Ionamin (Phentermine resin) report (and a tip for Malaysian scripters)

veritas [sixthseal.com] loves stimulants.

30 mg Ionamin capsules

This is one of the few amphetamine type substances (chemically and
pharmacologically related to amphetamines) available for prescription
in Malaysia. Ionamin is the only phentermine resin complex available
(no generics) and it’s a “diet drug” (appetite suppressant/metabolic
booster). It is only indicated for the short term treatment of obesity,
and unless I’m prepared to eat 10 whole chickens and chug 3 liters of
cooking oil a day for a week, my Body Mass Index (BMI) does not qualify
me to obtain a prescription from a doctor legitimately. I don’t think
I’ll enjoy chugging 1 liter of cooking oil, much less 3 liters.

However, I do have a friend who has a pharmacy. 😉

Jump to the Ionamin (phentermine resin) report
if you’re not interested in the pointers for fellow Malaysians
interested in doctor shopping or pharmacy runs (otherwise known as
prescription fraud and obtaining/possession of a controlled drug).
*cough*

Malaysia does not have prescribed methamphetamine or
dextroamphetamine for treatment of narcolepsy or ADHD/ADD. The word
amphetamine in any chemical probably causes the Malaysian government to
get their panties all in an uncomfortable twist. 😉 Heh, check it out
if you don’t believe me:

Searchable Database of Registered Pharmaceuticals in Malaysia [bpfk.gov.my]

Courtesy of:
National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau
Drug Control Authority
Ministry of Health Malaysia

It’s the Malaysian scripter’s best friend. 🙂 Ritalin which is
Methylphenidate hydrochloride (Look ma, no “-amphetamine”!) is
available though. I’m surprised to find oxycodone (Oxycontin) available
as well! It wasn’t the last time I checked. Anyway, the link was posted
ages ago on this very site too. It’s easy to type in the generic name
of any potentially recreational pharmaceutical and see if it’s in the
database. They show ALL the available products of the drug you typed in
(product names, dosage forms it comes in etc).

Example with phentermine:

Your search : PHENTERMINE
Search result : 5 record(s) matched your query

1. MAL19871772A ADIPEX RETARD CAPSULE 15MG GERMAX SDN BHD
2. MAL19871769A DUROMINE CAPSULE 15MG 3M (M) SDN BHD
3. MAL19871774A DUROMINE CAPSULE 30MG 3M (M) SDN BHD
4. MAL19871770AR IONAMIN 15 CAPSULE ZUELLIG PHARMA SDN BHD
5. MAL19871775AR IONAMIN 30 CAPSULE ZUELLIG PHARMA SDN BHD

The registration number is clickable to show more information eg all
the substances contained in the preparation and they’re adding in the
packaging (quantity) and prices slowly eg “10 x 10 blister pack – RM
34.60”. This really helps when you’re doing pharmacy runs/doctor
shopping. Not all pharmacists here are familiar with every generic
name, so before they browse their outdated book, say something like
“It’s lorazepam, it comes in a pack that says Ativan and has 10
tablets, but I’ve had another pharmacy give me something from this big
bottle called APO-LORAZEPAM, he said it’s the same thing”.

Say thank you if you aren’t aware of the Ministry of Health
(Malaysia)’s Drug Control Authority product database and its uses for
unscrupulous scripters. 😉

Oops…sorry that’s not harm reduction at all, moving back to my experience report. :p

Ionamin (Phentermine resin)

Retail price: RM 2 (A$ 1) for 30 mg capsule. I can’t believe the online pharmacy prices! Obscene!

Experience #1
The first time is always the best

Substance: Ionamin (Phentermine resin complex)

Dose: 150 mg total
90 mg (3 x 30 mg capsules) at T+ 0:00
30 mg (1 x 30 mg capsule) booster at T+ 1:00
30 mg (1 x 30 mg) booster at T+ 1:30

Route: Oral

I took 3 capsules of Ionamin (without attempting to foil the time
release) right after I woke up and chased it down with a bottle of
water. I had an empty stomach (last meal was a good 18 hours before)
and I felt stimulated about 30-40 minutes after that and felt “speeded
up” like on amphetamines. It was looking promising, so I put on some
gabba (gotta love hard music on stimulants) and wrote a post, the one
below which mentions that I’m tweaked. 🙂

Contents of the 30 mg Ionamin capsule

I felt quite good at this time, so I opened up a capsule to examine
its contents. I noticed that half the capsule is filled with white
powdery stuff and half of it was some kind of beady black spheres. The
white powder had no taste to it and I think the spheres are the
phentermine resin. I don’t know what the white powder is, I don’t think
it’s filler/binder/some inactive agent since it’s a capsule. I would
guess that it’s some kind of GI tract pharmaceutical to decrease
absorption? That’s a guess though, does anyone know for sure?

Anyway, I crunched up everything (including the capsule) an hour
after the first dose as a booster. I worked it with my teeth real good
to try and see if that would break the time release, but I’ve read
somewhere that Ionamin isn’t really “time release” in the traditional
sense. Could the mysterious white powder have something to do with it?
Anyway, the black spheres are quite hard to crush! I had to really work
on it before it powdered, your dentist would not like this. 😉

It’s quite compulsive, I felt the urge to crunch up more capsules
when I reached that certain state of tweak bliss. However, I have to
state that I’m very fond of stimulants so take that as you will. I took
another booster 30 minutes later (1 hours and 30 minutes after my
initial dose) and that put me in a nice tweak zone for most of the day.
I’m really surprised at the duration of this, unlike the short, steep
peak – medium length plateau – steep return to baseline of
(meth)amphetamines, phentermine resin has a longer peak – very long
plateau and a VERY steep return to baseline.

My apologies for the crude diagram. This is an observation from
personal experience, not scientific data. x and y refers to the axis,
which I didn’t draw. Start and stop points are baseline (normal).

The intensity wasn’t as good as (meth)amphetamines, but it does
rival methcathinone’s intensity. Oh, you really have to drink A LOT of
water, like the manufacturer says. I had an extreme thirst the whole
time and heaps of water, but it came out too (no problems with
urination) so that’s cool. When I’m on meth, I find myself stuck doing
something for a long time (intense concentration) and nothing can pull
me away from it. It was the same with Ionamin so I think this could be
a good study drug as well, but the mental clarity is inferior to
(meth)amphetamines and feels more like the scattered caffeine state of
mind towards the end.

Well, I went out for a long walk and felt a good body buzz but
rather disturbing cardiovascular manifestations. It has been 4-5 hours
since the first dose and I was still feeling great. I didn’t eat
anything, the appetite suppressant effect of phentermine is equivalent
to that of meth, food was the last thing on my mind. I went for a night
out with friends and came down (crashed would be a better word) about 8
or 9 hours since the initial dose right before going out. Certain GABA
agonists were necessary to reduce the comedown effects, and to maintain
a level of acceptable sociability. 😉 The above GABA agonist worked
very well in smoothing the comedown. Shh, it’s obvious to fellow
recreational drug users, but please don’t state it out loud it, since
I’m being obscure intentionally. Much later in the night, I took 2 mg
alprazolam (Xanax) and was asleep in seconds, but that was probably due
to the abovementioned GABA agonist. No “hangover” effects were noticed
on the second day, even with just 6 hours of sleep.

Scanned capsules of Ionamin (30 mg phentermine resin)

Experience #2
Giving methcathinone a good run for its money

Substance: Ionamin (Phentermine resin complex)

Dose: 240 mg total
150 mg (5 x 30 mg capsules) at T+ 0:00
60 mg (2 x 30 mg) booster at T+ 1:05
30 mg (1 x 30 mg) booster T+ 4:35

Other possible interactions:
27 mg bromazepam (Lexotan) at T- 14:00
5 mg alprazolam (Xanax) at T- 10:00
3 mg alprazolam (Xanax) at T- 09:00
Note: The subject is a long time user of benzodiazepines, has high
tolerance and suspected constant plasma levels of unknown quantity.

Route: Oral and “intranasal”

Haha! That intranasal thing shouldn’t even be mentioned. Basically,
I opened a capsule to display its contents on a clean surface and while
licking the contents, I accidentally breathed in some. 🙂 Accidental
insufflation. Anyway, I crunched up 5 capsules of Ionamin in the
afternoon on an empty stomach (12 hours since last meal). I’m starting
to like that salty tang, I find that it’s nice to chew for a long time,
getting the little hard black balls between your molars and grinding,
grinding, grinding till you can feel the brittle powdery texture. I
don’t know if that actually breaks the time release though, but I like
to have some of it down with the time release intact for a longer
plateau.

I felt sleepy (!!!) about 5 minutes later and went to take a nap,
hoping my “dexamphetamine trick” aka The Dexamphetamine Alarm Clock
will work with Ionamin. Well, the dexamphetamine trick is for the
occasions when you HAVE to wake up but you’re too sleepy from the
previous night’s benzo consumption (or lack of sleep). Anyway, the
trick is to reach for the dexamphetamine bottle when your alarm clock
goes off and gobble a few of them before going back to sleep. Hehe! In
15-20 minutes (for me), I’ll suddenly bolt upright and feel ENERGIZED
and ready to take on the day! 🙂

Well, I woke up an hour or so later feeling slightly stimulated and
yet slightly sedated. I had a lot of benzodiazepines last night, so
that could be the problem. I took a 60 mg booster dose upon waking up
and felt tweaked (similar feeling to amphetamines), and the urge to
consume more. I wanted to take another capsule after a while, but I was
having shortness of breath, chest pains and my toe nails were turning a
disturbing shade of black. I have existing hypertension, so I decided
not to push it and live to tweak another day. 🙂 I think I’ve lost my
significant amphetamine tolerance, which is a Good Thing, my wallet is
extending its gratitude every day. Heh.

I’m still feeling good now, still at the plateau, but personally I
noticed that with every crunched up capsule comes another peak and
another peak and plateau rather similar to the first, so that was why I
wanted to take another, but I’m not going to. Pupil dilation does occur
at high doses, personally, it’s not the saucers I get while on MDMA,
but the dilation is quite similar to (meth)amphetamine at recreational
doses. I just checked and I have a fever. No, not using my cold, clammy
hands, with a thermometer. Nope, I’m not going to have anymore today.
🙂

I’m still feeling good by the way. Also, there isn’t any paranoia
present but then again that usually only happens on long meth runs, and
I don’t like the idea of going for a phentermine run with this heavy
body load. I hear the LD50 is 20 mg/kg and I do not want to approach
that, with my hypertension. I’m having breathing difficulties now, that
is the thing that’s bothering me more than anything, but I’m okay. 🙂

Anyway, I mentioned before that I don’t fully defeat the timed
released capsules, I allow some of the spheres to go un-harassed by my
molars, so I’m still up. Oh, if you haven’t figured out by now, this is
a running experience report aka “living document”, I write a bit, go
out or do other stuff and then come back and update and I post it after
it’s complete. I also took another capsule just now. Anyway, after the
health issues of the past few hours subsided, I decided to take another
30 mg Ionamin capsule to establish the dose-response curve. 😉

Well, in all seriousness, I was curious to see if tolerance develops
quickly on this substance since it’s new to me, so I didn’t just take
another one to keep me awake. Booster doses (re-dosing) seems to be
more effective than (meth)amphetamines in terms of efficacy. Of course,
phentermine does cause tolerance, but qualitatively, a small booster
dose will bring me to a plateau again, but a lower one, of course. A
disturbing pain is evident in my right eye, but whether that is related
to this is unknown. Sleep is still far away, benzodiazepines are
definitely necessary for sleep tonight, since I will not be going out.
I might comedown anytime and the harsh body load is still very
noticeable, so I would prefer to remain sedentary for most of the
night. Ionamin lasts a long time too, and I have developed a scary
tolerance to benzodiazepines after constant recreational use, but I am
doing something about it, so I’m okay. 🙂

That said, I still love benzodiazepines though, and I hope to try
every single one in that happy, large family. =D I have to time it well
though, because the Ashton taper plan is not forgiving. The mantra
seems to be “always go down (lower the dose), go sideways (take the
same dose) if you must, but never go up (take a higher dose)”. Well, I
don’t have that big of a problem, so seriously, forget I brought it up,
I’m perfectly fine. 🙂 I will still do reviews of benzos (see above
about happy family), but for recreational use, I’m going to cut down to
the point where I don’t take them every day, maybe just weekends or
something. That is a personal decision, coz a benzodiazepine problem is
not the best thing in the world to have. 🙂

I digress, back to Ionamin, there is something quite interesting
(disturbing?) about it. It happened during the first time, but I wrote
that off as an isolated incident, but it happened again today. The
first time it happened was in the shower after my first phentermine
experience. I took a piss and during that final muscle squeeze to get
the last bit out, semen came out. Wtf? I wasn’t sexually aroused at any
point so that was indeed puzzling, but I thought it was just a
manifestation of that feeling you get when you take dexamphetamine and
potentiate it with baking soda ie the feeling that no matter how hard
you strain, you still can’t get that last bit of urine out, it’s just
stuck there. This happens on phentermine for me too.

Well, I took a piss late into the second trip and something which
looks suspiciously like pre-cum came out, again during the final
squeeze. My understanding of the male anatomy says that ejaculation and
urination cannot happen at the same time, due to an “either or” valve
somewhere along the piping. Very puzzling, especially since there was
no erection or sexual arousal at any point. Well, my penis is perfectly
fine, thank you very much. :p I was just wondering if anyone had the
same experience.

Well, my first two experiences with Ionamin (Phentermine resin)
suggests that it certainly is fun. I would try the hydrochloride salt
next time to compare against the resin complex. I find it to be quite
recreational, but it’s not something I would take frequently due to the
heavy body load. Right now, I’m having very disturbing manifestations
of hypertension. Here’s an interesting tidbit about Ionamin from RxList [rxlist.com]:

Blood levels obtained with the 15 mg and 30 mg resin complex
formulations indicated slower absorption with a reduced but prolonged
peak concentration and without a significant difference in prolongation
of blood levels when compared with the same doses of phentermine
hydrochloride.

I haven’t tried phentermine hydrochloride, but yeah, even before I
even read this I already noticed that phentermine resin’s plateau was
unexpectedly long!

Ionamin Thoughts:
It’s strangely dehydrating, you really need to drink a lot of water!
It’s unlike meth/speed, where you know you’re thirsty but you don’t
care coz the current thing you’re doing is more important. With
phentermine, you know you’re thirsty and the thirst is bad so you reach
for the water bottle. I drank an obscene amount of water during both
experiences! Be careful and monitor your water intake.

It’s a good cheap and dirty amphetamine substitute. After a certain
(high) dose threshold, amphetamine type effects predominate – full body
buzz, slight arousal and sensitivity in the genitalia, head rush when
urinating, excessive talking and writing (just look at the length of
this post!) and of course EUPHORIA! 🙂 Mental stimulation is also
present, thought processes remain quite clear (unlike caffeine), though
not as clear as meth(amphetamines).

Phentermine resin seems to have a heavy body load. My heart felt
like it was going to fail anytime from the fast heartbeats and the
elevated body temperature raises concern about possible brain damage. I
also felt out of breath on higher doses and the comedown is quite harsh
and remarkably similar to (meth)amphetamines – tiredness, slight
depression, muscle aches etc etc. However, qualitatively, the comedown
effect of a single day’s use is equivalent the comedown of a 3 day meth
run! It’s quite unacceptable, considering the heavy body load and lower
intensity.

The dose-response curve seems to be less steep than other
amphetamines. Re-dosing at a low level (30 mg) at the tail end of the
run seems to produce effects, which though inference and extrapolation
seems less pronounced than what a 30 mg dose would provide without
tolerance, but it is keeping me awake and slightly stimulated.
Phentermine does produce tolerance as the literature states, but
surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to develop as fast as (meth)amphetamines,
so re-dosing (booster doses) does work, though of course, at a
decreased rate. However I have to re-iterate that I don’t think it’s a
very good idea to go on long phentermine runs, considering the body
load.

My personal (based on the things I’ve had experience with) stimulant potency hierarchy:

(in decreasing order of qualitatively perceived strength)

Methamphetamine (meth, shabu, ping)
My favorite drug, I use it very frequently in Melbourne – and the only
drug I’ve IV (injected with a syringe through a vein). New readers can
read my experiences here:
Methamphetamine IV Part I: Intravenous injection [sixthseal.com]
Methamphetamine IV Part II: Hitting the vein, synergies and the comedown [sixthseal.com]
or just browse the Sticky Posts at the right (under Recent Comments and above Archives) since they’re all best of the best posts on sixthseal.com or so I like to think :p

Dexamphetamine (d-amphetamine – speed, just the stronger non-racemic kind)
The potent dextro isomer of amphetamine. Amphetamine = speed, and this
only has the dextro isomer, which is good since the levo isomer isn’t
recreational. I love this too, a bottle (500 mg or 1/2 a gram) of pure
amphetamines can disappear in two or three days.

Amphetamine (speed)
The racemic mixture (contains both d-amphetamine and l-amphetamine), so
it’s a step down the ladder since l-amphetamine is not as recreational
(doesn’t get you high) as d-amphetamine.

Methcathinone
It makes me sad during the comedown, but it’s an okay stimulant. I’ll
write a post (not everything, just my experiences with the stuff, and
ONLY that) when technical problems resolves itself.

Phentermine (resin)
Hi!

Pseudoephedrine
Oh, my poor overworked heart.

Caffeine
Well, if you have nothing else…

Again, I reiterate that this stimulant potency hierarchy is based on personal experiences and YMMV.

Caution: Taking more than 100 mg of phentermine may be dangerous.