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3 Hours of Terror
DXM & Pseudoephedrine
Citation:   Asriel. "3 Hours of Terror: An Experience with DXM & Pseudoephedrine (exp4906)". Erowid.org. Jan 10, 2002. erowid.org/exp/4906

 
DOSE:
  oral DXM (liquid)
    oral Pseudoephedrine (liquid)
BODY WEIGHT: 250 lb
I was at the store picking up some herbal supplements for myself when I noticed a bottle of Robotussin Max Cough and Cold. I've always wanted to try DXM so I picked myself up a bottle. Looking at the ingredients I saw it had both DXM and pseudoephedrine. I didn't think the pseudoephedrine would make much of a difference, so I bought it anyway.

Around 11pm I decided to go ahead and give it a shot. Now I'm a pretty level headed person (most of the time) and decided to start out with a relatively low dose, so I took about half the bottle. Half an hour later I wasn't feeling much of anything so I took another few tablespoons. Two I think.

What followed was the most frightening experience of my life. The pseudoephedrine kicked in at around 11:45 or so. My heart was racing wildly, I could feel my ribcage move with each beat. And it was going very, very fast. I decided to lie down for a little while and hope that it would pass. So I hit the bed and I'm rolling around because I just can't stay still and my heartbeat is getting really irregular. 'Boom, boom......boombooombooombooomboooomboom....boom' etc. All of a sudden I can't feel it on my chest anymore. So I check my pulse on my neck, nothing is there. I feel a cold, intense numbness spreading through my arms and legs and scalp. I'm thinking to myself 'Oh shit, this is it, I'm gonna die'. So I get up to call the paramedics. When I get out of bed I'm very light headed and about to pass out when the numbness stops and the feeling returns to my body. I feel my chest and my heart is racing again. This happened no less than 9 times that evening. I could feel my heart stop for a few seconds, my arms, legs and scalp would start to tingle and go numb, then it would start up again, race for a few minutes, kinda die down and then stop. This was the most frightening experience of my entire life. I didn't call the paramedics thinking I could just kinda ride it out. This went on for almost 3 hours. Fortunately a good friend was online and she was able to help me through it. I was so scared. I kept on telling her I was afraid I was going to die. She didn't call the paramedics either, on my request. Finally around 2:30ish my heart kinda calmed itself down. It was still racing a little, but not nearly as bad as it had been before and it wasn't irregular, just a steady fast beat. I thanked my friend for being there for me and decided to sleep the rest of it off, so I went back to bed.

This is when it got really interesting, when the DXM set in.

I'm laying in bed unable to sleep because I think the pseudoephedrine was still in my system. I start having the weirdest dreams, but they weren't really dreams, it was like a movie that I was a part of. I had just gotten finished reading a few books from my favourite series, and I was one of those characters in the book. It wasn't like a 'Cool, let's pretend' kind of thing, I honestly thought I was a warrior mouse who had to protect the Abbey. Really really strange. Another interesting thing about the drug’s dissociative aspects is that my body and mind seemed to become completely different entities. I knew my body was there, but I wasn't bothered by it. It seemed detached, almost. A very interesting, and somewhat crazy experience. Finally, around 4am I got to sleep. Woke up at around 10 that morning, feeling groggy and a little out of it, but the effects were for the most part gone.

I walked away from this experience having learned two things:
1) Life is short, and I certainly don't want to lose it to drugs. Especially not Robotussin
2) RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH!!! I knew there were dangers from other active ingredients of Tussin, but this particular one didn't ring a bell so I ignored it and it nearly cost me my life.

If you're going to take DXM, I recommend reading the FAQ. Read it and reread it. And be safe, have a babysitter. Because there's nobody who's going to respect you if you kill yourself on an overdose on Robotussin.

Exp Year: 2001ExpID: 4906
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jan 10, 2002Views: 34,314
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Pseudoephedrine (215), DXM (22) : Alone (16), Health Problems (27), Combinations (3)

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