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Cough Medicine Abuse: Warning Signs

You likely already know some of the warning signs of alcohol or illegal drug abuse. But do you know the signs of medicine abuse?

Signs that abuse may be taking place:

• Empty cough medicine boxes or bottles in the trash of your child’s room or in your child’s backpack or school locker
• Purchase or use of large amounts of cough medicine when not ill
• Missing boxes or bottles of medication from the medicine cabinet
• Visiting pro-drug web sites that provide information on how to abuse dextromethorphan
• Internet orders (for example, note the arrival of unexpected packages, or payments by credit card or PayPal account)
• Changes in friends, physical appearance, or sleeping or eating patterns
• Declining grades
• Loss of interest in hobbies or favorite activities
• Hostile and uncooperative attitude
• Unexplained disappearance of household money
• Unusual chemical or medicinal smells on your child or in his or her room
• Hearing your child use certain slang terms for DXM abuse, such as Skittling, Tussing, Robo-Tripping, Triple Cs, Robo-tripping, and Dex

Cough Medicine Abuse—Side Effects

Cough Medicine Abuse—Size of the Problem

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