Posted by omegon on October 2, 2003, at 21:52:30
In reply to has anyone tried senegine at a low smart drug dose, posted by loolot on September 29, 2003, at 14:30:24
I have tried selegiline, for a couple of months, starting five weeks after stopping St John's Wort. Part of my abortive attempts at self-medication for depression over the last few years.
I experimented with various doses from 2.5mg/day, eventually stabilising on 2.5mg twice a week. Even at such low doses it has a strong stimulant effect on me (I think this is unusually sensitive), improvement of mood, concentration and motivation - definitely a "smart drug", if you disregard the adverse effects: it made my anxiety worse and made me somewhat reckless, irritable and overexcitable. Also increased sex drive. Makes caffeine much more fun, more addictive and less anxiety-producing. All in all it was a lot of fun, but not something I'd want to use continually.
I stopped in the end because I got SEVERE headaches from tyramine-containing foods, which I found near impossible to avoid. It's possible these were still being caused by residual effects from the St John's Wort, I guess (I quit that for the same reason), although they seemed to get stronger; in any case the anxiety effects were enough to quit selegiline.
In the three weeks after stopping, I had a severe crash of mood and, well, everything, which sent me running to a doctor, and I'm now on paroxetine, with some improvement but problems with side effects and mood swings.
The tyramine headaches took over 12 weeks to stop after quitting selegiline, and over 20 weeks since quitting SJW. They've now stopped completely. I will never take a MAO inhibitor again.
poster:omegon
thread:264250
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030928/msgs/265101.html