DOSE:

0,125 mg

oral

Pharms - Triazolam

(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

120 lb

A month ago, a filling fell out of one of my molars. The dentist told me that he wasn't sure, but I might have to have a root canal. As he brought the Novocain needle towards my mouth, I began to panic and started crying. We rescheduled the appointment and he sent me home with a prescription for Halcion, a sleep-aid dentists sometimes use to relax patients before procedures.

At 19 years old, my previous drug experience included: alcohol fairly frequently - I am in college after all, occasional tobacco, 2 acid trips, and 4 mushroom trips, the last of which being so bad that I had to stop smoking weed after being a very frequent user since age 16. This bad trip, which happened about 8 months before, had led to the development of (still untreated) panic disorder. One of my fears I faced was that of a severely altered mind set to where I could not function.

Upon researching this strange Halcion drug, I became very apprehensive. My step-dad had told me that he had taken it before a root canal, and couldn't remember the procedure or the rest of the day. My neighbor said that his sister had taken it and started saying things like 'I HAVE THREE EYES!!' I grew concerned that I would tell my mom (the driver) all of my secrets; I worried so much that I only got 3 hours of sleep before my 7am appointment.

My loving mother picked me up from my apartment and handed me a small blue pill. My heart immediately started racing and I choked up. 'You know I don't want to do this,' I said to her. 'I know,' she answered. 'Maybe just take half and see how you feel?' I reluctantly agreed, saying, 'This is peer pressure, you know…' I cried the entire way to the dentists' office (allow me to note here that adding to my dysphoria was the fact that my step-mom was inducing labor for her baby on this day, and I felt like a horrible person for not being there).

Once at the office, I sat crying in the parking lot for a few minutes and my mom said that we could move the appointment. But I shook my head and insisted that no, we were already there, I just wanted to get it over with. In the lobby, she tried to convince me to take the second half, but I refused. Then a nice nurse led me back to the dentists' chair and took my blood pressure. 'I guess the Halcion hasn't quite kicked in yet?' she smiled. The dentist offered me nitrous oxide but I didn't want that either. My mom handed me my iPod and I listened to the Rolling Stones for a minute, and everything started to get much more comfortable….

The next thing I knew, I closed my eyes and received many shots of Novocain without fighting the needle; the Halcion had kicked in. Realizing I needed to pee, I let the nurse know and she chased after me as I walked down the hall; apparently I was walking really really fast and she was concerned that I would get lost. Upon returning, I felt the dentist fix the hole in my tooth, which only seemed to take about two minutes (later I learned he was working on it for about 30). I fell asleep while they took a mold for my permanent crown (about 7 minutes). And then it was done. The two-hour appointment only seemed to take 15 minutes, and I didn't need a root canal after all.

Afterwards, my mom took me to get a smoothie and I found myself staring at the menu for an inordinate amount of time. After ordering, I went over to the refrigerator with the pre-made drinks and began reading labels of things I'd never heard of, as I'm interested in food and this was something I would normally do anyway. It took my mom several times of saying my name and tapping my shoulder for me to notice an employee standing next to me, waiting to restock one of the shelves. 'Oh, sorry…I just got out of the dentists' office…'

I had agreed to spend the day with my mom so I wouldn't do anything stupid under the influence of this drug. On the way to her house in a small town outside my city, I realized I was really hungry. We stopped at a taco stand and ate, and I had a similar experience as with the smoothie place. As we ate, I talked to my mom about normal stuff, school, friends, etc (the dental work was only on one side of my mouth so I could still eat with the other). The best way I could describe the feeling of this drug is like being stoned on weed but with zero paranoia, no insights, no giggles, no intensifying of colors, just…spacey and floaty, relaxed like alcohol but without the overconfidence or wobbliness, and emotionally numb, with only a slight awareness that anything had changed.

Once I got to my mom's house, I napped for a few hours, woke up hungry, requested more tacos, ate, talked to my dad & stepmom on the phone about the new baby, received a phone call from one of my friends tripping on mushrooms talking about being in a sailboat bathtub, watched a movie, and went back to sleep. The next day I was completely back to baseline.

During the experience, I felt totally normal, but in retrospect I must have seemed pretty out of it. Contrary to other peoples' experiences, and probably due to my low dose, I remembered everything, although it does seem like a weird dreamlike haze. I'm glad my mom watched over me the entire day, because otherwise I might have tried to drive and had ZERO reflexes. Being someone who suffers from anxiety on a daily basis, it was a nice break from the constant worry; however I wasn't even aware that I felt any different at the time. At first I wanted to do the drug again to feel so carefree, but upon reflecting I realized that I was a walking zombie, which is fine for a day starting with a terrifying dental procedure, but no way to live life as a whole.

I wanted to share my experience with other people who may be off-label prescribed this drug for a similar reason, as I probably would have been less apprehensive about it had there been one here. Safe travels my friends :)

Exp Year: 2012	ExpID: 98652
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 19
Published: Jun 16, 2021	Views: 1,421
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Pharms - Triazolam (209) : First Times (2), Medical Use (47), Various (28)