Saturday 29 January 2011

Day Sixteen! & Another Iboga Death

Unbelievably, I'm on day sixteen!

I have good days and bad days, the night sweats seem to have stopped, although the insomnia is still there, some nights I hardly sleep at all and others I can get six to eight hours straight! Which two weeks after detox is pretty bloody good!

PAWS are bearable, just slight goosebumps and hot flashes, restless legs, yawning with watery eyes and runny nose, nothing horrendous anyway.

I read today about a massage therapist that travelled to Cameroon for an Iboga initiation and sadly died from a heart attack, she was about my age and fit and healthy as she was a tennis player.

It does make you think, and worry about just how dangerous Iboga can be! Anyone taking it needs to be 100% sure that it's the right thing to do. Although it has been used for thousands of years it does have the potential to kill you if not administered safely or if you have any heart or liver conditions.

Unfortunately, this is not going to help the cause, in the article linked to above they only mention the use of Iboga for heroin addiction in the last sentence! They focus more on the 'hallucinogenic root' aspect.



15 comments:

Daphne said...

Indeed iboga administration has to be done with the right preparation, good general health, health checks, safe surroundings and baby sitter.. without it is a risk. On the other end, drug addiction itself is a risk on its own. Deaths from iboga treatment might be impreventable.. but so are the many deaths everyday in hospitals.

These deaths are scary to read about. Have you seen the trailer of the new iboga movie 'dangerous with love'? Also in the film you see a treatment going wrong. When working with addicts, it is maybe a bigger risk working with iboga. The death of the massage therapist is worrying, because she was healthy. I hope to get to know more background info, to find out what wend wrong. Iboga on itself with all the right safety standards being taken is unlikely to die from.

konner said...

So if she neer had any health issues then why she die? is it true Ibogaine from Africa is less safer then the Iboga used by practioners in the UK and Sara Glatt?

Is it also true if ur healthy and done all checks that Iboga still can kill u? man this is worrying.

Sid said...

Unfortunately it's a risk you have to take. Univalve HCL is statistically a lot safer than rootbark. In Africa they literally have to eat handfuls of rootbark to get near a psychoactive dose. I think the figures are around 300 deaths in approx 16,000 people. But obviously due to ibogas clandestine, underground nature we don't know the real figures.
Until more research is done we won't know the full list of contraindications and risks. It says in the article that she had had a previous minor reaction to iboga, so she should have known better really!
Unfortunately this death will raise ibogas profile and not in a good way.
For a lot of people iboga is a last resort. Injecting heroin or drinking daily is inherently risky so a lot of people choose to take iboga as they can't see any other way out of theyre situation.

Sid said...

This is why you need a sitter. Preferably with some medical training. You need to have your heart rate and bp monitored every ten minutes for the first 6 hours or so in an ideal world. One of the people that died was about five days post treatment. He was through the worst of it and literally dropped dead. Anyone taking iboga needs to make an informed educated decision. Write down exactly what you have taken in case you need to go to hospital. And maybe sign some kind of disclaimer stating that you haven't taken it under duress. Relieving the sitter from any legal responsibility.

konner said...

But didnt this Lady have doctors on stand-by in Africa? all those people around here could have taken her to Hospital no? if Iboga can instantly kill u then what difference would a sitter or clinicals setting make? Are boosters safer?

konner said...

Also is it true even if you take a ECG and other tests which show u don't have any liver/heart/brain problems but still that Iboga can still kill you?

Has anyone died buying Iboga from ibogaworld? and from Sara-Glatt?

Maybe African iboga is contaminated? maybe iboga in the UK and Europe has many chemicals taken away??? can it even be ibogat all????????/

My Sympathies to the Laura's Family.

Spiritual Pilot said...

Re: Day 16. Congratulations Sid! 3 Iboga treatments is nothing to be sneezed at. You're lucky to have access to Iboga root bark (myself too), but it's also a massive achievement to get through what you have.
Thank you for writing online and sharing your expeiences. If I had had info like this on Ibogaine earlier, I think I would have tried it sooner, when I was not severely chronically ill.
Information is power.

Re: 300 deaths per 16 000? That's about 1 in 50 dying, that sounds far too high?

I think the report on Laura Thornton's death does not give sufficient info to know if she took risks or not. It does say that she had had a ''mild reaction'' to it before, but mild is mild.
R.I.P. Laura

Spiritual Pilot said...

P.S. Konner I think you raised some good questions re-if a patient is going to suddenly die after taking Iboga then will the presence of a sitter make any difference?
Also would these problems be picked up on the EEG or liver testing?
I know that Ayahuasca has been used in the same way as Iboga to break or interrupt addictions.

Does Ayahuasca have a better safety record?

Does Ayahuasca also help with acute withdrawal symptooms? I have not heard that is does but know very little about it.

Spiritual Pilot said...

P.P.S Sorry to change the subject. But I have just been presrcibed homeopathic opium. I have heard of homeopathy for years. But only just got a referral and appointment. I had no idea they had homoepathic opium. I read that because it's homeopathic it doesn't get you strung out like opium. But can still help with addiction.

Spiritual Pilot said...

Oh one last point:

As far as I know, all the reports from death connected to Iboga, are from patients who took the traditional flood dose (or, several high doses in quick sucession, i.e over 24 or so hours).

There is another way to take Iboga for opiate addiction (presumably it also works for other addicttions but I don't have info on that atm).
I called it drip dose. You take tiny doses once or twice daily. And simultaneously reduce your opiate dose.
This has been written about on Mindvox website, I think they used the terms low dose and dirty maintenance?

Sid said...

Hey,

Yeah I think I may have that death figure wrong, another problem with the legal status of Iboga, we have no accurate figures... I think its around 200-300 worldwide, deaths associated with Iboga, usually though the deaths are attributed to things like using heroin straight after Ibo, or people not being honest with the provider about having a heart condition.. I don't think there has been a death they can 100% attribute to soley Iboga ingestion.. I beleive the majority of deaths, people have choked on theyre own vomit and suffocated..

Re alternative ways to dose, Ive done it a few different ways, all succesfully took away the acute withdrawals by 95-100% for a few days.
The first time I did a full 20mg/kg HCL AND 1000mg TA but didnt have boosters asd I went into withdrawals and relapsed after 3-4 days.. gutted..!

The last time I spread the dose out, with a total of around 15mg/kg.
I took 1000mg TA initially, then re-dosed with 400mg TA or 200mg HCL every 24 hours or so.. for 7 days.
It meant I didn't get any visuals, the ataxia wasn't as bad, and I didn't throw up.. It worked just as well...

I also recovered and got my sleep pattern back to normal pretty quickly..

If I was to go through it again, I'd do it this way again...

Iv'e not heard of 'dirty taper' (tapering heroin use down whilst increasing Ibo) But I can see how it would work, you have to bear in mind that Ibo potentiates opiates though so be careful if your doing it this way..

Ive also been hearing of coffee helping PAWS, apparently it has some effecct on the opiate receptors apparently..

Kratom and Salvia also work in a similar way to Iboga, and people have used them to get off..

Although I can't imagine smoking salvia every hour or so to detox..

Gledwood said...

do you know whether it was hydrochloride powder or root?

i have to say i kind of have some reservations... i spelled out my "nervous breakdown" a bit more clearly and it was pretty extreme, i can't really perturb my mental state with anything... really i shouldn't even drink tea or coffee. it feels like cocaine when i'm hyper (seriously!) so you see something like ibogaine could blow me out of the water and i just have to be boring and responsible

also like i probably said i was so very vehemently against drugs while i was "high" (on nothing) that i kind of got a lot of what you got off ibogaine... granted i'm still on methadone but nobody seems to get just how SHIT i felt on methadone before my current phase. i mean really really shit, not doing anything all day. people talked about being flat but i'd see them pottering about the kitchen making dinner. i hadn't the will or energy to do anything.... as for holding down a job in that state id love to see the govt try. unless i can do a staring at walls job (or a dancing about being highly energetic but achieving nothing job) then i cannot work with mood swings this severe

and it does look like they're bipolar, even though my family who read my blog seem to want to be in denial, so please you can say anything you like but please don't say the b------r word in comments i've already had one row about lithium. they remember random things i said years ago and seem to think they are/were what i think when they were just passing comments

and it's ME who gets accused of thinking too much!!

sorry just peed off and not sleeping you don't mind me rabbiting do ya?

anyway i'm off to spread more annoying comments around cyberspace so take it easy

BMelonsLemonade said...

You have to admit, it is probably safer than using heroin intravenously everyday...for years.

ogenia said...

The 300 figure comes from the MAPS website (www.maps.org) where they somehow calculated that an average of 1 in 300 people die from ibogaine. The crazy thing about that is that it is a statistic, generated from the available information on deaths and the estimated amount of ibogaine treatments that have occurred.

The truth is that there is only data for 19 fatalities occurring in association with ibogaine ingestion (though I guess now that is 20 deaths with this one included).

Of course this does not include data on how many people have died in Africa, as there is no posted/official data to be found, as far as I know.

Dr. Kenneth Alper of NYU is working on a paper regarding what is known about those 19 deaths. Look for it to be published in the upcoming months.

So far what can be said is this:

While none of these deaths have been attributed directly to ibogaine, what is known about these
deaths indicate that surreptitious (hidden) use of contraindicated substances during therapy,
pre-existing cardiac (heart) problems, improper medical screening, client misrepresentation of
medical history, client misrepresentation of drug/medication use or poor supervision by the
service provider can all contribute to fatalities and adverse events.
Estimating from the available information on past and current underground and medical
treatment centers, ibogaine has been given to thousands of people without incident. It has also
been reported that cardiac incidents are not seen in any greater numbers in ibogaine treated
individuals than in the non-ibogaine treated population. Thorough screening, careful monitoring
for hidden substance use, and supervision during ibogaine therapy should prevent the
occurrence of cardiac problems or deaths.

So if your provider isn't asking you for a complete medical profile, for an ECG, blood tests and liver panel - beware.

If your provider does not have any training in at least basic CPR or is more than a few mins from a hospital - beware.

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