Learn critical information about not mixing too many drugs or taking too much of any drug. It is crucial to learn how stimulant drugs work in the body and how they affect heart rate, blood circulation, body temperature, sweating, pupils, sleep patterns, and impact on paranoia. What are the signs and symptoms of taking too much GHB? Learn why measuring GHB doses and their correlation to the “G dose” response is essential. Synthetic or natural opioid drugs—heroin, oxycontin, codeine, and fentanyl, to name a few—affect breathing and how naloxone works to counteract the adverse effects of opioids. The video also covers some tips for when someone is overdosing and the importance of calling 911.
One of the concerns when you’re taking drugs is taking too much or mixing too many together to the point that you overdose it’s to look different for different drugs so maybe i’ll start with stimulant drugs and often we talk about overdose from stimulants in terms of over amping you’re just you’re overdoing everything in the body this is where it comes back to
Knowing how drugs work in your body so what are the signs you’re going to be looking for for stimulant drugs cocaine crystal meth is going to look similar those drugs get your heart rate going they raise your body temperature they open up your eyelid your pupils you get more light in they can strip blood flow in the body if you start getting too much drug in
The body for it to handle your heart may start pounding you can run the risk of your heart stopping or stroke you may start sweating like crazy uh you run the risk of dehydration if you’re not keeping your body fluids up um you can literally just overheat um so you know cooling yourself down you may in some situations and this can be dependent on the situation
Or pre-existing mental health but or how long you’ve been up you know if you’ve been up for two or three days things may look different but you can start developing psychosis getting really paranoid so those are all things to be looking out for if you’ve been high on drugs for 12 24 hours you might be losing track of time so you know people will actually use
Heart rate monitors take time out making sure that they’re not keeping their fluids um but when you start experiencing issues and you’re getting concerned don’t don’t ever hesitate to call 9-1-1 because sometimes it’s a matter of life or death that person is going to be better off in the hospital hopefully it’s so important with ghb to measure your doses you
Cannot eyeball that stuff you should have a millimeter syringe and practice measuring how much you do because the difference with g most drugs you can just do a bit more do a bit more do a bit more uh to get a higher effect but with g we call the dose response curve it goes right up like this so just even a little bit more can put you over the edge if you do do
Too much of it and you pass out there’s a couple of concerns you can pass out and vomit aspirate and choke on your vomit and choke yourself to death or you may your breathing may slow to the point that your heart stops other people will have kind of spasms and they’ll sit there and jerk and that’s just a sign they’re doing too much naloxone is something that
We can give people that are overdosing or had too much opioid drugs in the body so opioid drugs are um all relate to opium at some level whether they’re naturally derived or synthetic so you can think of drugs like heroin oxycontin oxycodone percocets codeine another one sorry is fentanyl is that the more common one right now that we’re seeing these are all
Drugs methadone that are opiates those drugs when they get into the brain they can cause suppression of breathing they slow the breathing down and that is the danger in opioid overdose they slow the breathing down and they do that by attaching to brain receptors and what we can do when that person is unconscious or and not breathing we can give them naloxone
And naloxone you can either spread up the nose or inject it intramuscularly and within minutes uh the naloxone can out compete that opi those opioid drugs in the brain and knock them off the receptors and that person can start breathing again it lasts maybe 45 minutes before it wears off and those drugs can come back on so it’s enough time though to to get that
Person up and stable or off to the hospital there are things you can do though if someone is tripping out or starting to over amp just calm them down talk to them calmly encourage them to not take any more drugs don’t give other drugs that might counteract it because it’s just too much it’s just more drugs in the body give them a cool towel and cool them down
Encourage them to drink fluids and just keep an eye on them if they’re starting to get paranoid don’t tell them what they’re thinking isn’t true because that could just set them off even further but just listen to them be there with them be present with them
Transcribed from video
What to do in the event of a drug overdose By Gay Men’s Sexual Health Alliance