Overdosing On Anti-diarrhea Drugs.. Yeah, It’s A Thing

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Most of us realize we are in an epidemic when it comes to overdosing on prescription medicine. However, most of us connect this with pain killers and not anti-diarrhea medicine like Imodium. This is just another sign of how severe the nation’s drug abuse problem has become.

The Food and Drug Administration warned doctors and patients on Tuesday that anti-diarrhea drugs can cause potentially deadly heart problems when taken at higher-than-recommended levels.

The primary ingredient in prescription Imodium and similar over-the-counter drugs is intended to control diarrhea.

According to cases in the medical literature, abusers sometimes try to achieve heroin-like highs by taking massive doses, up to 300 milligrams at once. The recommended doses range from 8 milligrams and 16 milligrams per day.

The FDA has received 31 reports of people hospitalized due to the heart problems, including 10 deaths over the last 39 years. It should be noticed that the agency’s database is not comprehensive and many drug overdoses are not reported to the government.