Ephedrine Addiction Symptoms?

Question by BlueAngel: Ephedrine addiction symptoms?
I need to know the symptoms and signs of Ephedrine addiction. Please. My daughter is trying to loose weight. She has been taking ephedrine for about 6 months, maybe more. I don’t even know who she is anymore…
Please help me with this…

Best answer:

Answer by chimkychink
ephedrine is an aphetamine based weight loss drug and therefore should have syptoms and side effects similar (but much weaker) to other more commonly known aphetamines eg cocaine, crystal meth (i think thats what you americans call speed) etc. these will include general addiciton and dependence, mood swings, paranoia etc. you can find many website that give a better and fuller description about the side effects to amphetamine (at least a better and fuller description than i can give).
speaking from personal experience, i have taken pharmacutical ephedrine (a very strong and difficult to obtain version) for a while , but like all drugs you should encorage your daughter to do research before taking it. You should never take it for more than a 2 month period at a time, even that can be too long for some people, you should also only take around 25mg at a time and build up to about 4 doses a day, unless you are competing in a bodybuilding competion, which by the sounds of it you daughter isn’t.
Taking ephedrine is has the effect of increasing your metabolism and also suppressing your appetite, which can also exagerate the side effects, particularly mood swings (which everyone gets when they don’t eat enough). it should be noted that it also increases your heart rate and adrenalin production.
The most important peice of advice i can give you to pass on to your daughter is that ephedrine acts by increasing your metabolism, if you take it for prolonged periods of time the body will adjust to it and your metabolism drops again, the epha will have no, or very little results, hence people think they have to take more. It is best used in short doses ie 1-2 month cycles, and then not taken for 2-3 months. If your daughter insists on taking it then you should at least recommend that she takes it most effectively, that means taking it with asprin and caffine (about 1 dispersable asprin and about 4 Pro-plus (i don’t know if you have them in US but they are caffine tablets)). at least that way she ‘may’ get to her desired weight and stop taking it.
On the plus side epha is a very weak amphetamine and hence is not addictive and the side effects are not long lasting or pronounced. stop taking it and she should return to normal fairly quickly.
if i may suggest, without wishing to be at all rude, you may also want to she if she has other potential eating disorders or weight loss problems, which is encouraging her to take epha. believe me the side effects of those are far worse. She may just be going through that ‘akward age’ and may go back to normal. Either way i would strongly advice you to convince her to stop taking it, if for no other reason explain to her that taking it for that long is a waste of her time and money.
i hope i answered your question, please contact me if i can help you further.