Posted by Delphi on November 8, 2001, at 23:00:31
In reply to Re: Diphenhydramine abuse, posted by Adam on November 8, 2001, at 17:49:46
The lethal dose of diphenhydramine is fairly high compared to the doses I was using, which were only intended to produce anticholinergic effects as opposed to dangerous suppression of cholinergic activity. Seizures and coma have been reported at very high exposures, but at the level I was using, the most common cause of danger is actually from confusion (i.e. subjects may end up drowning or being hit by cars, caused by maladaptive or self-destructive behavior).
The main reason I chose to abuse the substance was because of my fascination with altered conciousness, in its varied forms. I had read numerous accounts of dimenhydrinate and diphenhydramine intoxication (dimenhydrinate is the active ingredient in dramamine and is a salt of diphenhydramine--25mg diphenhydramine is equivalent to 50mg dimenhydrinate), but my curiosity lead me to want to experience firsthand the conciousness alteration.
Most incidents of intentional intoxication result from the mistaken belief that anti-cholinergic hallucinations are similar to those produced by the classic psychedelics, popularized by their assocation with the sixties. However, anticholingeric syndrome is more physically unpleasant, tends to have an amnesiac effect (acetylcholine is involved in memory retention) and the hallucinations produced tend to lapse into delerium--in other words, it is difficult to tell what is real from what is not real. I realized this at the outset, but part of me was very curious as to what types of effects might be produced in such a delerium. In all three trials, I endevored to take notes of the events, but unfortunately was held back by two factors: hand-written notes become illegible as the experience takes full hold, and the energy required to type seems daunting, because of the general CNS depressant effect, and also possibly because of anticholinergic inhibition at the skeletal muscle receptors (the nicotinic, I believe), which makes it seem harder to move. My ability to remember the experiences was better than I had expected (perhaps because of my practice with remembering dreams), which is what I've based most of my observations upon.
The main issue anticholinergic delerium is that it truly is difficult to seperate real perceptions from hallucinated perceptions. In particular, I recall hearing footsteps on numerous ocassions that, in retrospect, could not possibly have been so numerous. In addition, such things as a speck of dust appearing as a spider crawling on the wall and a pile of paperclips appearing at random in the middle of the floor are hard to shake as real until you logically reason and realize that such a thing wasn't there before, and so it couldn't have just appeared there. I've read accounts of people having conversations with people that aren't actually there, which I did not experience myself, but that may well be a factor of the setting (i.e. I wasn't in a social context, thus no social aspects of the delerium were expressed.)
The only thing about this experience that worried me was that I felt compelled to do it three times, rather than a single time, and without even taking proper time to control for possible tolerance or anti-tolerance effects (some drug exposures actually seem to have the paradoxial property of weakening the systemic counter-response to their exposure.) In addition, the apparent hangover symptoms consistent with muscarinic overstimulation (i.e. salivation, tachycardia) had me somewhat worried, as cholinesterase inhibition is the method of fatal action for nerve toxins such as VX or Sarin, but the symptoms have since begun to subside, and after reading more information on cholinergic syndrome, I can conclude that any stimulation was rather mild.
Hopefully this helps you to understand why I chose to do it at all, although even I still don't know why I did it three times instead of only once.
> I do know that OD-ing on diphenhydramine can be relatively serious (supposedly it can cause siezures), but I've never heard of any permanent neurological damage or other sequellae as a result.
>
> I just have to know: Why on earth would you want to OD on Benadryl? All anyone seems to get from high doses is worse side-effects, and I've never heard of any kind of narcotic effect or whatever. What were you hoping to discover in this experiment?
poster:Delphi
thread:83473
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20011104/msgs/83628.html