For those who don’t know, #duromine is a prescribed narcotic that is aimed to help with decreasing appetite and aiding weight loss. When I first heard about duromine I was 16 years old, and I pretty much instantly jumped on my lil moped scooter and scooted off to the doctor to get a prescription. There was one problem, I wasn’t overweight, so the doctor refused me. In my eyes, I was was obese, although I only wanted to lose 10 kilos. I went home crying, before I had the idea to hit up another doctor. A term I’ve come to learn is called ‘doctor shopping’. I scooted off to another doctors office, and at the time felt extremely lucky to get the duromine prescription. I left the doctors office singing the doctors name in happiness… EHHHH SVETLANA EH EH EH EH. EHHHHH SVETLANA EH EH EH EH. I headed straight to the chemist to pick up my ‘skinny drugs’ and was soooo excited to take my first 💊 “I’m finally going to be skinny” I thought, and popped that baby in my mouth and washed it down with a protein shake.
[photo above is of me at 16 about to go out drinking, this was just before I started taking duromine]
That night I didn’t sleep. A usual effect of #duromine. After all, it is a form of speed. Along with the duromine, I was eating so little calories, I was basically starving myself. I so badly wanted to aid and help the duromine do its thing. A few weeks past, and I looked like a different person. My face was sunken, my belly had gone down. I had lost a massive amount of weight in a short period of time. “I started using duromine” I would tell a client at work. “Yeah you’ve really lost weight, you can really see it in your face” she said with concern. I became extremely depressed, moody and suicidal. “I think the duromine is making you crazy” Said a concerned friend.. 😕 “No it’s not that, I just fucking hate myself and my life” I replied in denial. 🤬 *I remember around this time my uncle made pasta bolognaise 🍝 and there was no cheese to go with it... HOT DAMN I threw a full on temper tantrum and decided to eat NOTHING. I still love cheese to this day, so I understand my anger, but like, lezbehonest it was a bit much 😂* At this point I was very close to my goal weight… but still in denial of the negative impact it was having on me...
[photo of me whilst on duromine at the age of 16]
Eventually, I hit my goal weight and decided to come off the drug. The doctor said I should slowly wean off it by taking it one day and skipping taking it the next. Well, this caused me SEVERE anxiety and SLEEP PARALYSIS. I would wake up in my sleep unable to move, paralysed like I was in a nightmare, but I was 💯 awake. No matter how hard I tried to move or scream I couldn’t. I was helplessly frozen. I could only see a scary demon-like shape in the moon light. It. Was. horrible. This went in for what felt like forever, but luckily it was only 1 month. On the off days I would have NO ENERGY. Like I couldn’t even walk around and live a normal day. BUT on the on day with duromine, I was a ball of energy cleaning and getting shit done like a crazy person, or someone on drugs 😂😏 After I finally spent a month coming off the duromine as the doctor recommended, and I was duromine free, I had no energy to do anything but binge eat. I was already depressed and unfulfilled in my life working a live-in nanny job that I hated, and to make matters worse I had no friends or hobbies. I ended up gaining all the weight back instantly. I may have gone up and down with my weight but on the inside, I was still just as depressed as I was in the beginning. At this point I decided to go back on duromine so I could ‘be skinny’ again. After hitting up one doctor who refused me the prescription because one of his patients committed suicide on it, I ignored his warning and went doctor shopping again for the duromine prescription, like the good lil’ 17 year old drug addict I was. Not even a year into my journey on Duromine and I was back at square one: Shopping around for duromine again thinking it would bring me to happiness… stay tuned for the final part to my story!
[photo of me whilst wheaning off of Duromine at 17, the blinds in the background were where I would see the demons every night!]
After finding a doctor to prescribe me my drug of choice, I waited for the weight to come off. Only this time it didn’t. I was already ‘tolerant’ to the drug, and this time I was much less excited about it. I was also MUCH more depressed at this point, and less motivated to eat well and exercise. I decided that I was better off to continue taking the duromine, despite not eating well and exercising, because it would probably help me not gain AS MUCH weight. As the years went on and my weight yoyo’d, I kept this mentality that duromine was a support for me to help keep the weight off. I lost count of how many doctors I went throughout my early adulthood to find #duromine prescriptions. It was quite hard for me to ‘score’ seeing as I looked completely healthy, and was no where near obese. The duromine continued and so did the depression. The depression only grew worse and worse. I didn’t know how to fix it. I took duromine from the age of 16 right up until I was 21. I suffered extreme headaches, fevers, muscle aches, mood swings and more from the duromine but to me, that was better than gaining weight. At the age of 21, my depression and binge eating hit an all time low. I gained 60kgs in less that 8 months. It was only at this time that I decided I would finally stop taking duromine. That the headaches and other issues weren’t worth it. After all, it clearly wasn’t assisting me with keeping weight off anymore. I realised it was simply a bandaid to a much deeper problem, or problems. I put the box of duromine away into my medicine cabinet for emergencies, and for safe keeping. I held on to that box for a long time. I was tempted to take it again many times. I did go back to it once or twice, but I ultimately knew it was the wrong choice. I’m proud to say I’m now duromine free. I didn’t want to share this story for a long time because of the shame that came with it. But if I can prevent one 16 year old, or anyone for that matter from taking this drug, it will be worth it.