Health - Some compelling reasons to avoid ephedrine

[notquitebrilliant]

At first, SWIM rather enjoyed the recreational use of ephedrine. It was fun, cheap and easily accessible. Over time, however, SWIM's tolerance increased dramatically- and alas, 2 years later he was ingesting fifty 25mg pills at a time, twice or three times a day. On the package it says you should not take more than 6 of these pills over the course of a day. Not surprisingly, SWIM found that as the dose increased, so did the undesirable side effects-

The "epheadache"- strikes at random, sometimes SWIM wouldn't get one for days. Then suddenly after taking the pills, SWIM would suffer a headache so bad that going to the ER was often contemplated. Nothing seems capable of diminishing this headache- SWIM has tried Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, Naproxen, even some minor opiates like Darvocet... and hydrating oneself does not seem to help either.

Vomiting- where I live, the Ephedrine pills are these little white uncoated things, and they taste more horrible than any pill I've ever taken in my life. Getting them down successfully is always a challenge, sometimes more than others. SWIM absolutely couldn't swallow more than 2 at a time; sometimes he would have to only swallow one at a time to keep from vomiting. And when SWIM did vomit, that horrible pill taste would be infused all along his mouth and nostrils. Not a pleasant feeling.

And the worst side effect of all- after reaching such a large daily dose, one day SWIM was peeing and some brown gravelly stuff came out, accompanied by sudden, severe pain. This turned out to be kidney stones, and SWIM has had at least 15-20 more of them since then. For those of you who haven't experienced it, kidney stones are extraordinarily painful.

Just wanted to share SWIM's experiences. Maybe it will help somebody think twice before they get too deeply spun into the ephedrine web.

Reputation Comments on this post:

thanks for sharing - of much relevance to me