Observations placeholder
Patsy and her son Ely's brush with death on Dramamine
Identifier
011766
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Dimenhydrinate (marketed as Dramamine and under several other brand names) is an over-the-counter antihistamine used for the treatment of motion sickness. It is most commonly prepared as tablets, although it is also available in liquid form and in suppositories. Dimenhydrinate is a combination of two drugs: diphenhydramine and 8-chlorotheophylline.
A description of the experience
Hospitalization Following Extremely High Dose – Dramamine - by Patsy SOURCE EROWID
My name is Patsy. I am a public access television producer and videographer in Texas. Last Friday on 6-1-07 I learned about your website. The hard way. I found out because my son called me at about 8:30 p.m., that my 16 year old son, Ely, was acting strange and incoherent. My son who worked all day got home at about 8pm to find him.
I rushed home, which took about 25 minutes and Alex said to me, “Look Mom, watch this.” He began to ask Ely questions. Ely was giving random answers. His eyes appeared to be dilated and he had a wide eyed look. His hands were shaking so I knew he was probably having some sort of anxiety attack and that his heart rate had to be very high. He walked around from one place to another, saying he was going to make something to eat or that he had to pee but would only take a few steps and then go in another direction. I could see his mind was jumping around like a bouncing ball. My son Alex then showed me this document, …. I did not read past the “I was able to get 700 mg of the shit” and realized I needed to get him to a hospital fast. Luckily he was cooperative when we told him we were taking him to play video games.
He kept complaining that he needed to pee but could not…. we sped to a hospital. I cannot tell you how terrified I was. I knew that this was bad because he was totally incoherent and definitely seeing things. He would say things randomly as if someone was talking to him. We would ask him questions to try to make him focus on us and not whatever it was he was seeing. He would yell things out during the drive to the hospital such as “Look at those mushrooms!” and leaned forward from the back seat, as if what he was seeing was in the car. He also yelled out when we passed a familiar grocery store “Look at Picachu!” He appeared to be seeing characters from video games but would also see things that would scare him, because he would talk about something he saw and say, “that’s scary”.
The doctor at the ER said it was too late to try to give him activated charcoal to absorb
the drug, so they transferred him to the intensive care unit at a pediatric hospital. There they stuck long tubes down his nose and down into his stomach and gave him some kind of medicine so he could pass the Dramamine. I am not a doctor so I do not know the purpose of the tubes. They gave him fluids through an IV. The problem was he could not go to the bathroom. His heart rate was up to the 140 beats per minute and his blood pressure was high, causing him to become hypertensive, which could lead to a heart attack. It took until about 3 am for his heart rate to stabilize and his blood pressure to start to come down. He was in that dangerous state for about 15 hours (had started the drug at 1:30pm), way too much for the body to take.