it to help/save others.

I'm sorry it has been so hard. Everyday is a new day (as corny as it sounds and sometimes I need to listen to my own advice).

Take care.
 
Thank you for sharing your story. I currently am prescribed Zoloft and have experimented with DXM, though only keeping it to maybe maximum 500mg. I probably won't touch it again after hearing your experience. It sounds really scary to go through something like that. I hope you continue to recover, and as missmeyet? said, I'm sorry it has been so hard.
 
^Don't ever forget to research possible interactions with your recreative drug use when you're described medication.
 
I think you misunderstand me, I have researched this previously.
 
Damn dude, that was an intense and heart breaking story. Beautifully written, and very vivid. Thanks for sharing. Did you say you relapsed into DXM may times after you ended up in the psych ward? How's your use now?

Can't imagine what it must be like to experience something like what you've gone through, but I certainly came a bit closer after reading what you wrote. You can't be too fucked up if you're still as articulate as this. Take it easy! :)
 
That was very intense and I'm glad you shared it with us. However, it wasn't the DXM that did that to you. Binges on DXM can cause depression, language difficulties, etc., but it was the fact that you combined it with Zoloft that really did you in. If you hadn't done that, you would've had problems, but nothing like the horrors that you just described.

It's pretty obvious that you had mild to moderate serotonin syndrome (as indicated by your severe panic), but something else was at work in your case. SSRIs, DXM, and tramadol are metabolized by the same enzyme (cytochrome P450-2D6), and the Zoloft and tramadol you were taking saturated that enzyme, preventing the DXM from being metabolized. This is known to prolong DXM's effects by a substantial amount, but I've never heard of anyone who experienced DXM's effects for months on end. The fact that you were prescribed Thorazine, which is also metabolized by this enzyme, and Haldol, which inhibits the enzyme, could explain this. Since the enzyme was both completely overloaded and subsequently inhibited; Zoloft, DXM, and Thorazine were all floating around in your system, with very little metabolism by the enzyme, for months. If Haldol wasn't used, it may have all been over in a matter of a week or so, but it ground the activity of the enzyme, already very low, to an almost complete halt.

Both diphenhydramine and Thorazine have anticholinergic properties, which accounts for the high you get from diphenhydramine. As I said earlier, Thorazine was being metabolized very slowly, so a higher amount than normal was available to your body at any given time, which accounts for you hearing voices and having peripheral hallucinations after administration.

I hope this helps explain your experience. Please respond if you have any further questions.
 
Amazingly written, I felt the experience as I read every word, terrifiying and heartbraking I'm so sorry this happened to you. the mind is the most powerful, brilliant, and most terrifiying thing, this story is a testament to that, and to the fact that drugs are not made to be done in binges, as the high gets to be hard to distinguish from reality until it ultimately becomes your own terrifiying reality. I hope others using dxm or any other substance in this way come across this story and get the same flutters in their stomach as I did while reading it, and realize that like you said, they are not invincible. I hope that you are able to stop using dxm, and that life gets easier, this really moved me I am deeply sorry to hear about these happenings. Sending positive vibes and peace your way.
 
This is a real eye opener, I'm sorry all this happened.

I'm sure as hell discontinuing use of DXM, I can tell you that much.

I totally agree with that. No matter what happens, discontinuing it can make things better..
 
respect drugs. never dose highly everyday it's asking for trouble. DXM is a wonderful drug. I use it to trip every so often however i can never even FATHOM the idea of taking it at high doses EVERYDAY that just sounds ignorant. That goes for every single drug that exists. One must be well aware of what one is doing when it comes to drugs. I'm sorry but you let this happen, i just wish maybe you had the idea that binging on dxm will fuck your shit up. Even at 240mg, for 3 days after that dose for me i can barely function efficently in work and such. good luck.
 
Ummm... When did you actually have the seizures that would meet diagnostic criteria for serotonin syndrome? The body temperature over 104F?

Folk w/ serotonin syndrome don't end up on psych wards. They end up in Intensive Care Units.

Ya screwed yourself up pretty bad, but ya almost certainly DIDN'T have serotonin syndrome. You'd be dead, if you didn't receive treatment for a week after developing continuing symptoms.

From THE WIKI THAT YOU LINKED-

To fulfill the Hunter Criteria, a patient must have taken a serotonergic agent and meet one of the following conditions:[5]

Spontaneous clonus, or
Inducible clonus plus agitation or diaphoresis, or
Ocular clonus plus agitation or diaphoresis, or
Tremor plus hyperreflexia, or
Hypertonism plus temperature > 38 °C (100 °F) plus ocular clonus or inducible clonus

Dunno what your dx should have been, but history as presented pretty much rules out serotonin syndrome.
 
respect drugs. never dose highly everyday it's asking for trouble. DXM is a wonderful drug. I use it to trip every so often however i can never even FATHOM the idea of taking it at high doses EVERYDAY that just sounds ignorant. That goes for every single drug that exists. One must be well aware of what one is doing when it comes to drugs. I'm sorry but you let this happen, i just wish maybe you had the idea that binging on dxm will fuck your shit up. Even at 240mg, for 3 days after that dose for me i can barely function efficently in work and such. good luck.

Right and you really shouldn´t from my point of view. This can result in future bad judgmental logic as it tends to change how you think..
 
Not sure if this should go in trip reports or the dark side, so i'll post it homeless.

I was fifteen.

I was heavy into my first Dextromethorphan binge. Back when we knew we were invincible and could take anything.
We sought maximum intoxication so we used the heavy hitter, Delsym. We had a great time the first few weeks, we would dose twice, three times a week, doing about 500mg each. We found it was a magnificent combo with weed, and begin to use more frequently.

I didn't notice my fuck up until it was far too late. DXM builds up in you, and after a while, you will stay high for a few, maybe several days in the comedown stage. This is on it's own. There are severe contraindication warnings for DXM and Zoloft (SSRI) as well as DXM and a pain medication called Tramadol, which I had recently acquired a ton of. But lastly, there were contraindications between Zoloft and Tramadol. Crushed in the center, with the walls falling in, was me.

I had been in a fight with my parents and refused to take my meds recently. I was off Zoloft for a week when the binge began. I didn't know the binge began really, I had never fallen in one before, and didn't know the signs. I was too young to see how I treated people while fucked up and how dangerous my thinking had become. I got over the shit with my parents and began taking my meds again, and unfortunately I began my Zoloft in the few days before we broke into dosing daily. I though DXM was a great anti-depressant, because it literally made me happy. The euphoria made me able to cope with all the stresses of life.

We came across writings of the plateaus and decided to go for a fourth plateau trip and simply assumed, more. More, more more. We would dose two five ounce Delsym's (1,776mg) each and put on music, and fuck around on the trampoline, and on the computer all night. We did it in a group at first. But only two of us really stuck with it. We began doing this everyday, because school hadn't started yet, and we could sleep over almost every day, and could steal syrup easy enough anyway.

When i'm high I like to read trip reports on Erowid. I read about the drug i'm on, and try to imagine how other peoples trips felt and went. About a week into the binge, I came across a report of someone having a severe reaction to zoloft and DXM. And somewhere, in the depths of my mind I had a flicker of recognition for some of the words used.

Halloween came around and we went to one house. Too high to walk. Me and my syrup partner spent the night at another friend's house and got high with him. Night was great, and we had fun despite. But early that morning, my friend and I were wide awake, because I was panicking, I felt, I believed, I knew that if I closed my eyes my heart would stop beating. It seemed like fact.

It was the first gift of psychosis.

We got the second warning sign an hour later. After the panic subsided, we went to wake tony, because we had done three bottles each we were still fucked up, so, so, so dexxed out. We woke him and and he wasn't high anymore.
Just wasn't

What

?

?


We decided to not get high today, because we hadn't even come down from last night. By noon, our friend had cleaned up and all that. But we were still sky high. Third plateau was in the basement, and we were somewhere between the roof and the sky. The high felt different. That afternoon, walking home, we had our first breakdown. We lost it. It was sinking in that something was wrong. We hadn't come down at all, and to be honest, were higher than that morning. We dropped our backpacks on the sidewalk and cried. My friend thought we might be OD'ing, and was scared. But I was mortified, because I knew OD meant seizure, blackout, stroke, but I saw the potential to be so much scarier, I couldn't even make sound. I thought I had finally done it, and gotten brain damage, and a hell of a job at that. To complicate things, I had ruined a friend's life as well. I wanted to throw up, and I fell down. I told my friend I'm calling our parents, and he said not to, he didn't want to get in trouble. I told him that this could be serious, and explained what I thought. I told him I had to, and cried again, I apologized, again and again. I called his mom and asked her to pick us up and take us to my house.


We were three blocks from the friend's house we spent the night at.
We had left the house for mine, four hours earlier.


We cried the whole time, explaining to our parents what we think happened. My friend had a nervous breakdown and was prescribed xanax to help cope in the weeks after. He didn't come back to baseline for nearly 8 days. He said he felt above second, maybe third plateau until day six.

*three weeks earlier*

I had found my dad's Tramadol, which he never bothered to take. I always used that to justify stealing them. 50mg Tram, 180count. We took five or six at a time, and withing a single week were up to ten a dose. Found out that a couple on Delsym makes it warmer and friendlier.

Chink in the gears, a broken cog, little warning signs in the far back of my mind this whole time, but I can't make out why, I can't remember what it is I need to connect to understand. Don't do what?

I had been faithfully taking my Zoloft to please my parents. The Euphoria and empathy granted by the syrup made me want to be the perfect son.

*Original timeline resume*

It's now six days since the last dose, and I am still above a third plateau. Doing the math and the recall, I was stuck in the lower echelons of sigma. Trapped, and not moving anywhere but up. Lots people think hey, I wish I could just stay high, it'd make life so easy. Don't wish that, it's a force, it's one that just toys with you. We take doses that we feel comfortable with, because the drug will always win in a tug of war on your body and mind if left unchecked. My mom's friend, tells her, after some consultation with her boyfriend, who was a pharmacist, she recommended stopping the Zoloft until I can see a doctor.

Click, a gear clicks into place.

She also told them I should remain awake for as long as possible, because if it was how it seemed, I might be in deep this time.
The doctor said I should attempt to remain awake as much as possible, sleeping only when it's agonizing, because the something in my checkup suggested that one of these times I may suddenly not wake up.

What the fuck? Here I am, higher than i've ever been in my life, approaching the 500+ hour mark of being above a third plateau, and I have to accept that I might die in my sleep all of a fucking sudden?

No body I tell believes me that i'm still high, they say i'm trying to make things worse by pretending. The only friend who would understand, abandoned me. He didn't stand up for me, and I never forgot that. I'm so scared. I cry alot at night, because i'm too scared to try to sleep.
My dog cries when I do. I think she understands when I hurt.

a week later I am removed from my high school and placed in the psych ward at a nearby hospital. I can't hold a conversation because every letter of each word I think or read is burned into my field of vision in lazers seemingly, blinding me and startling me. Such vivid OEV's and even more alarmingly intense CEV's. I am still climbing, higher. I have accepted that I have severe brain damage, because it's the only think that I could imagine would be this bad. But I got something different. In retrospect, I got the far less severe punishment for my actions.

When the brain has too much serotonin, a condition can arise, called, Serotonin Syndrome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin_syndrome


It's now two weeks since the last dose and I'm higher than I was at the +12 hour mark after the dose on halloween night.

I'm in the Acute care part of the inpatient psych ward. I am reacting badly to every medication I am put on, and become violent on some.
I was physically restrained for the first time this visit, for throwing chairs and swearing at staff. I never really found out why I became angry to begin with.
A week goes by and i'm getting worse. I am now getting as needed Thorazine and Haldol shots, along with Ativan IM four times a day. I was prescribed 2mg Klonopin in the morning, and 2mg at night, and a 1mg as needed dose was allowed. I am on 1200mg daily of Seroquel, half in the morning, half at night. I take my night dose and hear voices, I take my morning dose and hallucinate in my peripherals, it feels strikingly similar to Diphenhydramine. I sleep alot. I am slurring my words and get confused extremely easily, I would literally forget to eat and drink.
I give up hope. Three weeks since the last dose and I'm just as fucked up. I am still drowning in the darkness of Plateau Sigma, with a triple attack of Serotonin Sydrome. I am beyond destroyed, My life is ruined. Every minute feels like an hour, and I can't even complete my own thoughts inside my own head. Can you comprehend how terrifying it is to not be able to talk to even yourself? So lonely, so scary in raw mindspace. I can't even write down my feelings in groups.


I am sent to residential treatment. A locked psych ward for adolescents in Wisconsin. It's six weeks since the last dose. I am still in sigma. I have reached a plateau in intensity in the past weeks, but maybe i'm just too lost to tell. I black out intermittently. I spend a week in a rented house with family before the spot opens in the residential. I steal my meds from my parents, five, ten klonopin here, four ambien there. I black out for hours a day. I know that when you go to a new place, they re-order meds, so even if I use them all I won't run out at the place. The addict functions while the human dies. I fall over alot, and my shins are all bruised along with my arms from stumbling and falling. I reach the Residential and reach the glass floor of Sigma.

A week later I crack through to Third plateau, and remained trapped at the peak of third plateau for a month more.

I am moved to a residential facility out in nowhere wisconsin and remain there for ninety days. During this time I am switched from Seroquel to gabapentin, and my Klonopin is discontinued. At the forty five day mark I was down to mid to lower second plateau.
By Graduation time I was Baseline.

This is perhaps the worst experience of my lifetime, rivaled only by my 25i overdose.

We were doing daily doses of 1,500mg+ with no thought to the dangers it posed. For two weeks, fourth plateau worthy doses daily.

I was never prescribed Zoloft since.

I never took Tramadol again.

I fell into many more DXM binges however.


I never came 100% back. Something was ruined in me, I was broken, crushed by the reality that I am not indestructible. I lost my heart, my fight. DXM is no longer euphoric since.

This happened in 2009. I still feel wrong inside sometimes. My depression took a dive because of this event, I began thinking about suicide seriously for the first time in the months after this experience. The next year I took a whole bottle of ambien one night after my mom told me my dad didn't love me, in a fight. The day before, My mom had told me i'll end up just like my biological dad. He died from a heroin OD when I was two, and I live with my adoptive parents.

DXM is possible the darkest substance I have consumed. It tells you you are happy while it feeds on your mind. You break free and are lost in hell while you piece together your life.

Thanks for reading. Hope you liked it. Ask any questions and I'll answer best I can.

-Chris




I used to be a hardcore opiate user, mostly IV heroin. I got on a methadone program and got my life together. I had a kid, got engaged, things were going well. 5+ years clean. Then a stung of terrible events happened where my health declined, I lost my job, my relationship was rocky, my mother died, partner lost his job too. Things were horrible and because of my undiagnosed medical condition I was peeing so much that methadone was not staying in my system at all. I got the extreme urge to use again. When my mom died (cancer) she left a fuck load of dilaudid and tramadol, valium and other drugs. I planned on taking the dilaudid because I was vulnerable. I relapsed. The hospice nurse dumped all my moms meds in the trash and when she did, she dumped liquid medication onto the dilaudid to destroy it. What I didnt realise is that along with pouring liquid dilaudid on the pills, she also poured halodol on them. So when I started my binge of dilaudid, I used only the pills that had not got wet. When I ran out, I used the ones that soaked up the medicine too. That's when things got weird. After taking some one night I suddenly got extremely agitated, diarrhea, hyperreflexive to touch in my legs, fever, confusion, lights were brighter, everything smelled bad, sounds were strange. It went away in 24 hours. I dumped the meds down the toilet I got so scared. I thought that was the end of it, but later I started digging into the tramadol. I was taking them just fine and getting a bit fucked up. One day I randomly got that agitated feeling again and was scared shitless. I had taken tramadol the day before, but nothing that day other than a bunch of caffiene. I thought maybe I had somehow got haldol back in my system from a sweater or something, I didnt know. Anyway, I was freaked out but it resolved in 24 hours again. A few days later (which was about 48 hours ago) I took another tramadol and 30 minutes later i was completely out of it. My head started to tingle, My heart was pounding, pupils constricted, sweating palms and feet and red face, fever, agitation, light sound and smell sensitivity, diarrhea, dry mouth, etc.. it was terrifying and worse than all the other times. I figured it would go away with 24 hours but it did not. It's been two days and I'm feeling a little better but I think that may be because i took a valium last night to try and counteract the terrible agitation. I read valium helps with seratonin syndrome, but my pupils are not dilated the are constricted so I'm unsure if I fucked myself up in some other way. I'm scared that im going to be fried for a long time, or get thrown in a detox. I am worried because I have a child and dont want him going to CPS or anything. I haven't slipped up and done drugs in a long time. I feel like an idiot and a failure. I'm praying that my condition will improve within the next 24 hours. If not, I'll most likely end up going to the ER and facing the consequences of my stupid binge. At this point I'm so afraid I'm convinced I am done with drugs not prescribed to me for the rest of my life.

I've taken tramadol before when i was you get with no consequence. I'm guessing it's something to do with the accidental haldol dose and tramadol dose a month or so later? I have no clue but I'm just hoping I dont end up like you.

By the way, last night when I took the valium my head started to tingle again and my chest got weird like it was getting worse before the valium kicked in and I felt better.
 
Damn, hope the OP recovered OK eventually. I know this thread is super old but I can't help nitpicking a little - as someone else mentioned above, this was not serotonin syndrome. Serotonin syndrome is an acute medical emergency, not a drawn out affair like the one described. Not that the interaction of all those meds wasn't still a contributing and unhelpful factor, of course. if this was serotonin syndrome, it was a mild case.

EDIT: Did a little reading after thinking about this, and evidently, "mild serotonin syndrome" is a thing after all. In fact most cases of serotonin syndrome are milder, only the most severe cases are typically life threatening and require hospitalisation... I believe the original diagnostic criteria may have adjusted at some point, as suggested here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2464814/
The original and revised criteria5,6 for diagnosis of serotonin syndrome emphasize the mental status changes and clinical findings typically observed in more severe cases. As a result, these criteria have been criticized for not highlighting the wider spectrum of toxic side effects that can be seen with this disorder. For this reason, some authors prefer to use the term serotonin toxicity to include findings of earlier or milder cases.7
So, I guess I stand corrected, don't want to be responsible for spreading misinformation. Maybe this was serotonin syndrome, or at least some form of "serotonin toxicity".



@Bingbongtomato - the combination of tramadol and haloperidol should not cause serotonin syndrome either, as far as I am aware, although the combination is not entirely benign. I'm somewhat unclear on the timing of your doses but they seem far apart enough to make me think any significant interaction is probably unlikely... but, disclaimer, I'm not a doctor or medical professional, there could be some danger I'm unaware of. Overdosing on typical antipsychotics like haldol can cause a similar condition to serotonin syndrome, "neuroleptic malignant syndrome" which typically develops more slowly but is still a medical emergency - so if you suspect you've ingested an unknown quantity of the latter substance you should seek medical assistance immediately.

Definitely if you've spilled haldol on a bunch of other meds just throw them away, it's not worth the risk...
 
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