A practicing doctor revealed the dangers of 'butterfly pills'.
Lee Sang-wook, a dermatologist who runs a clinic in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, said in a recent video uploaded to his YouTube channel that he had taken the drug himself.
Lee said butterfly pills are a well-known drug and "there was a time when I weighed as much as a baby elephant. I'm 184 cm tall, and there was a time when I weighed in the 90 kg range," adding, "my stomach enlarged and my appetite kept rising, so I thought 'this is impossible, I need help from butterfly pills' and got a prescription." He added, "I once briefly lost about 20 kg."
He added, "the effect is actually very, very good. But the reason I used to do weight-loss consultations and don't do them now is because of this," comparing the shock of experiencing the pill's effect to the startled, pounding feeling of being caught by a thief. He explained, "you get so startled you don't have an appetite, you break out in cold sweat. You can't sleep. The biggest effect of butterfly pills is on the central nervous system; it acts on our brain to stimulate norepinephrine, speeding up metabolism in the body. As our body's metabolism increases it helps burn fat and, most of all, appetite drops, so the weight-loss effect is enormous."
But regarding the deadly side effects he said, "It's addictive. It's hard to quit. It's the same as drugs. The ingredient is phentermine, which has almost the same chemical structure as methamphetamine. Amphetamine. You could call it a drug. If you stop, you get anxious and develop tolerance." He said even half a pill had an effect, but once tolerance develops people take one and a half pills. He said, "the recommended maximum is one pill per day. It's a very dangerous drug. It dries out the skin and mouth. It stimulates all metabolism in the skin and elsewhere, causing dryness and dry eyes."
He continued, "I took it for about six weeks and it was very hard to quit. When you take it you get energy and even after sleeping two or three hours you're not tired. You're alert. When quitting you have to taper the dose. If you stop, you get extremely tired. The alerting effect disappears," and recalled, "I slept like a corpse for more than 10 hours and still felt tired, my mood was down, I had depression, and I felt long-term listlessness without energy. It took three or four weeks to regain homeostasis," as he spoke about butterfly pills.
Meanwhile, in the so-called 'Park Narae gate,' Short Mouth Sun was accused of receiving prescription narcotic medications for weight loss from A, nicknamed 'injection aunt,' and was booked on charges of violating the Narcotics Control Act. Short Mouth Sun's side denied the allegation, saying, "the person received a 'decongestant' prescription from the hospital where that individual worked, but it is unrelated to diet pills (butterfly pills) or IV drips."
[Photo] OSEN DB, YouTube video capture
[OSEN]