suspected serotonin syndrome from methoxetamine use

[instabilify]

hello bluelight,

Last night I consumed about 100mg methoxetamine over a few hours (my third time with the drug). Everything was going fine until after my last bump, when I developed a feverish state with a racing heart, shortness of breath, splitting headache, crippling nausea and profuse sweating. This lasted about 6 hrs, with intermittent vomiting, before it gradually resolved itself. Does this sound like serotonin syndrome? If so, how could this have happened, on a pharmacological level? I thought SS was only a risk when MXE is combined with other substances. I'm not taking any meds. Whatever this was, it was easily the worst physical reaction to a drug I've experienced.

Has anyone else had a similar reaction to methoxetamine? I'm kind of scared to touch serotonergic drugs now - is this a valid concern? I'll be giving MXE a wide berth in future for sure, this scared the hell out of me for a while as I've heard SS can be fatal, assuming that's what it was. Is it possible a reaction like this points to some underlying health problems?

any other comments/advice appreciated,

instabilify

 

[sekio]

It sounds like you just had way too much MxE. Methoxetamine shouldn't affect serotonin, and ~100mg is a lot to dose.

It sounds like a simple overdose, remember methoxetamine is a dopamine reuptake inhibitor. Uncomfortable overstimulation and high blood pressure would make sense if you take a huge amount without any experience.

It could also be psychological, a lot of people don't "like" dissociatives the same way they do other euphoric drugs. They can be very powerful and disprienting.

 

[deko]

Have you used this batch of mxe safely before?
There is one report of possible ss which could be due fake mxe.

 

[Chemical Wizard]

No one can say for sure with Research Chemicals !!

 

[suckerbunnie]

It sounds like you just had way too much MxE. Methoxetamine shouldn't affect serotonin, and ~100mg is a lot to dose.

Nail on head right there. I have experienced the same effects as original poster and learned a thing or two about dosage as a result. Just don't overdo it and you will be fine

 

[Cloudy]

Sounds like a simple overdose.

I don't even think MXE has much, if any effect on serotonin release, uptake, or metabolism (I haven't kept up with the MXE discussion, so not sure exactly on the other pharmacological sites of action). SS doesn't result from every recreational drug, and couldn't result from ketamine use (just throwing out a relative), so why are you suspecting SS?

Were you on any other drugs, prescribed or not?

 

[greenberryhaze]

I'm not sure we should be too quick to dismiss the possibility of SS entirely, since we know it doesn't play well with at least one pure serotonin releaser. Even if there's no chance of it having SERT affinity, couldn't there be something happening downstream?

 

[sekio]

It's unlikely. I don't know what you mean by "it doesn't play well with at least one pure releaser" - ketamine and MDMA are well known to synergize, I would expect MXE to do so as well with no adverse effects.

It sounds to me like a psychological stress reaction due to overdose, combined with the very nature of the substance (NMDA antagonists can cause horrible nystagmus and result in vomiting - and DRIs are well known to make people panic with racing hearts/sweating).

This is compounded by inexperience with the drug; lots of people can handle small amounts of dissociatives but not full-blown hole doses.

 

[atara]

It's unlikely. I don't know what you mean by "it doesn't play well with at least one pure releaser"

The reference is to a famous case of a Swede who died after injecting 60 mg MXE and 400 mg MDAI intravenously. Those are large doses of both substances, but they're not that large, which has scary implications.

Compare to 2C-B which people have taken at levels many many times the active dose (~20 mg) with little lasting damage and to this day no deaths from any halogenated 2C.

Unfortunately, MXE has never been properly studied, so it's not possible to say what its affinities for various receptors are, or how precisely it works. We're pretty sure it's an NMDA antagonist, reasonably sure its mu-opioid affinity is higher than ketamine's, and it presumably acts as a DAT inhibitor and nAChR antagonist by analogy to other arylcyclohexylamines, but beyond that there's pretty much nothing in the literature.

OP's symptoms don't sound like serotonin syndrome, incidentally, and that probably wasn't the issue.

 

[suckerbunnie]

The reference is to a famous case of a Swede who died after injecting 60 mg MXE and 400 mg MDAI intravenously. Those are large doses of both substances, but they're not that large, which has scary implications.

I don't know too much personally about mixing, as I have always prefered to experience ketamine and now methoxetamine for its' purity. One thing I will say in the spirit of harm reduction is that I believe that it would be unadvisable to use mxe intravenously. I know from firsthand experience that methoxetamine is a much denser material than ketamine and is therefore rather rough on the muscles when used intramuscularly. This being the case I can also imagine it being tough on one's veins as well.

 

[sekio]

I think you'll be hard pressed to find any amine drug salt that isn't hard on muscle tissue or your veins when injected.

 

[greenberryhaze]

OP's symptoms don't sound like serotonin syndrome, incidentally, and that probably wasn't the issue.

... feverish state with a racing heart, shortness of breath, splitting headache, crippling nausea and profuse sweating.

Wikipedia specifically lists all these as symptoms except for shortness of breath. How is this not consistent with SS?

 

[Shambles]

Delirium and agonising pain lasting upwards of 24 hours are probably the most defining symptoms of SS to me. What the OP reports sounds somewhat like SS but not quite. That's not to diminish how unpleasant it obviously was but it doesn't sound much like SS to me either. I've had it twice and even the "mild" time I had it wasn't quite as "mild" (relatively) as that description. The problem with Wiki's and other lists of SS symptoms is that they are very generic (cos SS symptoms mostly are very generic) and totally fail to explain the extremity of those symptoms in the case of SS compared to "standard" OD scenarios.

I have to agree with the majority that that sounds more like an overdose of the drug itself - smells far more like dopamine territory than serotonin stuff to me, to be honest. Which is still pretty scary seeing as 100mg is maybe a large dose without tolerance but it's not that large compared to standard doses.

It's also the first such case of such symptoms in the absence of other drugs that I've seen. There does appear to be a dark heart to this one, in my opinion.

 

[sekio]

Methoxetamine is certainly nowhere near as "forgiving" as ketamine, it seems. Maybe the arylcyclohexylamines were shelved/scheduled for a good reason after all?

 

[PhyllipThylamine]

It's unlikely. I don't know what you mean by "it doesn't play well with at least one pure releaser" - ketamine and MDMA are well known to synergize, I would expect MXE to do so as well with no adverse effects.

I've been wondering about folk being inclined to use mxe on the downside of a night on stimulants & I'd advise against it. It does not appear to have the same effects profile as Ket & thus probably has a different side-effect & interaction profile.

For the sake of enlightenment I took a very small dose of Butylone whilst on mxe about 3 weeks ago. The Bute turned up earlier than expected & even though I'd already had a 10mg line of mxe I decided to carefully test the new Bute. The combination seemed unusually stimulating, even though I took the Butylone in small dabs (totalling 20mgs) over about an hour. Some hours later in the evening, in bed (I'd say about 5 hours later) I suffered a racing heartbeat & felt overly stimulated. I also had a headache. I was not panicked or in a frantic state before or during this spell, so it wasnt anxiety related.

So in my limited test experience, I would say that mxe does not combine well with stimulants, especially of the cathinone class & I recomend major caution using mxe in the same way as Ket is used after a night out.

 

[any major dude]

hello bluelight,

Last night I consumed about 100mg methoxetamine over a few hours (my third time with the drug). Everything was going fine until after my last bump, when I developed a feverish state with a racing heart, shortness of breath, splitting headache, crippling nausea and profuse sweating. This lasted about 6 hrs, with intermittent vomiting, before it gradually resolved itself. Does this sound like serotonin syndrome? If so, how could this have happened, on a pharmacological level? I thought SS was only a risk when MXE is combined with other substances. I'm not taking any meds. Whatever this was, it was easily the worst physical reaction to a drug I've experienced.

Has anyone else had a similar reaction to methoxetamine? I'm kind of scared to touch serotonergic drugs now - is this a valid concern? I'll be giving MXE a wide berth in future for sure, this scared the hell out of me for a while as I've heard SS can be fatal, assuming that's what it was. Is it possible a reaction like this points to some underlying health problems?

any other comments/advice appreciated,

instabilify

Curious as to why you'd assume this is serotonin syndrome. The same effects can be cause by too much cocaine & whiskey.... Sorry you had a negative experience though, but 100mg is a lot of MXE. Do you have a tolerance or did you just dive into the deep end?

I'm not sure we should be too quick to dismiss the possibility of SS entirely, since we know it doesn't play well with at least one pure serotonin releaser. Even if there's no chance of it having SERT affinity, couldn't there be something happening downstream?

I'll admit the possibility, but you'd probably be equally as likely to get SS from ritalin or crack
Also, the report of the death from the combo with MDAI was a pretty ridiculous dose of MDAI via any ROA taken IV, as well as what would be a pretty hefty oral MXE dose, also taken IV. The lesson there seems to be don't shoot up large amounts of completely untested drugs. I still wouldn't encourage combining MXE, or any other unresearched drug with other drugs, but the reports of combining MDMA with MXE seem to be pretty uniformly positive.

Delirium and agonising pain lasting upwards of 24 hours are probably the most defining symptoms of SS to me. What the OP reports sounds somewhat like SS but not quite. That's not to diminish how unpleasant it obviously was but it doesn't sound much like SS to me either. I've had it twice and even the "mild" time I had it wasn't quite as "mild" (relatively) as that description. The problem with Wiki's and other lists of SS symptoms is that they are very generic (cos SS symptoms mostly are very generic) and totally fail to explain the extremity of those symptoms in the case of SS compared to "standard" OD scenarios.

I have to agree with the majority that that sounds more like an overdose of the drug itself - smells far more like dopamine territory than serotonin stuff to me, to be honest. Which is still pretty scary seeing as 100mg is maybe a large dose without tolerance but it's not that large compared to standard doses.

It's also the first such case of such symptoms in the absence of other drugs that I've seen. There does appear to be a dark heart to this one, in my opinion.

qft

Additionally i'm a bit concerned at the recent increase in reports of every negative side effect of psychedelic use being chalked up to either vasoconstriction or serotonin syndrome. These seem almost like the new "strychnine in your acid man.."

Granted these things do exist, and occasionally cause problems, but the frequency with which they are mentioned is probably way out of line with their actual occurrence

 

[suckerbunnie]

Methoxetamine is certainly nowhere near as "forgiving" as ketamine, it seems.

I beg to differ. I have caused significant injury to myself and to property many many times with ketamine. My experiences with methoxetamine thus far have been nothing but positive and I have found no real downside to it when used responsibly

 

[pofacedhoe]

I'm not sure we should be too quick to dismiss the possibility of SS entirely, since we know it doesn't play well with at least one pure serotonin releaser. Even if there's no chance of it having SERT affinity, couldn't there be something happening downstream?

i agree- its a well known bad mix with mxe and mdai, though with amt it was nice and lush

jspete on this website had problems with the afore mentioned combo.

just be carefull and dont dose high with this drug or its dopaminergic edge could lead to an mdpv style panic attack while tripping your nuts off. not good. be sensible

op's description sounds like the kind of long lasting panic attack caused by mdpv overdoses. ever had a bad pnaic attack? you feel sick, your head goes dizzy and feels awfull and your heart races a hundred miles a minute

 

[spamuel]

I have had no SS problems taking methoxetamine, even with my daily doses of mirtazipine and quetiapine.
If it take it too close to my quetiapine though, I feel fairly jittery, almost as if I've drunk too much coffee, but I suspect that's more dopamine related.

 

[greenberryhaze]

I don't think either of those drugs have any substantial SERT affinity and are antagonists at various 5ht receptors.