DOSE:

210 mg

oral

DXM

(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

130 lb

Shortly after me, my best friend M, and her boyfriend J became re-acquainted following two weeks of isolation due to Coronavirus exposure, they made me aware that they had purchased Dextromethorphan tablets, 30 mg each. I had experimented with Psilocybin, LSD, and Ketamine, but never DXM. I did some research online and decided that it would be okay to try “robotripping” once or twice. The setting was M’s house, it’s an older building and generally a great place to trip. M who had had a bad experience last time she used DXM for nonmedical purposes was anxious and apprehensive, but J who claims it may be his favorite drug was sure that we would have a good experience. We took the tablets at 7PM.

After one hour the first effects became noticeable. It was hard to put my finger on, but the world seemed somehow softer and blurrier. At this time we all became somewhat nauseous, none of us vomited, but we came close. The effects seemed to me to be somewhere between alcohol and ketamine, my senses felt dulled and euphoric in a way that was almost but not quite psychedelic. At this point J was extremely happy, M was happy, but physically uncomfortable, and I was extremely anxious and physically uncomfortable. I felt as though I was hyper aware of when I was unaware of physical sensations. That is to say as I sat on M’s couch, the physical sensations that were being blocked from my conscious mind like how the bottom of my foot felt, or what the temperature was seemed to be taking up all my attention. In effect it felt like parts of my body were appearing and disappearing, although I could see that they were not.

This is when I would estimate that I was entering the second plateau, around 1:20 after dosing. My scalp became extremely itchy and I couldn’t stop thinking that somehow I had caught lice. M told me to stop scratching and I assumed it was all in my mind. M showed a picture of a friend that I seemed unable to completely process. At this point I looked around and realized that the room I was in didn’t quite look real, it appeared as if it had been poorly rendered on photoshop with about ten minutes of work. The itchiness seemed to be spreading from my scalp. I scratched a spot on my neck and felt a bump. I showed M and she said I had a couple of mosquito bites. At last an explanation, I had mosquito bites and in my drug addled state I was imagining that the sting was much larger and stronger than it actually was.

I was still extremely anxious and at this point having an intense psychedelic experience, so I asked M to bring out her piano, because playing the piano almost always calms me down and I often do it during the come up on a trip. I had more difficulty than usual with the keys however, I couldn’t seem to remember how to play any melodies, and I couldn't seem to improvise either. M sat behind me and started to rub my back, it felt strange, but good and bad in a way I had a hard time pinning down. Then she removed her hands to use her phone, and instantly the skin on my back was engulfed in a stinging burning pain. I said “AAh, my back really stings, do I have more bug bites back there?” I took off my shirt and M informed me that my back was extremely red.

I went into the bathroom and saw that my chest too was covered in a rash, and lumpy hives were forming symmetrically on my shoulders and abdomen. I thought I was imagining things due to my state, images seemed difficult to process, but M and J confirmed that something was definitely wrong. I realized I was having an allergic reaction, we were about 1:30 into the experience, and I knew that I would only get higher over the next couple of hours. At this point I started to panic, because I was afraid that my throat might start to close up and that me and my friends would be to high to figure out how to get epinephrine. I paced back and forth and calmed down a little bit, me and M called our other best friend R, who was sober (but lives 30 minutes away) to ask her to take me to the ER. The 22 minute wait while she sped to M’s house was extremely stressful, but we all kept out cool, I did have some trouble breathing, but I suspect it was because of anxiety not anaphylaxis.

When R arrived she drove us to the nearest ER. It was a ghetto ER in a storefront building in a shopping complex. On LSD Ketamine, and psilocybin I have often had an instinctual feeling that I was dying, or a sense that I was dying, but for the first time I had that feeling combined with the thought that I might actually physically die. As soon as I walked into the ER office a wave of relief hit me. In fact it all seemed rather comical now, that I was on a psychedelic drug freaking out and going to the ER, not because I couldn’t handle the drug mentally, but because I was allergic to it. That seemed like the most hilarious ridiculous way to spend an evening.

It was now about 1:55 after dosing, my entire body was covered in itchy hives from my scalp to my toes. I told the nurse I was having an allergic reaction to cold medication, she gave me paperwork to fill out. Let me tell you this was a struggle, at first glance the form looked like gibberish, upon careful consideration sentences like “Current general practitioner” and “Primary insurance policy Holder” seemed like abstract academic sentences that had to be reread three times before I could write down the answer. After crossing out a few misplaced signatures, and checking the date three different times because I seemed to be suffering from mild amnesia I sat down to wait. It wasn’t long before two disgruntled nurses escorted me to a room. They took my blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and blood oxygen level. They seemed very upset with me as they shouted thing like “You took dextromethorphan to get high!” And “What other drugs do you take?!” When I responded “Ibuprofen sometimes” The nurse said “That’s legal, I mean street drugs!”.

When the nurses left the room a sudden feeling of wellness and euphoria took over me. I felt as though I were floating. No longer did taking DXM seem like a stressful mistake, I was floating in utter bliss. I was captivated by the objectively quite boring art on the exam room walls. My body felt amazing, in fact I seemed to not really be feeling my body at all, I could see that I was covered in hives, but they did not bother me. Then the doctor came in, he was much nicer than the nurses, in fact he made me feel very comfortable, he didn’t seem upset that I was high at all. I told him about my hives, but since my body felt so good, as I started to take off my shirt to show him I said “They’re not so bad, in fact they seem to be going away.”

The doctor looked at my bare chest and said “Wow. That definitely does not look like it's going away right now.” I looked down and was horrified by the fact that despite not feeling that pain of my hives, my body in fact looked like the victim of a horrific wasp attack. The entire front of my body was covered in bumpy white patches surrounded by flat red skin, I looked down and saw that my hands too were swallowed, and disproportionately larger than human hands should be.

“Since you’re not having difficulty breathing I don’t think you’re in any deadly danger, but I’ll get you a steroid and some antihistamines.” The nurses returned a few minutes later with some pills and a cup of vial tasting clear liquid. After about 30 minutes of watching me, the time then being 2:45 after dosing the nurses discharged me. When I got back to R’s car I found M and J still experiencing a DXM high, but the effects were quickly fading for me. When we got back to M’s house we observed that unlike M and J my pupils contracted to a small size in the light, and I was no longer feeling high at all. All in all I had a fun night, but would not do again. This was definitely the best trip to the ER I’ve ever had!

Exp Year: 2021	ExpID: 115144
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 21
Published: Jun 30, 2023	Views: 483
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DXM (22) : Various (28), Glowing Experiences (4), Health Problems (27), First Times (2)