Phentermine
If you have been taking Phentermine exactly as prescribed by your physician, there should be no difficulty in stopping. But if you increased the dosage and duration of administration, then not only may you have experienced side effects, but you also face the prospect of withdrawal symptoms if you now stop.
Phentermine is one of the amphetamines and acts as a stimulant. Over time and used in excess, this can produce a state of mental confusion, disorientation, anxiety, fear and excitement. The more excessive the abuse, the more likely it is that you approach delirium, e.g. during a binge. Some individuals on Phentermine can experience stimulant-induced psychosis. That means you have delusions, your thinking grows paranoid and behaviour drops into compulsive patterns.
When you suddenly stop taking a stimulant after sustained use over time, you are almost certainly going to experience unpleasant withdrawal symptoms — the clinical research findings are that 87% of those who become dependent on amphetamines experience the withdrawal cycle:
• there will be an initial "crash" period where you feel depressed, anxious, agitated and there are intense cravings for the drug;
• as the withdrawal continues, you will enter the intermediate phase where you are likely to experience a loss of physical and mental energy, feel tired and lose interest in your surroundings;
• in the late withdrawal phase, the intensity of the craving for the drug is likely to increase making relapse more common.
The abuse of all amphetamines including Phentermine is becoming a global problem. After cannabis, amphetamines are the second most commonly used drugs in the European Union, and there is an epidemic of amphetamine use, particularly metamphetamines, in the South-East Asian region. The options for treating amphetamine withdrawal are very limited and, according to the immediately available research, none of the treatments has been shown to be consistently effective. There is some hope that Reboxetine, a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, may be useful but there is no clinical data to support that claim at present.
Because of the risk that you may become addicted, you should not begin taking Phentermine if you have a history of problems with alcohol or other drugs. Even if you have no past history of drug abuse, treat Phentermine with some caution. It is a powerful medication and, if not used properly, it may cause you more serious long-term problems than those associated with your weight.
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