What Does a Methamphetamine Overdose Look Like?

Meth Abuse, Poisoning, and Overdose

A person can die from a meth overdose. Meth poisoning should be suspected in any meth overdose patients showing severe cardiac issues, severe hydration, and dangerously low sodium.

A meth overdose occurs when the person uses too much of a drug and has a toxic reaction that results in serious, harmful symptoms or even death.

Chronic toxicity in individuals suffering from Methamphetamine Use Disorder (MUD) and chronic meth abuse can lead to paranoid psychosis with visual, physical, hearing hallucinations, cardiac issues, and complications from dental infections.

Acute toxicity may present with symptoms as mild as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, flushing, sweating, headache, restlessness, tremors, severe irritability, grinding of teeth, jaw clenching, or heart skips.

Severe symptoms include hyperactivity, confusion, aggression, muscle tightness, heart skipping beats, high blood pressure, chest discomfort, hallucinations, dehydration, lack of reality, and hypothermia.

Also, critically ill patients exhibit seizures, coma, renal failure, and fatal heart attack.

In 2017, 15% of all drug overdose deaths involved meth, and 50 % of those deaths also involved an opioid, with half of those cases having synthetic opioid fentanyl.

Cheap, dangerous synthetic opioids are many times added to street-made meth without the user knowing.

Because meth overdose often leads to stroke, heart attack, or organ problems, first responders and emergency room doctors try to treat the overdose by treating these conditions.

The goal of medical professionals is to:

• Restore blood flow to the affected part of the brain (potentially stroke)
• Restore blood flow to the heart (heart attack)
• Treat any organ problems.

Always remember, a person CAN overdose on meth. The above conditions are most likely the issues presented to emergency room personnel in a meth overdose, which the doctors will need to treat instead of the actual overdose like some drugs.

Multiple drug use causes the most danger as treatment becomes much more difficult. Different substances require different treatments, and some are not good for some overdoses, leaving medical personnel to play Russian Roulette with each individual and the different drugs in their system.

Meth Overdose Symptoms

When a person overdoses, blood pressure, breathing, heart rate, and temperature increase significantly, putting important organs at risk.

When this begins, the person using meth may exhibit the following signs (symptoms) of overdose:

• agitation
• physical aggression
• restlessness
• chest pain
• confusion
• hallucinations
• intense stomach pain
• tremors
• irregular of greatly quickened heartbeat
• panic
• paranoia
• trouble breathing
• seizures
• loss of consciousness
• cardiac arrest

Convulsions and coma most often precede a fatal meth overdose. Although people who often chronically abuse large amounts of meth experience overdoses, even first-time users of meth can overdose.

Often, this is caused by meth being used with other drugs such as alcohol, cocaine, opioids, and heroin.

Abusing multiple drugs makes overdoses even more likely and complications more prevalent. According to the CDC, in 2016, “nearly 20% of the overdose deaths involving methamphetamine also involved heroin.”.

The dangers of a meth overdose happen because overstimulation of the CNS can cause a dangerously high body temperature and blood pressure. These can cause stroke, heart attack, and organ problems, including kidney failure.

The persons in danger of overdosing HAVE to get immediate medical treatment since any of these conditions can become fatal. However, even if the person(s) survive the overdose, risks still are apparent.

Permanent Damage From Meth Overdose

Permanent damage is likely to have been suffered, causing major physical and mental health problems, including:

• chronic anxiety and psychosis
• destroyed muscle tissue, leading to amputation
• heart problems
• impaired mental functioning
• kidney failure, requiring dialysis

At best, short-term effects of chronic meth abuse include:

• anxiety
• bursts of physical activity
• dilated pupils
• erratic behavior
• excessive sweating
• irritability or paranoia
• loss of appetite
• nausea or vomiting
• sleeplessness
• tremors

Long-Term Meth Effects

Unfortunately, long-term chronic abuse of meth can cause a whole host of problems. Hallucinations are most common, many times with bugs crawling on or beneath the skin.

This will cause the abuser to pick at their skin, causing horrible sores that many times have difficulty healing.

Other symptoms, by this point extremely dangerous, are:

• the bad complexion, skin sores, severe acne
• chronic paranoia, insomnia, and anxiety
• severe dental issues
• high blood pressure
• extreme weight loss
• infections of the heart
• permanent nerve damage, including the brain
• organ damage
• stroke
• violent, homicidal, or suicidal behavior

Permanent damage will cause the individual to develop extreme mood swings, display psychotic behavior, and experience delusions or auditory hallucinations.

Chronic, long-term use can permanently harm the brain, causing brain damage with symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Help is needed before things get worse.

Abnormal findings are common in cardiovascular, CNS, gastrointestinal, renal, skin, and dental areas.

Many medical issues can and will arise with chronic meth abuse. Severe abdominal pain may happen with ulcers and colitis.

Renal failure can occur from parts of the intestines dying from chronic drug abuse. Already, skin findings have been determined, including delusions of bugs on or under the skin, chronic skin picking, and neurotic actions.

Those who use needles and inject meth frequently have abscesses, and cellulitis addicts will often be explained as a spider bite.

Dental issues are caused by poor hygiene and decreased system functions resulting in “meth mouth” – horrible teeth with horrible cavities.

Meth overdose can also happen in a fetus if the user is pregnant, causing the death of a fetus. The overdose will likely result in spontaneous abortion.

Also, meth is secreted in the mother’s breast milk and can cause overdose and death in the young infant.

What the Experts Say About Long-term Brain Damage From Meth

Research published in 2014 found that meth has toxic effects on the nervous system. The toxicity damages the serotonin and dopamine receptors in the brain. Long-term use can cause damage to the brain, very similar to traumatic brain injury (TBI).

The damage that occurs during long-term chronic abuse can cause brain damage that lingers for months after abuse and use has stopped and, in many cases, permanently.

As stated earlier, brain damage in meth users leads to a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease. Misuse may also create extreme anorexia. Those using and overdosing on meth, even for a short period, will notice a drastic change in appearance.

From 2010 to 2014, yearly drug overdose deaths increased by 23%. In 2010, 38,329 people died by drug overdose compared to 47,055 in 2014.

The top ten drugs include the following:

• Oxycodone
• Heroin
• Methadone
• Morphine
• Alprazolam (Zanax)
• Diazepam (Valium)
• Hydrocodone (Lorcet)
• Fentanyl
• Cocaine
• Methamphetamine

Here are some comparisons of the past challenges claiming the lives of Americans compared to more recent drug overdose deaths in recent years.

Unemployment and isolation are both risk factors for addiction and potential overdose. How do we minimize these risk factors? Who can help? Answers need to be found to help this overwhelming epidemic. Too many lives are being lost. Without some answers, overdose deaths are just going to continue to get worse.

How Meth Overdoses Wreak Havoc on The Body

When a person begins to overdose on meth, their central nervous system becomes overstimulated and causes extremely high blood pressure and body temperature. These changes cause strokes, organ problems, and heart attacks.

Some signs of meth overdose include agitation, aggression, chest pains, paranoia, panic, confusion, stomach pains, loss of consciousness, seizures, and more. If you survive a meth overdose, you will most likely be left with permanent damage.

The damage may be chronic anxiety and psychosis, destroyed muscle tissue leading to amputation, heart problems, impaired mental functioning, and kidney failure. The list of potential damage is long and scary.

Stop Experiencing Horrific Consequences: Get Help for Meth Addiction

As you move forward, the continued chronic abuse of meth caused by having MUD has many consequences. Many of those consequences you cannot even see. The negative effects on your health can be staggering, and until you are in big trouble, you may not even know.

At a minimum, you must seek medical attention to ensure you are physically healthy. Some of the health issues caused by chronic meth abuse are severe and can cause death without an immediate overdose.

Finding the help, you need to be healthy and stop the endless cycle of meth abuse is critical. We can help you.

Sources of Information

[1] https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/methamphetamine

[2] https://calpoison.org/news/methamphetamine-poisoning
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430895/?report=printable
[4] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr65/nvsr65_10.pdf