Breaking bad sniffles: Crystal meth made cold medicine rubbish [exaggeration]

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2089555-breaking-bad-sniffles-crystal-meth-made-cold-medicine-rubbish/ ^ | 23 May 2016 | Simon Oxenham

[daniel1212]

Nine years ago, you could have walked into a shop on the UK high street and bought a packet of cold medicine that contained the decongestant pseudoephedrine. This drug has been used for decades, and works well, but in 2008 it was placed under tight controls when it became apparent that pseudoephedrine was being used for the illegal production of methamphetamine. Similar laws were introduced in the US in 2005.

Since then, pseudoephedrine has broadly been banished from shop shelves in the UK, the US and elsewhere. Today, you can only get products containing this compound either by obtaining a prescription, or asking a pharmacist for a packet from behind the counter [with a valid I.D. and electronic signature].

Drug companies have responded to the regulations by replacing the compound with phenylephrine, which has long been known to be far less effective. Confusingly, popular cold remedy Sudafed – which takes its name from pseudoephedrine – now comes in two forms: a shop version, containing phenylephrine, and a behind-the-counter pseudoephedrine version.

[imardmd1]

Chloe trimeton Chlor-Trimeton (trade name) = chlorpheniramine (chemical name) C₁₆H₁₉ClN₂

Antihistamine given to minimize symptoms of an allergic reaction

[catnipman]

“I took a Sudafed once years ago when it was real and I did not like the way it made me feel.”

pseudoephedrine causes blood pressure to increase, so if you already are high, it’ll shoot that up even worse, plus pseudoephedrine is “speedy” ... i had high blood pressure and didn’t like the speedy feeling either, so took it only when totally desperate to get unclogged ... now, i wouldn’t touch it ...

[Mygirlsmom]

The only stuff that ever worked was a combination of dexbrompheniramine and pseudoephedrine called Drixoral.

For a while you could still get it in Canada so we would have our Canadian relatives bring us some when they visited, but you cant get it there any more.

I found a single dose in a junk drawer the other day and I gave it to my daughter for whe she gets her next cold. She was seriously excited at the thought of one night of comfort when and if she needs it

[A strike]

Thanks for that, I assumed as much.

“high street” ?
good colloquialism perhaps, but from where does it derive? does it mean ‘ above the river/stream that runs through town’?

[minnesota_bound]

I go to Urgent Care if I have a cold and get the good medicine that works.
Get the prescription and end up feeling well by the next day. I discovered it after getting real sick one year and the doc prescribed the following:

I was given the medication Amoxicillin for 10 days for the strep throat and about 2 weeks later Azithromycin for 5 days for the coughing.
The head cold and coughing are gone but the throat still felt tight. It was a month and I still had that frog in my throat.

I was given Prednisone to treat the throat tightness which relaxed the throat and got rid of my stiff neck.
Also the pain in my shoulder and back went away and stayed away.

[Organic Panic]

It was the only cold med I would take because it works. It would dry my sinuses out in an hour. The new crap... Useless And I am not going to have a $200 doc appointment to get a prescription. Thanks “smurfs.” It gave the idiot governor someone to blame for meth rather then the tons of it being driven up from Mexico.

[Old Forester]

Years ago, when I worked in the medical unit on forest fires, we used to get Sudafed by the case. One time we had so many cases we used them to make a partition to separate the back end of the medical tent from the front. It worked great, but you had to be careful not to give it to folks with heart or prostate problems...