nihilsupernum:

[most of this information comes from sarah. some of it comes from other people or experience]

serotonin syndrome happens when you take too many serotonin+ drugs, like mdma and ssris and a lot of other thigns. it is a common adverse drug reaction. it basically means you have too much serotonin. this makes your temperature go up bc idk. 

it is bad because being too hot can cook your organs and give you seizures and stuff. homeostasis is really important.

symptoms: mental confusion, panic, overheating, sweatyness, muscle twitches, eye twitches, shaking, muscle rigidity

it may not feel uncomfortable to the person who has it because like a lot of drugs make you worse at noticing bad things happening to your body, but they will probably try to press their face to the kitchen floor or something

what you do: put cold water on them and feed them activated charcoal. lukewarm bath is good. these are basically the same things a hospital will do (although they have a couple more options available to them (benzos, saline)), so if you can stabilize their temperature you dont have to go to the hospital. 

it is also important for them to drink water and put electrolytes in their body. since panic is a symptom and panic spreads really easily through humans, you wanna try to make it so that the person with serotonin syndrome interacts with calm people whom they trust.

Don’t go overboard with the water though, in the 90s when we called MDMA “ecstasy” and not “molly” its danger was mostly presented as overheating and dehydration (from serotonin syndrome or just raving) to be warded off by drinking water, with the result that some British girl drank unto fatal water intoxication