Posted by undopaminergic on May 9, 2008, at 16:50:41
In reply to Re: SLS - Scott, question for you..., posted by michael on May 8, 2008, at 17:17:11
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> Now I'm back to wellbutrin, which seems to be the best base med for me (parnate was also helpful) and it also keeps me from smoking. It helps with the feeling ill. The dexedrine helps w/energy, motivation, ambition, thinking, and amount of sleep - though I can still easily take a nap, even just after taking it. The sulpiride is subtle, but seems to help lift my mood a touch - it makes the whole thing a little bit lighter, or brighter - if that makes any sense.
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> I may experiment a bit with abilify again, down the road a bit. If I could substitute that for the dexedrine, that might be an appealing mix - particularly since the dexedrine has such a short, fixed window during which it works. It'd be nice if abilify could give me enough stimulation around the clock, without giving me too much stimulation & messing with my sleep... Ironically, I found abilify to be much more stimulating than dexedrine - until it flipped and knocked me out.
>I have largely the same symptoms as you (I consider it chronic anergic-apathetic depression/dysthymia and ADD).
I found sulpiride (at low doses) to be more stimulating than methylphenidate (=MPH; at high doses), especially with regard to motivation. However, in the long run, MPH has been more useful because tolerance to it can be addressed with dose escalation so that limited efficacy is maintained up to two months or more.
Several people have found memantine to be effective against stimulant tolerance, and also to have antidepressant and stimulant effects of its own. I'm currently experimenting with it, and it looks promising. I had temporary excellent results with amantantadine (memantine without the two methyl-groups) also.
You may also wish to experiment with smart drugs/nootropics, although I personally haven't had much luck with them so far. Galanthamine, an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor with nicotinic agonist properties, may be particularly interesting from the point of view of smoking reduction/cessation.
Selegiline and rasagiline have some potential as mood brigtheners on their own and to augment stimulants. Their combination with phenylalanine or phenylethylamine (PEA), however, is particularly powerful. On the other hand, long-term use of high doses of PEA or amphetamine (AMPH) can produce long-lasting tolerance - or a withdrawal syndrome upon cessation; in the the case of AMPH, there is furthermore strong evidence of deleterious neuroadaptive or neurotoxic changes affecting the dopaminergic system in particular. For those reasons and others, I've personally abandoned amphetamine-type stimulants in favour of other solutions.
poster:undopaminergic
thread:827957
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080430/msgs/828220.html