Docs struggling for answers as flesh-rotting ‘zombie drug’ tranq grips NYBy Jack Morphet and
Steve Janoski
August 28, 2023
Travis Eddy was no stranger to the drug game: The 33-year-old mechanic from Long Island had been hooked on heroin off and on for nearly half his life.
But late last year, he unwittingly began smoking crack laced with xylazine — the powerful animal sedative commonly known by its street name, “tranq” — and the game changed overnight.
He began hallucinating, rotting sores dotted his feet and arms and his body erupted in seizures when he tried to get clean.
“There was a change in his behavior when he started using xylazine — he started going cuckoo,” his heartbroken mother, Merri Eddy, recently told The Post. “I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was something different than the fentanyl … It was very frustrating, because I couldn’t help him.”
Heartbroken relatives aren’t the only ones at a loss. Medical professionals have also been struggling to respond to the nefarious tranquilizer as it snakes its way into the wider drug supply, complicating nearly every aspect of treatment and recovery.
“The clinical picture becomes much more diabolical, a lot harder to follow — a lot more can go wrong” when tranq is involved, Dr. Paolo Coppola, the board-certified co-founder of Victory Recovery Partners in Massapequa Park, told The Post in a recent interview.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2023/08/28/zombie-drug-tranq-leaves-illegal-narcotics-more-potent-while-making-it-even-harder-for-opioid-addicts-to-quit-doctors-say/
