If you are concerned about a loved one’s use of bath salts look for some of these above-listed signs and symptoms. The emergency and referral resources listed above are available to individuals located in the United States and are not operated by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). NIDA is a biomedical research organization and does not provide personalized medical advice, treatment, counseling, or legal consultation. Information provided by NIDA is not a substitute for professional medical care or legal consultation. A person can take bath salts in various ways, such as snorting or smoking them.

Street names for bath salts

But someindividuals have symptoms that linger for two to three days. The active ingredient in bath salts is invariably a cathinone, which are relatively simple to make (chemically speaking, anyway.) Structurally, it’s similar to amphetamine. However, it remained relatively unknown until the beginning of this century. Chemists had discovered this class of compounds in 1910, and given the habits of chemists at the time, they probably consumed a little of it. It may also be due to Operation Log Jam, which was initiated by the government in 2012. In total, 109 cities were raided, 91 people were arrested, and 167,000 bags of bath salts were seized.

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This makes treatment in the case of overdose or adverse effects very difficult. Bath salts are a category of synthetic drugs with stimulant-like effects. The term “bath salts” doesn’t apply to just one specific drug, but rather to a number of substances that are chemically similar. The drugs became popular among teens and club-goers after 2010, yet recent surveys show less than 1% of teens today tried alcohol and insomnia them in the past year. “And they can be deadly for people with underlying cardiovascular disease.” Cases of myocardial infarction, stroke, cerebral edema, coma, cardiovascular collapse, and death have been reported in people using bath salts. The effects of the drugs also vary based on the route of administration; they can be swallowed, snorted, injected, or inserted into the rectum or vagina.

1. Bath salts can produce withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety, depression, paranoia, sleeping problems and tremors.
2. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, behavioral treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational enhancement therapy have shown effectiveness in treating bath salt addiction.
3. In purest form, the drug is a light brown or white crystallized powder.
4. For example, diuretics, and some anti-seizure medications may increase the risk of low sodium levels.

What Else Are Bath Salts Called?

The cathinones found in bath salts were made illegal in the United States in 2012. Unlike Epsom salts, Dead Sea salts, or other types of salts you might use to game up your bath time, synthetic cathinones are a powerful and illegal drug. Synthetic cathinones is the scientific name for the drug commonly known as bath salts. For example, high-salt diets are known to increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, kidney stones, osteoporosis, and kidney disease.

Signs and Symptoms of Bath Salts Abuse

Research also shows that people with long-term high salt intake may be 29% more likely to develop impaired kidney function than people with lower salt intake. Sodium is also needed for cellular homeostasis, which is the maintenance of a stable cellular environment. When sodium levels get too high or too low, cells can’t function properly, and systems will malfunction. Sodium is an essential nutrient, meaning you can’t survive without it. It’s required for life-sustaining processes such as fluid balance and muscle and nerve function.

Read on to learn more about bath salts, how they affect a person’s body and mind, and where to get support for substance misuse. You can have what is called “excited delirium.” If you have this, you will get dehydrated, your muscle tissue will begin to break down, and your kidneys may stop working. Consistently drink plain water throughout the day and keep a reusable water bottle handy for hydration while on the move. Incorporate water-rich foods like cucumbers, strawberries and watermelon into meals and snacks to boost daily fluid intake. Enjoy herbal teas and fruit-infused water as flavorful alternatives without added sugars.

Excessive sodium can be harmful, especially for those with cardiovascular or renal health concerns. It’s also important to watch out for signs of dehydration, such as dark yellow or amber-colored urine, dry mouth, headache, fatigue, and dizziness. Before incorporating salt water into your routine, do a quick check-in with your healthcare provider.

A 35-year-old UK woman who thought it could help her lose weight—and who had no knowledge of its dangers—took the drug over a period of months. She lost weight but also turned into alcoholic eyes a “paranoid, aggressive, agoraphobic insomniac,” according to her family. She finally went into a coma, suffered irreversible brain damage and was then taken off life support.

Consuming excess sodium harms health and significantly increases the risk of developing several health conditions, such as kidney disease and heart disease. Reducing your sodium intake by cutting back on high-salt foods and table salt is an easy and effective way to protect your health. Though the body requires sodium, most people take in too much sodium daily, which can lead to health issues like high blood pressure and elevate the risk of heart disease. If a family sees any of these signs of bath salts use, it is vital to get the person professional help as soon as possible. The drug user and those around him are at risk as long as the drug is being abused.

In the short-term, Bath Salts can make your heart beat very fast, make you feel overly friendly, very angry and violent, make you see things that aren’t real, and cause panic attacks. These are not the fizzy products like epsom salt that people use while bathing. They are similar to the Khat plant that grows in Africa, but the human-made version is much stronger and can be very dangerous.

If a person experiences any of these effects after taking bath salts or is with someone who does, they should seek immediate medical attention. A person experiencing bath salt toxicity may also show psychological signs, such as aggression, psychosis, or violence. When in this state, a person may be at risk of harming themselves or other people. This is very important because of the dehydration bath salts cause. You can get intense withdrawal symptoms when you stop taking them, which make it hard not to use again. Bath salts (synthetic cathinones) look and feel a lot like Epsom salts.

Bath salts or monkey dust come in a powdered or crystallised form which can be swallowed, smoked, injected or snorted. Subjective effects are similar to MDMA or cocaine[14] but with a duration of 5–6 hours. Both substances cause a rapid onset of action in the central nervous system,[15] and stimulant toxicity.

In purest form, the drug is a light brown or white crystallized powder. It usually comes in plastic bags or foil labeled as bath salts, glass cleaner, or even plant food. Therefore, if you use a lot of salt when cooking or add salt to your food before eating, you’re more likely to exceed daily sodium intake recommendations. Though most people assume that table salt added to food is the largest contributor to sodium intake, most of the sodium in the average American diet comes from salt in processed foods and restaurant food. Because bath salts are so potent, high doses of sedatives may be necessary to prevent users from harming themselves and others. “MDPV produces psychoactive effects with as little as 3 to 5 mg, but packages of bath salts promote alarmingly high doses of 50 mg and above,” says Goldberger.

For workouts lasting over an hour, consider using an electrolyte powder to effectively replenish electrolytes. Social media is great for kicking off “trends” in the health space. The latest one that everyone is talking about is adding a pinch of salt to your water to boost hydration.

It gained popularity because it was legal to purchase for about 18 months after it was first released. Chemical structures of bath salts cathinones and related compounds. The length of withdrawal from bath salts varies depending on numerous factors including how long they were used, when the last dose was taken, how much was taken, and more. Data shows that bath salts are most used by teenagers and young adults.

Serotonin transporter substrates like MDMA are known to produce sustained deficits in brain serotonin neurons of laboratory animals, so mephedrone and methylone could have similar actions. It is noteworthy that MDPV is the chief substance detected in blood and urine from patients hospitalized for bath salts overdose in the US (Spiller et al, 2011). Such patients display agitation, combative behavior, hallucinations, delusions, hyperthermia, tachycardia and hypertension (Prosser and Nelson, 2012; Spiller et al, 2011). Health care workers should be aware that patients presenting with this constellation of symptoms may have taken bath salts, and appropriate supportive care should be provided. Bath salts is the most widely used designer drug’s street name given to this dangerous drug made with synthetic cathinone. Cathinone is a stimulant occurring naturally in the khat plant typically found in parts of Africa.

Clinicians can help prevent the lethal consequences of the next generation of illicit drugs by reporting any cases of drug toxicity to poison centers, advises Ryan. Real-time information from every poison center in the country “allows us to identify outbreaks and quickly learn the symptoms and how to manage” a new designer drug, he says. Bath salts belong to the category of drugs known as stimulants, the ultimate guide to alcohol recovery books as well as a group of drugs termed the “new psychoactive substances” (NPS). Because bath salts encompass multiple types of chemical combinations, little research has been done about their range of physical and mental effects. They do, however, share chemical similarities with cocaine, amphetamines, and MDMA. One study showed bath salts can be at least 10 times more powerful than cocaine.