FDA issues health warning as wellness supplement dubbed ‘gas station heroin’ causes SEIZURES in dozens of Americans

Americans are being warned to avoid a ‘wellness supplement’ after patients suffered seizures and loss of consciousness.

Neptune’s Fix claims to improve brain function and relieve anxiety, depression, pain and opioid use disorders.

But the drug it contains, tianeptine – an opioid alternative that has been called “worse than heroin” – is not approved for use in the US due to the risk of addiction.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – which issued the warning – said tianeptine can also cause an intense high, just like an opioid. They said the drug may also contain other harmful ingredients that have not yet been detected.

Eight states – including Alabama, Georgia, Michigan and Ohio – have already banned the drug used in Neptune’s Fix, while Florida this year declared it a Schedule 1 substance, putting it on par with heroin and LSD.

Neptune’s Fix is ​​commonly sold at gas stations, but is also offered for sale in delis, vape shops, tobacconists, convenience stores, and online.

Poison heads in New Jersey say they have received 23 calls about serious reactions to tianeptine since June of this year – more than half of which were related to Neptune’s Fix.

FDA chiefs say tianeptine can produce a high similar to that of other opioids.

But they warn that many patients quickly become addicted because they can quickly build up a tolerance to the so-called supplement.

The number of tianeptide poisonings has increased dramatically over the past two decades, from reports of just eleven poisonings between 2000 and 2013 to 151 in 2020.

Health officials warn that people taking Neptune’s Fix may experience confusion, sweating, rapid heart rate, blood pressure spikes, nausea, vomiting and agitation.

Some may also experience a marked slowing of breathing and, in rare cases, a total shutdown of the respiratory system, which can lead to coma or death.

At least four deaths have been reported among people taking the ‘supplement’ since it appeared in the US in the mid-2010s.

Michigan lawmakers took action against the drug in 2018, banning its sale amid reports of poisonings in their state.

But the FDA was accused of being slow to act, with emails released under the Freedom of Information Act showing that it took nine months for the agency to alert the public after it first received reports.

Michigan police reported that the drug was “worse than heroin” because it could produce a high similar to opioids, but they would quickly build up a tolerance to it.

Former user Alyssa Wood, from Michigan, told a hearing in 2018: ‘The withdrawal I experienced from heroin was (overshadowed) by the withdrawal from this poison.”

Dr. William Rushton, of the University of Alabama’s toxicology program, previously said, “We had to put a lot of people in intensive care because the withdrawal symptoms were so bad and often included delirium, which required high doses of narcotic medications.”

Florida decided in September to declare the supplement a schedule 1 drug.