Posted by sanjonlight on August 7, 2007, at 11:20:47
In reply to New here - experiences: Piracetam, SJW, Seleginine, posted by omegon on July 27, 2003, at 7:45:31
hello,
not sure you will get this post as much time has passed since your last post. would be nice to hear an update and what the doc had to say. i concur that a racetam doesnt go well with deprinyl(liquid form-selepryl). also, smoked marijuana while using selepryl (3mg-5hours earlier) and mari high seemed to lack the normal pleasure i get from it. so going to continue with the selepryl at 1mg/day w/out mari or racetam to see about results.
> Hi everyone, I'm new here...
>
> Apologies for the long post, but I wanted to share my experiences so far in the hope it may help other people trying these medications (5-HTP, DLPA, Piracetam, St John's Wort, Seleginine). Writing this also helps me look at my behaviour from a distance!
>
> I've been experimenting with various mood lifters over the last couple of years, without involvement of a doctor, in what appears to have been an extremely unwise attempt to self-medicate (what I think is) anxiety and depression. Despite having done this over such a long period, somehow I'm only now able to admit there might be something wrong.
>
> 5-HTP - for a few days it works, with a lift in mood and self-esteem, but there seems to be a tolerance effect for me after a while. I've used 50mg - 150mg / day, increasing over about three months. There was a slight increase in anxiety, and a tingling sensation in facial muscles (centred on temples); this was enough to make me stop as the effects grew less. I didn't notice any withdrawal symptoms.
>
> DL-phenylalanine - mood lifter, stimulant (mostly physical) and mild general feel-good effects, but it also made me anxious and jittery when with other people.
>
> Caffeine: obviously doesn't go well with anxiety, but unfortunately I am a regular coffee drinker (too much) having repeatedly failed to quit for more than a few weeks.
>
> Piracetam (Nootropil) - quite effective, so I'll give some detail. I have used it for many short periods over the last 8 months. For about a week (taken without any other medication) a fairly low dose (2 or 3x 800mg doses / day) it works well for me as a mood lifter, concentration enhancer and anxiety reducer. My thinking is clearer, speech more fluent, motivation, confidence and energy higher. Perceptions are brighter and clearer, thinking deeper and more subtle, and the world just seems more interesting. It's not really stimulating - you just feel calm and competent. I would say that the "cognitive enhancement" effects are due mainly to the improved mood, yet oddly I often feel a reluctance to take it - the clarity of thought is almost too much.
>
> However, after a week or so of regular use, it starts to make me quite irritable. My concentration is still improved, but the mood effects become unpleasant and it causes a slight headache and "slowed" thinking, like I'm a step behind the world (difficult to describe). There's a mild depressive effect after each dose wears off (about 3-4 hours after taking it). It also makes me much more sensitive to changes in blood sugar - if I am sufficiently late eating that I actually feel hungry, my mood plummets, I get a bad headache, my mind "tightens up" and I can't think clearly. This is more pronounced than the usual effects of hunger, but is relieved soon after eating! It feels like my brain is using up the energy from each meal quicker - I need to eat more carbohydrates, more often. This can result in a sugar craving.
>
> The irritability is relieved substantially by taking an occasional dose of choline (I used bitartrate, 650mg every few days was enough - see below), but not completely, so unfortunately I can't rely on piracetam as a daily mood lifter - I can only use it a couple of weeks before needing a couple of weeks' break, after which the effects are back to "normal". Also the choline itself makes me markedly depressed if I take it daily - be careful with this.
>
> Piracetam works fairly well with caffeine, but with large doses of caffeine it can cause a migraine. (I had this happen twice - I only get migranes rarely (the whole aura thing with visual black holes and temporary loss of speech - scary), about once a year, so I'm sure this was the cause.
>
> St John's Wort - this had a useful antidepressant effect for me, giving a welcome layer of what I can only describe as "emotional insulation", but it was somewhat sedating, sometimes made me more anxious, and eventually caused severe headaches with confused vision and altered thinking - MAOI tyramine effect, predictably induced by certain foods. This last forced me to give up on it as the diet restrictions were unworkable. This caused a couple of weeks' unexpected withdrawal symptoms - anxiety, very low mood, muscle twitches, poor concentration, no coping resources, etc. This was probably the worst period I've been through (save this week), compounded by stress at work, and SJW is (for me) definitely not as "harmless" as widely stated!
>
> I've used Piracetam concurrently with St John's Wort with no noticeable difference in effects of either.
>
> Seleginine (Deprenyl / Jumex) - a strong, sustainable mood lifter with a feel-good dopamine effect, but again it makes me more anxious. It has a strong mental stimulant effect and very noticeable "cognitive enhancement". However it also had some weird effects on my thinking - I felt somewhat out-of-control. This was on only very low dosages, ranging from 2.5 mg/day to 2.5 mg once a week. Also taking Piracetam at the same time doesn't work well - increases irritability and spoils the Piracetam cognitive effects. It works OK once the immediate effects of the seleginine have worn off, though (the next day).
>
> Tyramine effect: I started seleginine about 5 weeks after stopping St John's Wort, so it's possible there was still some residual effect from that from which my MAO activity never had a chance to recover, but I was still getting apparent tyramine-induced severe headaches weeks later, so either I'm unusually sensitive to MAOIs or tyramine (never had these food-induced headaches before) or selegenine _does_ have a substantial MAO-A inhibitory effect even at very low dosages (maybe only following on from another MAOI). Anyway, I couldn't seem to avoid foods that triggered the headaches (try buying a sandwich at work which doesn't contain badly-stored cold meat or fish, which very often seems to cause a headache), so I quit that as well, precipitating a crash in mood over the last three weeks sufficient to finally send me running to a doctor. I would have tapered it but was on a minimal dose anyway and couldn't stand the headaches and their two-day after effects, which are probably quite dangerous.
>
> The last week has been really lousy though, partly because I've now finally admitted to myself that I need to get some professional help with this - I'm giving up on my ill-advised, dangerous, abortive attempts to self-medicate and going to see a doctor this week. For some reason this seems to have made me feel worse =)
>
> omegon
poster:sanjonlight
thread:245781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070730/msgs/774557.html