Usually you are going to get an anticholinergic intoxication but they can look like a patient who is on As you know, most of the patients who we see who are active substance abusers, they are not the worlds greatest or honest historians. The patient was confused, tachycardic, hypertensive and had a real fine tremor. You could Now specifically we will break these drugs up into their different kind of areas, if you will. But when you look at the amphetamine class, or they sympathomimetics, there s really two basic types. Both of these have similar autonomic pictures but they have two different mechanisms of action.
Cocaine works like an antidepressant.
It is actually a re-uptake blocker of both norepinephrine and dopamine. So it acts like an antidepressant. Some people are injecting it, but the bioavailability of smoking it is almost instantaneous. It s also cheaper and cleaner. So we see a lot more smoke-able forms of crack cocaine and methamphetamine.