The title is the question. It wasn’t pleasant, but it worked. And years later, I can’t find anything about it in print or online to show other wannabe ex-smokers. Did it go away just because it was successful by repurposing older, cheaper drugs? Or what?
The web is loaded with info on the old anticholinergic treatment(atropine and scopolomine) for nicotine addiction. Not sure why you can’t find it. It’s not particularly popular because it really didn’t work any better than placebo.
Also, psychosis was note to be a side-effect of that treatment.
Thanks. Probably couldn’t find it because I never learned the word “anticholergenic.” Although, since the side effect seems to be limited to a single case, and the drugs involved continue to be widely used, I still kind of wonder why the treatment disappeared so suddenly.
Sorry. “Anticholinergic.”
What do anticholinergics do to a person?
How do they affect smoking habits?
The psychosis must be like that of Datura stramonium, jimsonweed, IIUC. What makes it affect people like that?
I’m curious what Amy Ray could have meant in the Indigo Girls song “Sugar Tongue,” with the line
Bring me lullabies and morphine dreams
Belladonna with her atropine
Forgot to say: thank you, Qadgop. Couldn’t have asked for a better, more authoritative answer, and I certainly don’t mean to argue with you. Was just curious because the drugs involved both had such a long history. And because they worked well for me personally, and I’m even less psychotic than I used to be (by my own estimation). Would you please tell me more about it?
There’s a classic mnemonic for remembering effects of anticholinergic drugs and chemicals: Hot as a hare (elevated body temperature), blind as a bat (visual impairment due to dilated pupils), dry as a bone (decreased sweating, saliva and tear production), red as a beet (flushed face) and mad as a hatter (delirium/symptoms of psychosis).
In the right settings and using proper dosages, both cholinergic and anticholinergic meds can be highly useful. Atropine has been used to counter serious and potentially fatal effects of pesticide (i.e. organophosphate) poisoning.
Belladonna is also known as Deadly Nightshade, and atropine is one of the alkaloids that are found in the plant (after it’s generic name, Atropa). It’s fatal in large enough doses, but was used as a pupil dilater by women in the past to make their eyes look more attractive.
Sorry, Johanna…you probably know that much already. I can’t help you with the meaning of the verse, unfortunately. I don’t know the song and looking at the lyrics didn’t make it clear to me.
Atropine targets Muscarine receptors not Nicotine receptors, so it turns off the wrong switches, leaving the ones nicotine turned on basically on.
It may have been that atropine could have smoothed out the withdrawal symptoms or blocked the effect of nicotine… but since it turns off the wrong switches, it actually causes side effects that nicotine would “cure”… you’d like to smoke to cancel the effects of atropine !
scopolamine counters the effect of acetylcholine.
But nicotine had turned on switches for much more than acetylcholine - it indirectly promotes the release of many chemical messengers such as norepinephrine, epinephrine, arginine vasopressin, serotonin, dopamine, and beta-endorphin too. So it scopolamine probably doesn’t do enough to prevent nicotine reinforcing addiction to nicotine.
And as for giving up … Scopolamine would make you go cold turkey - it didn’t inhibit the withdrawal effects- it inhibited having the cravings cured by smoking .
You’d still be addicted and going cold turkey on the withdrawal …
Nicotine patches help you avoid the surge of nicotine from smoking tobacco or inhaling nicotine in general… so you can get used to constant levels rather than pulsing levels. Then reduce levels.
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I quit years ago and the Los Angeles clinic that gave me the shot behind my ear and the scopalonin worked for me. My husband is smoking more and he has an awful cough and I wanted to ask you people here if you know of any clinic that still gives the treatment. I would be so glad if any of you knows of a clinic! Thank you!