Thirteen abused drugs

My my my I’ve been quiet this week. Comes from spending all my time at Daily Kos.

It’s been a while since I did a medical thirteen. As always, going into this I wonder: can I think up thirteen interesting drugs? Sure I can. People put all kinds of narsty sheeit into their bodies.

1. Thyroid hormone. What can be wrong with increasing the rate with which you burn fat and carbs? Thyroid hormone would seem to be an ideal diet drug. Hey — it’s natural! Shame about the risk of dying.

This is an axolotl. Axolotls have something interesting in common with humans: we’re both products of neoteny, i.e., arrested development. We humans are baby chimps — hairless (some of us) and big-headed (some more than others), while axolotls are salamanders who haven’t made it through metamorphosis. But if you add thyroid hormone to an axolotl’s water, he’ll complete metamorphosis and turn into an adult form that has no business walking the earth.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s a similar drug for humans, one which will allow us to complete our metamorphosis and become Neanderthals once again.

2. Banana peels, AKA Mellow Yellow, AKA bananadine: conclusive proof that kids will smoke or swallow anything. No, I never tried this, although I did eat some dried button mushrooms thinking I was eating shrooms. I guess they really were shrooms, too, of a sort. Anyway, Mellow Yellow is an urban legend. Wikipedia has the full scoop.

3. Pemoline. I love the trade name: Cylert. Makes my heart race just to hear it. Pemoline was used by British pilots during WWII to stay awake, and nowadays, folks sometimes still use it for ADD, narcolepsy, or fatigue syndromes. Case reports of liver damage serve as abuser buzz-kills, so watch out.

4. Amanita muscaria, or fly agaric, has a long and fascinating connection with the history of religion. Here are some good bits from the Wikipedia article:

“Amanita muscaria is widely thought to be the Soma talked about in Rig Veda of India,^[15] and is less often also thought to be the amrita talked about in Buddhist scriptures.^[18]

“John Marco Allegro argues in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross that the Christian religion is derived from a sex and psychedelic mushroom cult.^[19]

“Ethnobotanist and ethnomycologist Giorgio Samorini suggests in his book “Animals and Psychedelics” a symbiotic relationship between toads, flies and fly agaric. Flies, after a lick of Amanita Muscaria become inebriated and delirious prey for hungry toads that may have learned this, therefore hanging out around toadstools.”

Dig the frog!

5. Nasal decongestant sprays like Afrin or Neosynephrine have addiction potential. How does your nose get hooked on sprays? If you use it for too many days in a row, you develop rebound swelling after the initial decongestion. This causes congestion, which prompts some people to use more of the spray. I’ve had patients who go through a bottle a day.

Here’s your public service message for the day: read the damned label and follow directions.

6. THC, the active ingredient of marijuana, for those of you who like the effects but hate the smoke (and are too lazy to bake brownies). Doctors prescribe THC for its painkilling and nausea-suppressing properties. Does anyone abuse this stuff? Hard to believe. All I know is, THC turned my sober Vulcan wife into a giggling Valley girl. I was very disturbed.

My favorite marijuana story (stop me if I’ve told this one):

In med school, I had a patient with Peutz-Jeghers syndrome who chainsmoked joints and was convinced the freckles on her lips were all throughout her GI tract and were showing up on her stools, too. She used to bring in a photo album of her stools to prove it to her doctors.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m just the med student. But thanks for sharing.”

7. Poppers. They sound fun, don’t they?

“Hey, Bob, what’s that you’re using?”

“Poppers, Dick.”

“Poppers? Can I have some, too?”
Amyl nitrite and related nitrites relax smooth muscle, thus making anal or vaginal penetration easier, and may decrease the gag reflex, too. The blood pressure drop can enhance the euphoria of orgasm.

8. Ying Yang Huo, another fun one, AKA horny goat weed. According to this questionable-looking site, horny goat weed contains an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor (like ant poison — sounds good so far!) Somehow, that’s supposed to prolong erections. Hmm.

By the way, while we’re on the topic of goat sex: if someone gives you a link that looks like “goatse.cx”, don’t click on it.

9. Diuretics. Diuretic abuse? You’re kidding me, right? No, apparently some folks with eating disorders use diuretics to peel off a few extra pounds.

I’ve heard of body builders doing this before a competition, and of course there’s a long history of diuretic abuse in horse racing (ever hear the expression, “he peed like a racehorse”?) But anorexics? Yikes.

10. Nutmeg. Another weird hallucinogen. Nutmeg derives its properties from Myristicin A, which “causes symptoms similar to atropine poisoning: flushing of skin, tachycardia, absence of salivation, and excitation of the central nervous system.” And if that’s not enough to get you interested, how about this firsthand account?

At first she felt no effect, but after four hours she felt cold and shivery. Six to eight hours later she was vomiting severely. She saw faces and the room appeared distorted, with flashing lights and loud music. She felt a different person and everything seemed unreal. Time appeared to stand still. She felt vibrations and twitches in her limbs. When she shut her eyes she saw lights, black creatures, red eyes and felt sucked into the ground.

Sounds like a blast! Not.

11. Morning Glory seeds. In case you haven’t guessed yet, hallucinogens fascinate me. Morning Glory seeds contain lysergic acid amides, thus making them about the closest thing in nature to LSD. According to this source, you would have to ingest 100 to 300 seeds to get the equivalent high of 200 to 300 micrograms of LSD. But don’t do it with store-bought seeds, since these are covered with poison to discourage abuse!

That really tickles me for some reason. What’s the message here, if not, We’re so anxious about you abusing this drug, we would rather kill you instead?

12. L’Absinthe. No, this wormwood liquour does not cause hallucinations nor madness, even if you are a Parisian poet or artist. But isn’t it pretty to think so?

13. Viagra, sometimes combined with Ecstasy (MDMA) to form Sextasy (no, I’m not making this up) is now so commonly abused that Viagra addicts have their own AA. Signs of viagraholism include Viagra-seeking behavior and escalating Viagra use. But more fascinating still is alprostadil abuse. Alprostadil is shoved into the urethra or injected directly into the corpora cavernosa. The incidence of penile fibrosis (Peyronie’s disease) with repeated use is around 8%, priapism (often requiring needle aspiration of trapped blood) around 4%. Proving, I think, that some guys will do anything for a boner.

Leave a rude comment and I’ll give you some linky lurve.

Darla’s CFS is kicking her butt. Go give her some love.

Miranda: yet another Canadian visits my blog

SxKitten dreams of Christopher Walken with his clothes on (I think)

Noxcat puts the blame where it belongs

Pat bangs his head

Dean gets all historical on us (with a grin)

Protected Static has teh good taste in tunes 😉

thursday thirteen

D.