Spice?

Editorial Team / Admin · Aug 30, 2015

It actually seems to be one of the biggest reasons the police get called in my city. One officer who moonlights as a hospital security guard says that he responds to 10-15 cases a week- and that's just him, not including the rest of the fairly large department. Not ER, so not sure what the actual ER numbers are.

Nibbles1 · Aug 30, 2015

In Dallas, Tx the EDs are seeing 17 cases per day. Varies by hospital, very sad.

AZQuik · Aug 31, 2015

It's ironic it's marketed as a synthetic thc, but effects we see (obviously plenty use it and never have the effects we see at the er) are more like pcp.

Some we get just get labs, fluids, restraints for a while, maybe some form of haldol/Benadryl/Ativan, and mtf till they leave. Others get tubed, cardiac drips, and go to the icu

BSN GCU 2014.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses

Anna Flaxis, BSN, RN · Sep 1, 2015

Thank the gods the real deal is so easy to get here that people generally don't use synthetic stuff. Our substance issues are your run of the mill opiate overdoses, ETOH intoxication, and meth psychosis. Haven't even had a bath salts patient in a couple of years.

Jomillah · Sep 1, 2015

I see at least 2 cases a week. Most young guys. They are usually zonked out of their mind and combative. Or seizing.

LakeEmerald · Sep 1, 2015

We see them weekly in our ED. Mostly male, mostly found babbling incoherently, confused, paranoid, fearful, combative. Some have tremors, a few seize. Had one go to the ICU for rhabdo recently: he was so combative and revved up that his muscles had been strained for hours, almost like malignant hyperthermia, but without the fever. His sig other said he had been smoking bath salts x 2 weeks with no ill effects, then tonight he just went crazy.

turnforthenurse, MSN, NP · Sep 3, 2015

I haven't seen a lot of cases where I work surprisingly. At my previous job (central TX) we saw them at least a couple of times a week.

R!XTER · Sep 4, 2015

The ED where I work is very close to a local psych facility where the patients are free to come and go as they please (not lock down) and we are off the wall with it!! In our area they're using K2. They freely admit they are buying it at a bodega nearby, but since it's not officially illegal to sell, law enforcement can't do anything about it. We're seeing 5-10 or more cases a day. It affects each patient differently. Most come in really lethargic, some with stable VS, others with really low HR or BP. These are mostly psych patients so they are "repeat offenders." we keep them for hours to monitor HR/BP, then it wears off and they start waking up and becoming agitated, we discharge them and within hours they're back. SOOO frustrating. The psych facility takes ZERO responsibility for the problem. They just call 911 when they find them passed out on their grounds. EMS and law enforcement are equally fed up.

amandab13 · Sep 4, 2015

Haven't seen any yet; it hasn't travelled this far north yet :) . We get cocaine, crack and meth as the major illegal drugs. Prescription drug abuse it huge too. And have started seeing cases of heroin and Fentanyl.

joyful_wanderer · Sep 5, 2015

We have been seeing a crazy amount of spice pt. You never know how they are going to respond. They present like PCP mixed with Benadryl OD and any other combination of things. We have been holding them in the ER because there is no other place to put them. The ICU keeps getting filled up with intubated spice pts. They usually only need to be intubated for a few hours depending on how much they are seizing or if they stop breathing. There are three hospitals in my area and we are all seeing it. Mostly among the homeless population and college kids. There have been several deaths related to spice use as well. I worked last night and we had three spice patients back to back. One we wanted to intubate but vents were limited and the ICU was full so we just maintained them with oral/nasal airways.

Anchorage police: 12-year-old hospitalized after showing symptoms of spice overdose | KTVA Anchorage CBS 11