Increase abuse of Bath Salts

[WendyBensonRN]

I am a Psych Nurse in WV and over the last 3 months, there has been an astronomical increase in the amount of admissions that we have gotten that have been abusing bath salts. Here is my experience with this drug: the patient takes this drug and it is like russian roullette. The patient becomes extremely paranoid leading to increased agitation and increased physical aggression. The increased aggression leads to the patient harming himself or others and then a committment is filed. Once the patient is medically cleared and brought to our facility, they are still on a "bath salt high". It takes approximately 24-48 hours for the patient to regain some sense of themselves. I have seen young people go thru memory loss and never regain their memories of what happened immediately after abusing these bath salts. This is a very sad epidemic we are facing!

What are some experiences that you have had with bath salts?

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

so does this sound like bath salts??

Could be. Could also be meth--I see a lot of my psychosis in my hard-core meth patients, even for quite a while after their last dose.

[LilRedRN1973]

Sounds like our bath salt patients....we get those, drug test them, and when they test negative, bath salts are the first thing that come to mind.