GREEN BAY, WI (WBAY/CNN) - The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning this week about the anti-diarrheal medication, loperamide, also known as Imodium.
Apparently, people are taking massive doses of it, trying to get high.
Baycare Clinic emergency medicine physician Dan Gale is a bit dumbfounded over the latest attempts to get a high.
"There's no smart drug to abuse as a kid. This one's a really stupid one," Gale said.
The Medical Journal reports two people died overdosing on loperamide. Gale says most people abusing it are addicts, using it to treat severe withdrawal symptoms.
But the issue is the amount they're taking - up to 200 times the recommended dose.
"The biggest safety issue is what happens to the heart," Gale said. "It disrupts our electrical pathways in our heart. When it happens, it's like flipping a switch. It's not like you feel a little bit worse and a little bit worse and then you die. You just collapse."
While people may be buying large amounts of Imodium online, Tuesday the FDA announced it is "working with manufacturers... to limit the number of doses in a package."
The published medical study said that calls to poison control centers regarding these overdoses rose 71 percent in just three years. This warning indicates only a small number of people may be trying this to actually get a high.
"It's pretty mild. It's nothing like actual heroin or high-dose IV narcotics that people abuse," Gale said.
But in those cases, it affects more than the heart.
"That would probably cause some pretty significant constipation until it wore off, and it would take a while with those doses, like days to weeks," Gale said.
Gale emphasizes the medication is not a narcotic and is perfectly safe as long as people take the recommended dose.
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