There's a growing problem in the opioid fight: diarrhea medication

[signalmankenneth]

This lends itself to way more questions than answers, a friend of mine wrote on Facebook the other day above a weird photo.

It showed three boxes of Imodium A-D — that trusted anti-diarrhea medication — lying crumpled in a parking lot. What nightmarish emergency, he wondered, could have possibly led to this?

Turns out, it was nightmarish. Just not in the way most of us would think.

A few commenters on the post explained what was probably going on: People battling opioid withdrawal sometimes gobble Imodium by the fistful.

Imodium is the brand-name of loperamide: a drug that, if taken in gigantic quantities, can produce an opioid-like high — and present serious dangers to a person's health.

I had no idea this was a problem. But apparently it’s nothing new.

According to U.S. News & World Report, the U.S. National Poison Data System reported a 90 percent spike in loperamide overdoses between 2010 and 2016.

Abusing the drug can, naturally, lead to horrific constipation. But it can also wreak havoc on your heart – usually through irregular heartbeats, the New York Times reported in 2016. Back then, overdose deaths had reportedly occurred in at least five states.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/theres-growing-problem-opioid-fight-100006519.html

No Crap — Imodium is the Newest Way to Get High

 

[FUCK THE POLICE]

Imodium cannot produce a high as it doesn't cross the blood brain barrier. Because it has the same effect on the intestinal system as regular opiates though, it's often used during withdrawal so that they don't shit their bowels out. It's essentially delaying the start of that symptom though, it means you don't have to deal with all withdrawal effects at the same time, but eventually you're going to stop the Imodium and your ass is gonna spray like a fountain.

Overdoses of Imodium are probably directly linked to using it during withdrawal to combat the symptoms of opiod dependency. Again, it does not cross the blood brain barrier, and can't get you high. Circumventing this would involve either disabling the blood brain barrier, which would require a lot of prescription only drugs and would be very dangerous because everything you took would wind up in your brain. Or chemistry to transform it into another chemical which is complex enough that it would be far easier to just go out and buy heroin.