Bath Salts: The Short-Term and Long-Term Effects

Bath salts have been in the news a lot recently. Also called synthetic cathinones, bath salts aren’t intended for human consumption—yet more and more people are consuming these drugs in search of a euphoric high. It’s important not to confuse the street drug known as bath salts with the common household item that people use for relaxation in their bathtubs. Rather, synthetic cathinones are powder-like substances that users ingest as stimulants, often as alternatives to methamphetamine or cocaine. This brief article will give an overview of bath salts and their short-term and long-term effects.

Short-Term Effects

Using bath salts can have many short-term effects on your body. Repeated usage of bath salts can be incredibly detrimental to a person’s mind. People who use bath salts are more likely to have suicidal thoughts or hallucinations or experience fits of psychosis. They’re also often extremely paranoid. As dangerous as bath salt usage is to your brain, it’s also extremely bad for your body. Using bath salts can cause skin rashes and even initiate seizures. Moreover, bath salt users can also experience loss of appetite, excessive sweating, and extreme numbness and tingling in their muscles.

Long-Term Effects

People who continuously use bath salts are doing serious damage to their overall health. Regular bath salt users may eventually experience a breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue. This can impair their ability to walk after repeated usage. Other long-term effects of bath salts include kidney failure and increased blood pressure. Sadly, some users experience brain swelling, which hinders their cognitive abilities or even leads to death. If you suspect a loved one or an employee is using bath salts or another harmful drug, purchase a 12-panel urine drug test today. The earlier you can determine if they’re using, the sooner you can help them get treatment.