Dysphoria

[Levity]

Okay, here’s the set up.

Empty stomach, typical grapefruit juice/tagament/Tums dosing. I don’t have time to do a CWE, so I take four 7.5/500 Mallies. (I know, that’s a lot of APAP, but I don’t make a habit of this.)

Anyhoo… About forty minutes later euphoria sets in, just like normal. Ten minutes after that, a bit of nausea sets in, like normal. I’m doing fine, flying high, until I hit the hour mark.

I’m watching some Star Trek: The Next Generation, sipping some grapefruit juice. It didn’t come slowly, it just hit me like a truck. I went from euphoric and happy, to depressed, scared, and paranoid. It’s not like a physical pain, but it was more like a mental kind of torture.

It was horrible. I just sat on the couch and focused on the television. I keep thinking to myself it’ll wear off, I’ll never do this again, and so on…

So… What the fuck happened? Has anyone else experienced this kind of dysphoric reaction before?

[PRIZEFIGHTERINFERNO]

yeah man...sometimes weird shit happens, the body can be unpredictable. id say no worries but everyones different, although theres alot of people here to help you with opinions. sometimes with the right conditions things go wrong, if it doesnt happen again or often i wouldnt worry...but lets see what people have to say that know more than me. i hope you feel well man...peace

[WarmCyanide]

Oh hell yeah. Esp for me on Hydros. sometimes depression, Panic, feelings of unreality, abnormal mentation, rare cases putting a pillow over your chest so your heart doesn't beat out of you. I felt that way last night as a matter of fact. I made a conscious effort to slow my mind down and realize that my neurons would eventually stop whizzing, dancing, skipping and popping and I'd be fine. Your mind is a record and maybe it skipped for a second, just a second. And you ended up tripping out on that one little neuroglitch and overanalyzed it.. who knows? you could analyize it and fuck it to death but your OK now. just like savage said. Welcome back...

[RobOC]

The only time that I have ever experienced anything similar to what you described was when I was in my expiramental stage with opiates and took 10 5/500 vics. I knelt to the porcelin god that whole night wondering if I would end up with liver lacerations. I have since taken much more, both APAP and hydro and not had that happen. I just figure it was due to my being reasonably new to takeing pills and the large amout of APAP.
As I am sure you all know, One should be extremely careful whilst takeing APAP containing drugs as I recently found out from my pain managment doc you must destroy 80% of your liver before they can even tell that you have a problem, and by then things can get really bad. be safe.

[WarmCyanide]

Yeah fuck all that APAP. I got five words for ya. NORCO

[HistoryofMadness]

That feeling wasn't from the APAP, and the amount taken was nothing... that's even within the safety bounds of the pharm co... people who don't take hydro every day, and a lot more than that, for a long time, are wasting time with CWE BS...

As for your dysphoria, you had one big problem: You were popping pills and drinking acidic-ass gf juice on an empty stomach, not to mention the tagamet and tums...

It sounds to me like your blood sugar dropped, which is normal for someone ingesting the shit you were ingesting, with no protein to regulate all that sugar...

I suggest next time, after you take your pills and shit, wait 15 min and then put some cheese and ham on a slice of bread. If you're worried about a buzz kill, I promise you that small amount of food will do nothing but make you feel better, unless the buzz you got was the one you were looking for...

Take on empty stomach for max effect, but once its in, eating won't damage your buzz.

[Levity]

Damn, I never thought of the drop in blood sugar. But you're probably right on with that assumption.

I redosed tonight, same situation, only I had eaten dinner (blackened fish and salad) about four hours earlier. No dysphoria.

[PRIZEFIGHTERINFERNO]

That feeling wasn't from the APAP, and the amount taken was nothing... that's even within the safety bounds of the pharm co... people who don't take hydro every day, and a lot more than that, for a long time, are wasting time with CWE BS...

As for your dysphoria, you had one big problem: You were popping pills and drinking acidic-ass gf juice on an empty stomach, not to mention the tagamet and tums...

It sounds to me like your blood sugar dropped, which is normal for someone ingesting the shit you were ingesting, with no protein to regulate all that sugar...

I suggest next time, after you take your pills and shit, wait 15 min and then put some cheese and ham on a slice of bread. If you're worried about a buzz kill, I promise you that small amount of food will do nothing but make you feel better, unless the buzz you got was the one you were looking for...

Take on empty stomach for max effect, but once its in, eating won't damage your buzz.

good advice. and its true, from personal experience i have had 3000-4000mgs of apap evry day for years and never had any super bad problems. Im not saying its healthy i just wouldnt wory if its below 3,000, but again everyones different and blah blah blah. Know Thyself...didnt someone smart say that? Im just kidding. Trying to make you feel ok about it...im glad you didnt experience that again though. Im now prescribed to a longer acting med so i dont have to worry about all that APAP. I dont know about anyone else but for me milk is my saviour when it comes to sickness. I drink a shitload of milk, man, i mean alot of milk. It started when i started taking pills alot, i would feel nausious and drink some milk and all of a sudden i was better, accompanied with laying down and chilling out and enjoying the nod. There have been times i swear a quart of milk has saved my life(placebo-but i think it worked-placebo). Well 5 years later im taking alot more opiates and drinking like 5 gallons a day (J/K...kinda more like +or- a 1/2 gallon. Im pretty balsted by this point and exagerating a little...but seriously milk is the nausea cure for me...i dont know why. I have actually thought about starting a thread about it to see if any others here feel like milk helps out like it does for me.
Mostly i have noticed when me or my wife are feeling shitty aftera hefty dose its our bodies saying "lay the fuck down and enjoy the hi, catch a good nod and relax" i gladly take that advice from myself.
But i hope you dont experience those shitty feelings again. Odds are when you take pills for years on end some days youll just feel weird. The other day i dont know what brought this on, but i was so damn nausious when i stood up and i couldnt walk right. i thought it might be dysphoria too, It only lasted a few hours, and i realized i needed to take my own advice and just lay back listen to some music and shill the F out. But you had good reason to be concerned and this is the place to ask those ?'s unless it gets serious or is an emergency...some of the smartest people i have come across have been here. alright i cant keep my eyes open and check everything i wrote i hope i didnt say something riddiculous but im glad you felt better. peace man and remeber this is a good place to lay your concerns. and of course have an opiated day (or night if your on the other side of the earth) peace

[skeletontea]

So… What the fuck happened? Has anyone else experienced this kind of dysphoric reaction before?
Only when watching Star Trek (just kidding.)
Similar things happened to me when I took too a bit too much hydro once (also on an empty stomach w/ gf juice). But HOM's theory sounds very plausable. I also felt absolutely horrible the one or two times I tried Somni's stinky tea recipe, and it wasn't too large a dose either. But there was plently of grapefruit juice, vinegar, and pods on an empty stomach.

[PRIZEFIGHTERINFERNO]

have you had any more positive/negative experiences? hope all is well.

[Levity]

Fuck me... An update.

Woke up this morning, hurting like all hell. I take one and a half hydrocodone 7.5s (my normal pain management dose), get some cake for breakfast (fuck you, I'm fat and if I want cake for breakfast I'll have fucking cake), and sit down to watch CNN tell me that Jews are killing Arabs, Arabs are killing Jews, and that Britney Spears just wants to be "left alone," like that ranks near World War III breaking out live on twenty-four hour cable news. Stupid whore.

Moving on... Mild euphoria kicks in, so I go take a shower. About the point where I turn my hair into a mohawk and make faces into my steam-free mirror, the dysphoria sets in like an inmate named Rapey McHugedick skull fucking my conciousness.

I literally sat in the tub, shower running, until the water ran cold. I was scared, paranoid... There aren;t words to describe it. My mind was gang raped, bukkaked, pissed on, then left in the gutter. Like German porn, only without quite so much romance.

Damn this sucks.

[jacky]

I know an older lady, a nurse by trade, and she used to abuse hydrocodone until she just couldnt take it any more, she could only sleep 1-2 hours a day, and the stuff hit her like methamphetamine. paranoia....weight loss, the works.

well she whent to see her DR, and he told her that he has seen this before, and started her on darvon instead. He said that some people have reverse type reactions to certian opiates like heroin, or hydrocodone.

I used to get some bad reactions with hydrocodoine and heroin, and pretty much cannot tolerate those compounds anymore. what happens I think is that the opiate receptors and the dopamine receptors are meshed together in the ventral tegmental region of the mesolimbic system, sometimes opiates can cause the release of dopamine, or basically your bodies speed molecule, and this can give rise to a condition that is recognized by neurologists as "paradoxical stimulation". I remember one night this effect was so strong I sat up sweating sheets, shooting dope to try and nod out, the dope was good, and I thought there must be coke or speed in it...next day I got together with the crew and the general feeling was that I was fucked up and not the dope, that the same dope that we all consumed didnt do anything close to that to them..

paradoxical stimulation is a term that is best described by one of its discoverers...James H Austin, the author of Zen and the Brain..he is a buddhist neuroscientist who knows quite alot about opiates amazing role in the brain.
while I am on the subject I will just say that morphine at the right dose can be an amazing smart drug..and it is possible that morphine as well as beta endorphine (endogenous opiate compounds) both are responsible second to second for part of the support/creation of our congitive abilities, creative abilitys, and our entry into novel learning situations...not just painkilling substance, but much much more, consiousness supporting neuro support, aiding in memory retrival and more. morphine at the right dose actually can increase reaction times, mathematical problem solving......its basically an endocrine type hormone. we are all addicted to morphine and beta endorphin, every human and mammilian one of us............some amphibians as well...anyway.........

I cannot tolerate hydrocodone in doses over 10 milligrams I have found, I use hydro only if I am trying to potentiate other opiates/opioids..I get a better buzz from 20 milligrams of codeine than I do from hydro. hydro makes me feel claustrophobic, and anxiety ridden, and I cannot get good sleep. so I wonder? is hydrocodone in some way releasing too much dopamine into my blood for me to feel comfortable?
I do not have the same reaction to hydromorphone..which is what hydro metabolizes into ....strange.

good luck

[WarmCyanide]

sounds right on Jacky. the wife has that same rxn to Benadryl. (the "PM" in tylenol PM)
Makes her jump out of her skin (its a cool trick) Same with ADHD patients when they take Ritalin.
Isn't it a stimulant? guy I worked with says coffee calms him down.(?)

[HistoryofMadness]

Its true, your body / brain may have had enough. This happened to me with weed; it stopped being enjoyable and started being a source of true panic. Which is what it sounds like you are having: panic.

I'd lay off for a while, maybe switch to kratom... give your body a break. If they are prescribed, your doctor would certainly be ok with switching you... maybe percs or darvon?

[dorje]

It's the damn grapefruit juice. The Mexicans use it to smuggle liquid speed then when they off load the shipment they make a little extra lapdancing money by selling the old grapefruits to Safeway. You got a grapefruit high on Ritalin and it bit you, Next time use cumquats or aubergines, Sorry it screwed your high. Upward and Upwards

[Coddfish]

This might not be related, but when I was shooting a lot of dope, I would do a big shot after scoring and the come back in a few minutes and do another. If the second was too big I would feel uncomfortable, not like od uncomfortable, like dysphoric.

So, a few minutes later I might do it again in an attempt to ward off the creepy crawlies, only to make the feeling worse.

I should mention I was taking 'done sometimes. For me, it was when I did more than enough to be really high that dysphoria came in. I never nodded or anything, in fact I felt stimulated like some posters above, so I never thought I was close to od. You'd think I'd have learned after a while not to waste the dope. Stupid junky.

Anyhoo, perhaps you just had more than enough (with all the potentiators) but not 'way too much.' Was the dysphoria experience after your usual routine, ie., potentiators. etc? Just a thought.

[WarmCyanide]

I wonder if it was a panic/anxiety attack, Lev?

[reddragon3668]

Its true, your body / brain may have had enough. This happened to me with weed; it stopped being enjoyable and started being a source of true panic...

Growing up on the coastal US, where weed was/is as plentiful as dirt, I started smoking weed at a very early age (10-11). I continued to smoke dope until I got married and had children... I was eighteen. About ten years later, I tried weed again, and to my disbelief and sheer frustration, it no longer made me chill and feel good... your description of "panic" is absolutely right on!!! I could not understand how a drug that used to give me such pleasure and enjoyment could now make me want to die!!! Until now, I had never heard anyone who had a similar experience. I thought I was just an odd ball... especially since I had smoked so much of it as a kid.

[(inaudible screams)]

As we get older we tend to have important life issues (family, finances, etc.) that are buried in our subconscious. These feelings tend to manifest themselves when we are under the influence. Many people who were casual drugs users in their young adult life will tell you now that they fear taking those drugs again because the stresses of everyday adult life may make a one time pleasurable experience a hellish one.

Much like the OP I would go from being fine and happy to feeling paranoid, sad, and confused within minutes. This was when I was completely sober too. I had never experienced feelings like this until I was out of college in a new city trying to make a living. My particular problem was the onset of depression. It was a horrible thing to be watching TV and feeling fine one minute and then literally the next minute I would be so upset that I wouldn't leave my house. Shortly after that I began taking anti-depressants and those sudden swings in mood no longer occurred.

It sound like the hydrocodone may be having a similar effect on you. We all react differently to drugs! I am certain that if I took a hallucinogenic drug like psilocybin that I would still have an incredible time, but some of my friends would be miserable and just want to be sober. It's all part of what makes us unique.

[Levity]

Another update...

I switched from Hydro 7.5/500 to Oxy 5/325 (soon to be bumped up to 7.5 or 10s if I'm lucky) and have had no dysphoric problems.

I've redosed with Hydro at lower ammounts to find mild dysphoria. I'm getting ride of about 250 Hydros... Pisses me off that I'm losing my stash, but I can trade them for other goodies.

On the plus side, Hydrocodone is now listed as an allergin in my charts. Oxycodone is now on the short list of drugs I can take. (I'm also allergic to Codine, Demerol, and Morphine.)

[Babydollangel]

I take wayyyyyyyyy more 7.5's than that at a time :( damn tolerance is a bitch, and my liver is prolly dying as we speak... but, i dont drink the grapefruit--cant stand the shit...and dont take tagament. so not sure what might have happened cept what the others said about blood sugar. I do know that I have felt paranoid at times that werent appropriate before and depressed constantly and was told by a friend that indeed hydro. was causing this.
anyways, glad you got through that exp. that would have scared the hell out of me..i have taken a tad bit much at times and started freaking out and eating things and drinking milk to stop the effects of too much euphoria..which was a good thing but again the paranoia that i had done somthing to hurt myself sat in and i freaked...hydroc. is weird..i know just about everything about them including colors brands, inscriptions, names of them, etc but one thing is strange....sometimes they effect me different than others.....sometimes I can take the normal amount...for me....lol....and dont feel a thing then ill take a smaller amount and i swear im flying high..some of this has to do with state of mind at the time i think. I need to do research on cwe but the amount of $$ I pay for these babies im so scared of wasting them so i dont bother..i know i know bad thing to do..i hope i dont have to learn the hard way !

[kdreimiller]

I had the same experience with weed as well. I used to love the stuff. Smokiong it nearly everyday, then I took a break, and a few weeks later when I was smoking it, I started having panic attacks. Never had them from anything till that point. So I pretty much stopped smoking grass. I smoke it now and again, but if I start smoking it regularly, I get panic-y on it.

[PRIZEFIGHTERINFERNO]

right on bro. i havent had the prob's that you explained...exactly. But i have had some weird experiences. Since i had been switched to oxy though i have had much better pain relief and less side effects. The only side effect i get now is that i get extremely blasted accompanied with the removal of all my pain. Last night i took my dose and got literally shut down. For about an hour i couldnt do anything but lay with my eyes closed. It was nice though. And after that, i presume once the medicine levelled out alittle in my system i was feeling great. But seriously the medicine completely overpowered me for an hour. I can usually read, watch tv or take a shower but i was layed out. It wasnt a problem though...it was pretty groovy. I hope you find the same relief from the oxy and no more disphoria problems. peace

[jacobs ladder]

i have had some problems with hydros in the past, i just took 3 7.5/325 , and i myself am feeling a little tweeky. Several weeks ago i had been drinking most of the day , got ahold of some 7.5's popped 3, and yeah about two or three hours into it i started to feel really sick, very sweaty nauseas, nodding out but not an enjoyable nod. I left the bar , went home got a big glass of water and just layed in bed for 45 mnutes or so. I woke up and felt completely fine. The next day , actually for the remainder of the script , i never felt that same effect. I have had some crazy experiences with oxys before also. My birthday last year, i popped an oc 40 , didnt wait for it to fully kick in, and then popped a blue man, 30 mg oxy ir, and seriously felt like i couldnt swally for an hour. i was so scared i ran inside couldnt talk , had to force myself to slowly swallow little bits of water. But then about an hour later , it all totally subsided. Personally, i think sometimes your brain just gets way too high or something , and doesnt process it as euphoria. Also as someone with panic anxiety problems in the past, used to take ativan, lexapro, and remeron, i can tell you the fear of having an attack will often bring one on. So dont worry before you pop your pills so much, because if you expect to have an adverse reaction, your probably will.