![]() ![]() ![]() "This is obviously an extreme case so we should not blow any observations out of proportion," says Dr Kouimtsidis. With no mental illness in his family and no prior psychiatric history, the doctors concluded that his unique condition was direct result of his intense ecstasy use. "More worryingly, he did not seem aware himself that he had these memory problems." ![]() His long- term memory was fine but he could not remember day to day things - the time, the day, what was in his supermarket trolley," said Dr Kouimtsidis. But evaluating the full extent of his condition was difficult as his concentration and attention was so impaired he was unable to follow the simple tasks involved in the test. The doctors discovered that the man was suffering from severe short-term memory problems of a type usually only seen in lifetime alcoholics. "He was having trouble functioning in everyday life." "He came to us after deciding that he couldn't go on any more," said Dr Christos Kouimtsidis, the consultant psychiatrist at St George's Medical School in Tooting who treated him for five months. His condition deteriorated and he began to experience recurrent tunnel vision and other problems including hallucinations, paranoia and muscle rigidity. For several months, he still felt he was under the influence of the drug, despite being bedridden. After several severe collapses at parties, Mr A decided to stop taking ecstasy. At the peak, the man was taking an estimated 25 pills every day for four years. Gradually this escalated until he was taking around three and a half pills a day. For the first two years his use was an average of five pills per weekend. The man, known as Mr A in the report in the scientific journal Psychosomatics, started using ecstasy at 21. ![]()
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