When Bubba Smith died in August, everyone assumed he died of natural causes. It turns out the former actor and football player died from an overdose of diet pills. The actual case listed was "acute phentermine intoxication." Phentermine is what keeps you from eating. I wonder if he thought he needed to take more because of his size and thought they would not affect him adversely or if he was trying to take his own life. You can never be sure with overdosing if it really is accidental or if it was something that person thought about and made a conscious decision to do. I would like to think it was accidental. I have taken diet pills before and I have seen lots of cases where people die from diet pills. It always makes me cringe when I see a celebrity endorsing them because you never know what the active ingredient is or if people will just gobble them up and not follow the instructions and possibly end up dead like Bubba.
I took one diet pill one time and I thought I was having a heart attack. it was something I bought at Walgreen's for heavens sake, and I only took one, and I'm usually not sensitive to drug side effects, but holy cow, my heart was racing and I was trembling...no fucking way. never again. That is some very scary shit.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have been tempted a couple of times but I have read so many bad stories that I stay far, far away from them too!
ReplyDeleteGod, I'm so tired of our society's obsession with being thin. Not everyone is built like a coat hangar! Give me the facts about how weight affects health - and guess what, I need the facts about being *underweight* too. Then shut up and let me decide what weight I want to be. If I want to be overweight, I'll make that choice knowing the risks.
ReplyDeleteI blame you, Hollywood. Stop obsessing over super thin people and start casting regular people, of all shapes and sizes. Tall, short, thin, fat, pear shaped, watermelon shaped, diamond shaped. Start embracing people the way they *naturally* look.
Next, I blame you, medical establishment. Your "one-size-fits-all" definition of healthy doesn't fit everyone. Stop focusing on the weight number, and include things like how physically fit someone is. And then focus on educating, rather than prescribing drugs or doing surgeries that cause as much (or more) trouble than being overweight would! Not everyone should or wants to take drastic action just to extend their lives by a few years (which, BTW, are not exactly the "I can go run a marathon years". Those years at the end of your life can *suck* when you are mentally and physically not as strong)
*applauds* way to tell the truth Seachica!
ReplyDeleteI tried to kill myself by taking diet pills when I was in high school.
ReplyDeleteJust made me stay up all night.
Ditto to everything seachica said!!! Plus, the diet pill industry, especially the over-the-counter stuff is extremely underregulated. They are considered in the same class as vitamins, which have virtually no regulations at all. People think that over-the-counter stuff must be safe at any dosage since you don't need a prescription. They think if they can lose weight taking three pills a day, then if they take six, they'll loose twice as fast. Liver failure sets in quickly and can be almost impossible to treat.
ReplyDeleteyou know our society is SO focused on weight. our neighbors had a ittle get-together recently and one said she was eating differently (she's in her 70's). first thing out of everyones mouth is "how much weight have you lost". really? it still goes on in your 70's?
ReplyDeleteOMG- This post is freaking me out!
ReplyDeleteI took phentermine for a few weeks 5 years ago, to lose weight 'the easy way'. My pupils were constantly dilated, and i could feel my heartbeat humming like a birds. No joke or exaggeration- within 3 days I'd lost 10lbs- I couldnt believe it! I was so excited. And then (this might be a little TMI, sorry) I went to the bathroom, got up, and the toilet was filled with blood. And stopped taking them right then. These pills can work but you will literally die in your effort to acquire thinness. I learned my lesson but the really sick thing is sometimes, when I think about how easily I lost those 10 lbs, Im tempted to get them again- and that's how fucking horrible the pressure to conform to the current ideal female body type is.
RIP Bubba- Im sorry.
I took Fen Fen back in the late 90's just before it was taken off of the market. Yes it sped up my heart, and everything else too and I lost about 40 lbs. very quickly. Then they took it off the market and I immediately gained the weight back. I will also admit that I loved the way it made me feel - but then again I loved coke and crank so I was happy that I could have that feeling "legally."
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree - I wish Hollywood and magazines would embrace that not everyone should be a stick. I have struggled with my weight my entire life and I did have gastric bypass 2 years ago and am now a size 4/6 and in some ways I feel better but I have also had other things that have been caused because of the surgery that haven't been so great (when I get sick I get sicker than ever before and frequently get dehydrated because I just can't take enough in and my body doesn't absorb the same way it did before).
@seachica, WORD! @New life and attitude, thank you for being honest about having to have surgery. I am fat, have been my whole life, and the times I have been slim have been few and far between. I go to the gym, normally 5 days a week, have no health problems, and am sick of reading about how fat is the worst thing you can be. It isn't. Some of us are born bigger, live bigger, and will die bigger. I have a friend doing diet pills and shakes and she has been sick with it for months. Wakes up with the shakes, can't drive a car in the morning. She is skinny at the moment. I wonder what she would like me to tell her kids if she dies?
ReplyDeleteI danced with phentermine a few years ago. I started ordering it online and lost a lot of weight.
ReplyDeleteAfter awhile your body builds up a resistence and you need more and more pills to lose your appetite and it basically makes you feel jittery and coked out.
It also messed up my personality I wasn't myself and I stopped. But I was pretty much addicted to them for about six months.
They are very dangerous.
Isn't this another thing those kardashian ho bags tout?
ReplyDeleteI was on Fen Fen back in the late 90's too - all I got from it was the weight I'd lost back and a heart valve defect.
ReplyDeleteI have taken a few things before, back in the day but for the most part I stay away from that stuff b/c of all the horror stories I've read (let alone the possibility of death).
ReplyDeleteI will never understand why anyone would want to take a pill where the side affects are flatulence, bloating & diarrhea.
Yay, I'm losing weight but Ooops, I just shit my pants.
No thank you.
Hello....friendly neighborhood pharmacist here. Phentermine is a stimulant. One of the side effects is increased metabolism and loss of appetite. Works great, for awhile. About 3 months. After that, you should take holiday to allow your body to decrease the resistance that's built up.
ReplyDeleteI advise patients all the time to use the 3 months to re-learn eating habits and decrease stimulus eating. After 3 months, never go back. It's a bad cycle.
Of course, there are those patients who realize that their "diet" isn't working and do something crazy, like double the dose. And some doctors are crazy enough to write the script. I'm not crazy enough to fill it, but hey, someone somewhere will.
Poor guy....I wonder if anyone told him about the dangers of taking stimulant medication to lose weight.
Blogger JustJen said...
ReplyDelete"Hello....friendly neighborhood pharmacist here. Phentermine is a stimulant. One of the side effects is increased metabolism and loss of appetite."
Sounds not much different from coke.