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Serotonin Syndrome from 5apb

PearlJam8

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Joined
May 25, 2014
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3
Hi, I'm new to this whole bluelight thread posting thing but I'm just looking for answers (more)

Ok so on the 20th of April some friends and I went out and someone had these caps called 5apb, I'd never heard of them before but were told they were just like MDMA caps but better...

I was hesitant to take one at first but after a few others took it and were pretty normal I decided to go ahead..

I had absolutely nothing at all other than this cap, no alcohol, no drugs prescription or otherwise and don't take any form of medications in general and also don't normally drink alcohol generally, I'd say I have a glass of alcohol maybe once a month if that.

In the club the cap started kicking in and initially I felt amazing, it was literally the best feeling I have ever felt in my life, I couldn't stop smiling and just as it was marketed it was extremely better then the best MDMA I'd ever had, incredible...

It was like a dream, my eyes became heavy and with each blink my eyes stayed closed for longer, when I tried to keep them open they would roll back into my head, I started swaying and having auditory and visual hallucinations, I could hear the ocean...like huge waves crashing down but more mechanical

After that I collapsed and other people said I had a 'seizure', I'm not sure if I actually had one or not or if it was just intense myoclonus and tremors that people assumed to be a seizure..

I was carried into the back room where an ambulance was called and I was taken to a nearby hospital, I have no memory of this at all...
I only have 2 instances of auditory memory and 1 of visual of the collapse and a couple of sternal rubs, I heard people talking twice and once I got a visual of my hand that was completely hyperflexed backwards and in my head at this point I thought 'I'm going to die'...

I woke up in the hospital delerius and had a doctor standing at the foot of my bed lifting my lower leg up and quickly dorsi flexing my foot which would make my entire leg violently shudder, he kept calling other doctors and nurses in to 'come have a look at this' and they would gasp and say 'omg thats so scary', I couldn't talk at this point so just layed there and was sort of in and out of consciousness, I was so scared and thought I was definitely going to die as I was being 'shown' to other doctors..

Hospital and progress reports: (the writing is really hard to read so sorry if it doesn't make sense..)

Starts out with ....year old F with serotonin syndrome then goes on to list signs and symtoms and the nurse/progress reports of my stay (was there for 15hrs)

Pupils dilated
Teeth grinding
Ocular clonus
Shivering
Eyes rolling in back of head
Hypertensive (initially)
Tonic clonic movement
Tachycardic
Mildly hyperthermic
Strong rapid pulse
Lower and upper limb clonus, later it says ankle and wrist clonus
Down going plantars
Temp - 36.4 degrees
BP - 145/70 and later 86/48 then stabilised after IVT to 100/60
GCS - 11
HR - 160 then later 112

My bloods didn't include liver function? but everything was normal except Glucose - 5.8 and eGFR - 76

The report is 12 pages long and different doctors/nurses have written in it and the hand writing is pretty hard to make out so I certain I've missed things and or misinterpreted things...

Afterwards I went to a doctor because I felt really strange, I had really bad headaches and just felt unusual, like nothing was real and I was just floating around, I kind of had no feelings I didn't feel sad or angry or happy...I don't know how to explain it I just felt nothing and delirius/out of it, I was concerned and the doctor I saw just fobbed me off and told me I had nothing to worry about and go home..

I went to see another doctor who requested my paperwork from the hospital as my discharge summary was an uninformative one liner..and he basically said the same thing...go home and rest

I haven't been the same since...I have muscle twitches all the time, I still feel delerius half the time like I can't think straight or put sentences together or convey what I'm thinking into words, I occasionally have visual hallucinations, and nothing seems real, I can't sleep at night and constantly look up SS! It's like I don't care about anything anymore and have no varying emotion. I slept for a whole week after the SS then got really sick with the flu for 3 weeks, I'm so much better now but still not back to normal..

I'm worried about permanent damage and long term affects?
 
Hi welcome to Bluelight :)

Moving this to the right forum: PD >> MED.

It does sound like you are unusually sensitive, either to this drug or your brain is more generally. By that I don't mean that what happened to you is any less severe than you report or that 5-APB is safer than it truly is. (The only other explanations would involve you unknowingly having ingested other substances that would combine unsafely with 5-APB. Someone would have to be slipping you something like DXM which is probably hard to do unnoticed.)
But the other reality to this is that most people don't appear to show this reaction to 5-APB and other drugs like it. Therefore your reaction can be considered (quite) uncommon and the health implications are pretty hard to determine for that very same reason.

If it has been a month then the acute hangover that would be normal for any person should have passed for the most part. I personally have some experience with MDMA abuse (it was a very difficult time for me back then) and you may on the long term experience some difficulties with brain functions that are associated with serotonin activity (although surely drugs like these also act on other systems like dopamine). For example appetite, sleep and mood are a few things that are regulated by this and I have experienced trouble with regular sleeping like you appear to be having as well.

Even though all of this is pretty serious, I think it is best if you have faith that in time you will recover, the fact that you did not extensively assault your brain with drugs long term should count for something and should give you trust that you can heal.
 
I haven't been the same since...I have muscle twitches all the time, I still feel delerius half the time like I can't think straight or put sentences together or convey what I'm thinking into words, I occasionally have visual hallucinations, and nothing seems real, I can't sleep at night and constantly look up SS! It's like I don't care about anything anymore and have no varying emotion. I slept for a whole week after the SS then got really sick with the flu for 3 weeks, I'm so much better now but still not back to normal..

I'm worried about permanent damage and long term affects?

Hey man.

Care to explain a bit about the visual hallucinations? The long term effects you are experiencing are similar to what some people get from MDMA and other SRA's. You should not fear permanent damage, but it might take some time to sort itself out. It's impossible to say how long it will take for you, but there's stories of recovery taking place from everything from 4 weeks to a couple of years.

You should start living a healthy lifestyle and start exercising. You should also look into meditation, especially considering the obsessive "what if" thoughts that typically arise in situations like yours.

Edit: Obviously you should abstain from drugs completely. This includes alcohol and caffeine.
 
Hi, I'm new to this whole bluelight thread posting thing but I'm just looking for answers (more)

Ok so on the 20th of April some friends and I went out and someone had these caps called 5apb, I'd never heard of them before but were told they were just like MDMA caps but better...

I was hesitant to take one at first but after a few others took it and were pretty normal I decided to go ahead..

I had absolutely nothing at all other than this cap, no alcohol, no drugs prescription or otherwise and don't take any form of medications in general and also don't normally drink alcohol generally, I'd say I have a glass of alcohol maybe once a month if that.

In the club the cap started kicking in and initially I felt amazing, it was literally the best feeling I have ever felt in my life, I couldn't stop smiling and just as it was marketed it was extremely better then the best MDMA I'd ever had, incredible...

It was like a dream, my eyes became heavy and with each blink my eyes stayed closed for longer, when I tried to keep them open they would roll back into my head, I started swaying and having auditory and visual hallucinations, I could hear the ocean...like huge waves crashing down but more mechanical

After that I collapsed and other people said I had a 'seizure', I'm not sure if I actually had one or not or if it was just intense myoclonus and tremors that people assumed to be a seizure..

I was carried into the back room where an ambulance was called and I was taken to a nearby hospital, I have no memory of this at all...
I only have 2 instances of auditory memory and 1 of visual of the collapse and a couple of sternal rubs, I heard people talking twice and once I got a visual of my hand that was completely hyperflexed backwards and in my head at this point I thought 'I'm going to die'...

I woke up in the hospital delerius and had a doctor standing at the foot of my bed lifting my lower leg up and quickly dorsi flexing my foot which would make my entire leg violently shudder, he kept calling other doctors and nurses in to 'come have a look at this' and they would gasp and say 'omg thats so scary', I couldn't talk at this point so just layed there and was sort of in and out of consciousness, I was so scared and thought I was definitely going to die as I was being 'shown' to other doctors..

Hospital and progress reports: (the writing is really hard to read so sorry if it doesn't make sense..)

Starts out with ....year old F with serotonin syndrome then goes on to list signs and symtoms and the nurse/progress reports of my stay (was there for 15hrs)

Pupils dilated
Teeth grinding
Ocular clonus
Shivering
Eyes rolling in back of head
Hypertensive (initially)
Tonic clonic movement
Tachycardic
Mildly hyperthermic
Strong rapid pulse
Lower and upper limb clonus, later it says ankle and wrist clonus
Down going plantars
Temp - 36.4 degrees
BP - 145/70 and later 86/48 then stabilised after IVT to 100/60
GCS - 11
HR - 160 then later 112

My bloods didn't include liver function? but everything was normal except Glucose - 5.8 and eGFR - 76

The report is 12 pages long and different doctors/nurses have written in it and the hand writing is pretty hard to make out so I certain I've missed things and or misinterpreted things...

Afterwards I went to a doctor because I felt really strange, I had really bad headaches and just felt unusual, like nothing was real and I was just floating around, I kind of had no feelings I didn't feel sad or angry or happy...I don't know how to explain it I just felt nothing and delirius/out of it, I was concerned and the doctor I saw just fobbed me off and told me I had nothing to worry about and go home..

I went to see another doctor who requested my paperwork from the hospital as my discharge summary was an uninformative one liner..and he basically said the same thing...go home and rest

I haven't been the same since...I have muscle twitches all the time, I still feel delerius half the time like I can't think straight or put sentences together or convey what I'm thinking into words, I occasionally have visual hallucinations, and nothing seems real, I can't sleep at night and constantly look up SS! It's like I don't care about anything anymore and have no varying emotion. I slept for a whole week after the SS then got really sick with the flu for 3 weeks, I'm so much better now but still not back to normal..

I'm worried about permanent damage and long term affects?

Hi Pearljam8,

Serotonin syndrome is characterized by the triad of altered mental status, autonomic instability, and neuromuscular effects including muscle rigidity and myoclonus. From what I am reading in your post, it sounds like you may have had such an event.

I don't know much about 5-apb, but I believe its a reuptake inhibitor of monoamines (serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine) as well as a direct agonist of some subtypes of serotonin receptors.

I agree with you that it's hard to tell if you had an actual seizure vs. just diffuse rigidity and myoclonus, as both can look pretty similar. MDMA can lower the seizure threshold, and I can only assume this may be the case with 5-abp as both cause such a large release in monoamines.

In the hospital, when the doctors were dorsiflexing your foot and making your leg 'shudder' is definately clonus. Your motor nervous system is divided into upper motor neurons (nerves originating from your cerebral cortex in the brain that descend down through your spinal cord), and lower motor neurons (nerves that exit from your spinal cord and go to the individual muscles). Clonus is considered an upper motor neuron sign, and when physicians see this they usual think about injury to the cerebral cortex or spinal cord. However, clonus can also be caused by dysfunction to your gamma-motor neurons that run the spinal cord to muscles and respond to tension/stretch in your muscles and ligaments, causing clonus and spasticity. The dramatic increase in extracellular monoamines from the 5-apb may have caused either of these scenarios. Finally, clonus can be seen in young females of reproductive age or in patients with hyperthyroidism, but if you did not have clonus or hyperactive reflexes before your 5-apb event, I doubt these are causative factors in your case.

The dilated pupils are because of the sympathomimetic actions of the drug, as norepinephrine is the major neurotransmitter in sympathetic neurons, some of which innervate the muscles in the iris of your eye and cause them to dilate.
Teeth grinding, or bruxism, is frequently seen after amphetamine based drugs, and likely due to monoamine outflow in the muscles innervated by the trigeminal nerve. It seems plausible that 5-apb would cause this as well due to its effects on monoamines.
Ocular clonus, which is different than nystagmus, is a type of clonus, and probably caused by the same mechanisms causing your myoclonus.
The tachycardia and the fluctuating blood pressures is consistent with autonomic instability, which is common in serotonin syndrome, as is the hyperthermia.
Down going plantars is in reference to the Babinski reflex. The Babinski reflex is also an upper motor neuron sign, and if your toes are upgoing upon stimulation to the sole of your foot, that also points to a dysfunction in the upper motor neurons either in the brain or spinal cord. But your toes were downgoing.

GCS stands for Glasgow Coma Scale, and is a measure of consciousness, frequently used in the medical setting after traumatic brain injury, to assess consciousness and to predict overall neurological outcome from the injury. It is divided into 3 parts: eyes, verbal, and motor.
The score for eyes ranges from 1 to 4, with 4 being able to open eyes spontaneously and 1 not opening eyes at all, even to painful stimulus.
The verbal score ranges from 1 to 5, with 5 being fully oriented, and 1 meaning not making any verbal sounds at all, even to painful stimulus.
The motor score ranges from 1 to 6, with 6 being able follow commands with your extremities, and 1 no movement at all, even to painful stimulus.
If you add all three scores, you will see the GCS can range from 3 to 15. 15 is completely normal, while 3 is highly predictive of a poor neurological outcome such as brain death. GCS less than 8 is considered comatose, and at that point they would probably have to put a breathing tube down to support breathing and prevent aspiration. You had a GCS of 11, which probably meant you were awake but somnolent and confused.

So you can see you had all the elements of serotonin syndrome, and you should consider yourself pretty lucky. I don't know much about the long term effects or neurotoxicity potential of 5-apb. However, your symptoms at this point seem like some disturbance of your serotonin system, either on the neuronal side or on the post-synaptic receptor side such as significant down-regulation. On the other hand, a lot of physiological disturbances in your body could account for your symptoms, and you should have them ruled out by a good physician.

1. Did they ever scan your brain to rule out hemorrhage? If you came in with a GCS of 11, as well as a suspicion of seizures, its probably prudent they scan your brain via MRI or CT to rule out a structural lesion. Additionally, during your "seizure" episode, you may have become anoxic (deprived of oxygen), and this may have caused some damage. An MRI of the brain with diffusion weighted sequences may help rule this out, if you are still having symptoms.
2. If seizures were suspected, did they ever perform an EEG? If they had a suspicion of seizures, and you are still having some symptoms, it may be worthwile to rule out any further subclinical seizures.
3. If 5-apb works at all like MDMA, it can have significant effects on your pituitary function. Hypocortisolism and hypothyroidism can account for some of the delerious or altered conciousness feelings you are still experiencing. It may be useful to get an endocrine workup, if your symptoms are still persisting.
4. Did they check your kidney function again, including a BUN/creatinine level? If you experienced rigidity/clonus from this event, in conjunction with some hyperthermia, you may have been at risk for developing rhabdomyolysis, which is significant breakdown of your skeletal muscle, which then releases myoglobin into your bloodstream. Myoglobin is toxic to your kidneys and can also cause significant metabolic acidosis. Injury to your kidneys can cause buildup of nitrogenous urea (uremia), which along with acidosis can cause altered mental status. In addition, renal insufficiency may have an effect on your serum electrolytes, such as calcium, potassium, and sodium, which can also have a significant effect on mental status. Therefore, I would check your electrolytes as well as BUN/creatinine to rule this out.

If all this is normal, it sounds like this may be some persistent serotonergic dysfunction, and it will just take time and good nutrition to recover.

Good luck, I hope this helped understand what happened and how to guide your further interactions with your physicians.

Zebrafish
 
Last edited:
Hey, thanks for the reply...I just occasionally see patterns in things that you shouldn't eg. carpet/floor/paint or things that are patterned moving around or objects that should be still like blankets or curtains moving around...
 
Zebrafish,

The GP's I've seen do nothing, they just insinuate I'm worrying about nothing at all but SS is serious...
The doctors at the hospital told my friends I had a brain scan done but I didn't receive anything in the report about it or an ecg for that matter..
I haven't had any form of follow up so I think I'll request follow up bloods or something just to be sure..
 
Zebrafish,

The GP's I've seen do nothing, they just insinuate I'm worrying about nothing at all but SS is serious...
The doctors at the hospital told my friends I had a brain scan done but I didn't receive anything in the report about it or an ecg for that matter..
I haven't had any form of follow up so I think I'll request follow up bloods or something just to be sure..

Your eGFR at 76 was on the low side, assuming you are a young healthy female with no underlying kidney issues, so at the minimum you should have your kidney function rechecked to make sure it has re-normalized. Did you ever experience dark or brownish urine after this event?
 
Something doesn't add up here. 5-APB (if that is what it indeed was) is simply a strong serotonin releaser (it releases very little DAT & NET) and is one of the most benign drugs I have ever used. I would consider this reaction to be highly unusual, but never the less, I urge people to take care when ingesting random caps, as you never know what they are.

As an after thought, this could of been 5-MAPB, as the side effect profile is a fair bit nastier than 5-APB. Having used 5-APB many times myself, I can't imagine anyone ever having a bad reaction to it. Saying that, now the APB's have been banned, it could of been anything.

On a related note, I don't think this was serotonin syndrome. This term is thrown about, but ACTUAL serotonin syndrome is extremely painful (stomach feels like it's on fire), and your temperature would be a LOT higher. In regards to the tremors, I get this when rolling really hard on MDMA or APDB....I think it's to do with muscle tension...

Take care :)
 
Serotonin releasers taken alone can cause this type of reaction sporadically, for the very unlucky.

On a related note, I don't think this was serotonin syndrome.

The symptoms actually fit extremely well. In fact, they fit more than those found in any other report of 'serotonin syndrome' I've read on here in the past couple of years.

ebola
 
Something doesn't add up here. 5-APB (if that is what it indeed was) is simply a strong serotonin releaser (it releases very little DAT & NET) and is one of the most benign drugs I have ever used. I would consider this reaction to be highly unusual, but never the less, I urge people to take care when ingesting random caps, as you never know what they are.

As an after thought, this could of been 5-MAPB, as the side effect profile is a fair bit nastier than 5-APB. Having used 5-APB many times myself, I can't imagine anyone ever having a bad reaction to it. Saying that, now the APB's have been banned, it could of been anything.

On a related note, I don't think this was serotonin syndrome. This term is thrown about, but ACTUAL serotonin syndrome is extremely painful (stomach feels like it's on fire), and your temperature would be a LOT higher. In regards to the tremors, I get this when rolling really hard on MDMA or APDB....I think it's to do with muscle tension...

Take care :)

Serotonin syndrome really represents a spectrum of toxicity, where the severity of the syndrome can vary, depending on the number and magnitude of clinical features consistent with the diagnosis that are present, rather than being a discrete syndrome, where all clinical features must be present to establish the diagnosis. That being said, I have not seen severe abdominal pain being listed as a criteria of serotonin syndrome on any definition of serotonin syndrome.

The most widely accepted diagnostic criteria for serotonin syndrome used recently is the Hunter criteria, which shows the best sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing serotonin syndrome.

Here is a link to their paper describing their criteria:
http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/96/9/635.long

Although I agree most cases of severe serotonin toxicity involve hyperthermia, the presence of hyperthermia is not absolutely necessary for the diagnosis to be made. Moreover, the OP notes she was found to be shivering, which is primarily a heat generating mechanism, but in the presence of normothermia. Shivering, tonic contraction of skeletal muscle, and uncoupling of oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria are the primary mechanisms by which hyperthermia is produced in the setting of serotonin toxicity, and the fact that the OP was shivering while not hypothermic seems to be consistent with this. Additionally, she may have been cooled in the ambulance prior to arrival in the ER, after her initial vital signs were obtained.

According to the Hunter criteria, the presence of clonus is the most predictive sign of serotonin syndrome, which the OP definately had based on her description.
 
Hi, I'm new to this whole bluelight thread posting thing but I'm just looking for answers (more)

Ok so on the 20th of April some friends and I went out and someone had these caps called 5apb, I'd never heard of them before but were told they were just like MDMA caps but better...

I was hesitant to take one at first but after a few others took it and were pretty normal I decided to go ahead..

I had absolutely nothing at all other than this cap, no alcohol, no drugs prescription or otherwise and don't take any form of medications in general and also don't normally drink alcohol generally, I'd say I have a glass of alcohol maybe once a month if that.

In the club the cap started kicking in and initially I felt amazing, it was literally the best feeling I have ever felt in my life, I couldn't stop smiling and just as it was marketed it was extremely better then the best MDMA I'd ever had, incredible...

It was like a dream, my eyes became heavy and with each blink my eyes stayed closed for longer, when I tried to keep them open they would roll back into my head, I started swaying and having auditory and visual hallucinations, I could hear the ocean...like huge waves crashing down but more mechanical

After that I collapsed and other people said I had a 'seizure', I'm not sure if I actually had one or not or if it was just intense myoclonus and tremors that people assumed to be a seizure..

I was carried into the back room where an ambulance was called and I was taken to a nearby hospital, I have no memory of this at all...
I only have 2 instances of auditory memory and 1 of visual of the collapse and a couple of sternal rubs, I heard people talking twice and once I got a visual of my hand that was completely hyperflexed backwards and in my head at this point I thought 'I'm going to die'...

I woke up in the hospital delerius and had a doctor standing at the foot of my bed lifting my lower leg up and quickly dorsi flexing my foot which would make my entire leg violently shudder, he kept calling other doctors and nurses in to 'come have a look at this' and they would gasp and say 'omg thats so scary', I couldn't talk at this point so just layed there and was sort of in and out of consciousness, I was so scared and thought I was definitely going to die as I was being 'shown' to other doctors..

Hospital and progress reports: (the writing is really hard to read so sorry if it doesn't make sense..)

Starts out with ....year old F with serotonin syndrome then goes on to list signs and symtoms and the nurse/progress reports of my stay (was there for 15hrs)

Pupils dilated
Teeth grinding
Ocular clonus
Shivering
Eyes rolling in back of head
Hypertensive (initially)
Tonic clonic movement
Tachycardic
Mildly hyperthermic
Strong rapid pulse
Lower and upper limb clonus, later it says ankle and wrist clonus
Down going plantars
Temp - 36.4 degrees
BP - 145/70 and later 86/48 then stabilised after IVT to 100/60
GCS - 11
HR - 160 then later 112

My bloods didn't include liver function? but everything was normal except Glucose - 5.8 and eGFR - 76

The report is 12 pages long and different doctors/nurses have written in it and the hand writing is pretty hard to make out so I certain I've missed things and or misinterpreted things...

Afterwards I went to a doctor because I felt really strange, I had really bad headaches and just felt unusual, like nothing was real and I was just floating around, I kind of had no feelings I didn't feel sad or angry or happy...I don't know how to explain it I just felt nothing and delirius/out of it, I was concerned and the doctor I saw just fobbed me off and told me I had nothing to worry about and go home..

I went to see another doctor who requested my paperwork from the hospital as my discharge summary was an uninformative one liner..and he basically said the same thing...go home and rest

I haven't been the same since...I have muscle twitches all the time, I still feel delerius half the time like I can't think straight or put sentences together or convey what I'm thinking into words, I occasionally have visual hallucinations, and nothing seems real, I can't sleep at night and constantly look up SS! It's like I don't care about anything anymore and have no varying emotion. I slept for a whole week after the SS then got really sick with the flu for 3 weeks, I'm so much better now but still not back to normal..

I'm worried about permanent damage and long term affects?
How do you feel now? Did you really suffer any permanent damage?
 
Hey, thanks for the reply...I just occasionally see patterns in things that you shouldn't eg. carpet/floor/paint or things that are patterned moving around or objects that should be still like blankets or curtains moving around...
Sounds like HPPD does that buddy. If it is avoid Cannabis and too much stress. It will bring it out more. Often in very uncomfortable ways.
 
Hi, I'm new to this whole bluelight thread posting thing but I'm just looking for answers (more)

Ok so on the 20th of April some friends and I went out and someone had these caps called 5apb, I'd never heard of them before but were told they were just like MDMA caps but better...

I was hesitant to take one at first but after a few others took it and were pretty normal I decided to go ahead..

I had absolutely nothing at all other than this cap, no alcohol, no drugs prescription or otherwise and don't take any form of medications in general and also don't normally drink alcohol generally, I'd say I have a glass of alcohol maybe once a month if that.

In the club the cap started kicking in and initially I felt amazing, it was literally the best feeling I have ever felt in my life, I couldn't stop smiling and just as it was marketed it was extremely better then the best MDMA I'd ever had, incredible...

It was like a dream, my eyes became heavy and with each blink my eyes stayed closed for longer, when I tried to keep them open they would roll back into my head, I started swaying and having auditory and visual hallucinations, I could hear the ocean...like huge waves crashing down but more mechanical

After that I collapsed and other people said I had a 'seizure', I'm not sure if I actually had one or not or if it was just intense myoclonus and tremors that people assumed to be a seizure..

I was carried into the back room where an ambulance was called and I was taken to a nearby hospital, I have no memory of this at all...
I only have 2 instances of auditory memory and 1 of visual of the collapse and a couple of sternal rubs, I heard people talking twice and once I got a visual of my hand that was completely hyperflexed backwards and in my head at this point I thought 'I'm going to die'...

I woke up in the hospital delerius and had a doctor standing at the foot of my bed lifting my lower leg up and quickly dorsi flexing my foot which would make my entire leg violently shudder, he kept calling other doctors and nurses in to 'come have a look at this' and they would gasp and say 'omg thats so scary', I couldn't talk at this point so just layed there and was sort of in and out of consciousness, I was so scared and thought I was definitely going to die as I was being 'shown' to other doctors..

Hospital and progress reports: (the writing is really hard to read so sorry if it doesn't make sense..)

Starts out with ....year old F with serotonin syndrome then goes on to list signs and symtoms and the nurse/progress reports of my stay (was there for 15hrs)

Pupils dilated
Teeth grinding
Ocular clonus
Shivering
Eyes rolling in back of head
Hypertensive (initially)
Tonic clonic movement
Tachycardic
Mildly hyperthermic
Strong rapid pulse
Lower and upper limb clonus, later it says ankle and wrist clonus
Down going plantars
Temp - 36.4 degrees
BP - 145/70 and later 86/48 then stabilised after IVT to 100/60
GCS - 11
HR - 160 then later 112

My bloods didn't include liver function? but everything was normal except Glucose - 5.8 and eGFR - 76

The report is 12 pages long and different doctors/nurses have written in it and the hand writing is pretty hard to make out so I certain I've missed things and or misinterpreted things...

Afterwards I went to a doctor because I felt really strange, I had really bad headaches and just felt unusual, like nothing was real and I was just floating around, I kind of had no feelings I didn't feel sad or angry or happy...I don't know how to explain it I just felt nothing and delirius/out of it, I was concerned and the doctor I saw just fobbed me off and told me I had nothing to worry about and go home..

I went to see another doctor who requested my paperwork from the hospital as my discharge summary was an uninformative one liner..and he basically said the same thing...go home and rest

I haven't been the same since...I have muscle twitches all the time, I still feel delerius half the time like I can't think straight or put sentences together or convey what I'm thinking into words, I occasionally have visual hallucinations, and nothing seems real, I can't sleep at night and constantly look up SS! It's like I don't care about anything anymore and have no varying emotion. I slept for a whole week after the SS then got really sick with the flu for 3 weeks, I'm so much better now but still not back to normal..

I'm worried about permanent damage and long term affects?
Did you feel like ANTS were crawling all over your brain and was your heart pounding like crazy? If so yeah you had Serotonin Syndrome , had it once from doing crack and then XTC. Stayed up for 3 days straight and felt like I would die.
 
Hi, I'm new to this whole bluelight thread posting thing but I'm just looking for answers (more)

Ok so on the 20th of April some friends and I went out and someone had these caps called 5apb, I'd never heard of them before but were told they were just like MDMA caps but better...

I was hesitant to take one at first but after a few others took it and were pretty normal I decided to go ahead..

I had absolutely nothing at all other than this cap, no alcohol, no drugs prescription or otherwise and don't take any form of medications in general and also don't normally drink alcohol generally, I'd say I have a glass of alcohol maybe once a month if that.

In the club the cap started kicking in and initially I felt amazing, it was literally the best feeling I have ever felt in my life, I couldn't stop smiling and just as it was marketed it was extremely better then the best MDMA I'd ever had, incredible...

It was like a dream, my eyes became heavy and with each blink my eyes stayed closed for longer, when I tried to keep them open they would roll back into my head, I started swaying and having auditory and visual hallucinations, I could hear the ocean...like huge waves crashing down but more mechanical

After that I collapsed and other people said I had a 'seizure', I'm not sure if I actually had one or not or if it was just intense myoclonus and tremors that people assumed to be a seizure..

I was carried into the back room where an ambulance was called and I was taken to a nearby hospital, I have no memory of this at all...
I only have 2 instances of auditory memory and 1 of visual of the collapse and a couple of sternal rubs, I heard people talking twice and once I got a visual of my hand that was completely hyperflexed backwards and in my head at this point I thought 'I'm going to die'...

I woke up in the hospital delerius and had a doctor standing at the foot of my bed lifting my lower leg up and quickly dorsi flexing my foot which would make my entire leg violently shudder, he kept calling other doctors and nurses in to 'come have a look at this' and they would gasp and say 'omg thats so scary', I couldn't talk at this point so just layed there and was sort of in and out of consciousness, I was so scared and thought I was definitely going to die as I was being 'shown' to other doctors..

Hospital and progress reports: (the writing is really hard to read so sorry if it doesn't make sense..)

Starts out with ....year old F with serotonin syndrome then goes on to list signs and symtoms and the nurse/progress reports of my stay (was there for 15hrs)

Pupils dilated
Teeth grinding
Ocular clonus
Shivering
Eyes rolling in back of head
Hypertensive (initially)
Tonic clonic movement
Tachycardic
Mildly hyperthermic
Strong rapid pulse
Lower and upper limb clonus, later it says ankle and wrist clonus
Down going plantars
Temp - 36.4 degrees
BP - 145/70 and later 86/48 then stabilised after IVT to 100/60
GCS - 11
HR - 160 then later 112

My bloods didn't include liver function? but everything was normal except Glucose - 5.8 and eGFR - 76

The report is 12 pages long and different doctors/nurses have written in it and the hand writing is pretty hard to make out so I certain I've missed things and or misinterpreted things...

Afterwards I went to a doctor because I felt really strange, I had really bad headaches and just felt unusual, like nothing was real and I was just floating around, I kind of had no feelings I didn't feel sad or angry or happy...I don't know how to explain it I just felt nothing and delirius/out of it, I was concerned and the doctor I saw just fobbed me off and told me I had nothing to worry about and go home..

I went to see another doctor who requested my paperwork from the hospital as my discharge summary was an uninformative one liner..and he basically said the same thing...go home and rest

I haven't been the same since...I have muscle twitches all the time, I still feel delerius half the time like I can't think straight or put sentences together or convey what I'm thinking into words, I occasionally have visual hallucinations, and nothing seems real, I can't sleep at night and constantly look up SS! It's like I don't care about anything anymore and have no varying emotion. I slept for a whole week after the SS then got really sick with the flu for 3 weeks, I'm so much better now but still not back to normal..

I'm worried about permanent damage and long term affects?
It does resemble an Tonic-clonic seizure. And the after effects you describe also fit the bill.

I hope it was a one time thing. You are obviously sensitive to this so my advise would be keep an journal. So you can judge if it gets any better over time.

Avoid drugs that lower the seizure treshold. Like 5-APB but also Tramadol and probably some more. How are you feeling now?
 
Something doesn't add up here. 5-APB (if that is what it indeed was) is simply a strong serotonin releaser (it releases very little DAT & NET) and is one of the most benign drugs I have ever used. I would consider this reaction to be highly unusual, but never the less, I urge people to take care when ingesting random caps, as you never know what they are.

As an after thought, this could of been 5-MAPB, as the side effect profile is a fair bit nastier than 5-APB. Having used 5-APB many times myself, I can't imagine anyone ever having a bad reaction to it. Saying that, now the APB's have been banned, it could of been anything.

On a related note, I don't think this was serotonin syndrome. This term is thrown about, but ACTUAL serotonin syndrome is extremely painful (stomach feels like it's on fire), and your temperature would be a LOT higher. In regards to the tremors, I get this when rolling really hard on MDMA or APDB....I think it's to do with muscle tension...

Take care :)

What? I think you might have that backwards regarding 5-MAPB having a "far bit nastier" side effect profile than 5-APB. Someone correct me if I'm wrong about that though?
 
What? I think you might have that backwards regarding 5-MAPB having a "far bit nastier" side effect profile than 5-APB. Someone correct me if I'm wrong about that though?

It’s hard to say. When 5-MAPB came out folks were having issues that didn’t have issues with 5-APB or 6-APB, but there was speculation it could’ve been a batch issue or ROA possibly. Almost everyone that had problems either snorted multiple redoses (it seems very potent this ROA) or took large doses. There were batches then that I believe were some other APB/APDB besides 5-MAPB, of which I still actually have some but yet to get it lab analyzed due to financial restrictions. It tests very close to MDMA/APB substances on reagents but still doesn’t match real 5-MAPB.

IMO it’s a drug that can bite hard if misused, but when used properly it’s a real gem.

-GC
 
5-MAPB "kills" my ego every time man not sure I can use it again with this unfortunate brain damage though
 
It’s hard to say. When 5-MAPB came out folks were having issues that didn’t have issues with 5-APB or 6-APB, but there was speculation it could’ve been a batch issue or ROA possibly. Almost everyone that had problems either snorted multiple redoses (it seems very potent this ROA) or took large doses. There were batches then that I believe were some other APB/APDB besides 5-MAPB, of which I still actually have some but yet to get it lab analyzed due to financial restrictions. It tests very close to MDMA/APB substances on reagents but still doesn’t match real 5-MAPB.

IMO it’s a drug that can bite hard if misused, but when used properly it’s a real gem.

-GC

Most likely it's not 5-MAPB or has an active cut in it especially if the reagent doesn't quite match. I've never seen or heard of a verified batch of 5-MAPB ending with a bad experience.
Why not send it to Dancesafe err I mean the Pilltests website that will test it for active ingredients for free?

Did you use the batch you still have? Did it feel "different" compared to unquestionably verified 5-MAPB I'm truly curious?

BTW do you think Fumurate Vs. HCL 5-MAPB besides obvious differences might be contributing factor?


@dragonix What brain damage exactly are you referring to that happened to you?
 
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Most likely it's not 5-MAPB or has an active cut in it especially if the reagent doesn't quite match. I've never seen or heard of a verified batch of 5-MAPB ending with a bad experience.
Why not send it to Dancesafe err I mean the Pilltests website that will test it for active ingredients for free?

Did you use the batch you still have? Did it feel "different" compared to unquestionably verified 5-MAPB I'm truly curious?

BTW do you think Fumurate Vs. HCL 5-MAPB besides obvious differences might be contributing factor?


@dragonix What brain damage exactly are you referring to that happened to you?

Yea I think your right, it’s definitely not 5-MAPB but based on the reagent results, the taste, the smell, and the experience it definitely was some APB.

I did try it a couple times and had others try it as well, I had/have so much of it I tried to figure it out. It had less effect at 400mg then 100mg of real 5-MAPB, according to one guy I knew.

I tried multiple purifications, the last of which I did a full A/B with many washes. Even then the resulting experience while decent wasn’t 5-MAPB. I’d need to test this purified batch more but kinda want to wait to get it tested by a lab.

The only thing holding me back on that is the finances, hard to justify dropping over a hundred just to know but one day if I get the money or someone funds it I’ll more than happily send some in!

-GC
 
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