200 replies to this topic

[cat-nips]

Drew, have you tried the other class? Vyvanse, Dex, etc. MPH products have that effect on a lot, suppressing creativity. Guanfacine, the blood pressure med that increases PFC functioning, helps in concentration but its not so helpful with depression or motivation. It may alleviate some anxiety and will help focus if you already know what you’re working on though. It’s very sedating at first but after about 4 days it evens out and starts working to provide calm focus. You have to take it at the same time every day and be consistent to see results in about a week. You’ll get rebound hypertension, anxiety or impulsivity if you stop suddenly or aren’t consistent with dosages initially.

Treatments aren’t perfect and you simply do the best you can. It’s not as bad of as a hand as some have it and there are always advantages to the disadvantages. No point getting so worked up over neurotypicals and etc. Just find something that works for you with the right balance. What works for you will probably change and adjust over time.

Actually had about 3-4 amazing days with 100mg phenylpiracetam and 5mg selegiline. But the phenyl was from an old supply from the last time I quit. Weird because they did nothing for me then but this time around felt very different. Phenyl used to put me to sleep and I think I had adrenal fatigue back then which caused that. Wondering if phenyl is the kind of thing I can safely supplement with everyday if I kept the dosage stable. As long as the motivation boost remains, I don’t need to chase the “stim” effect and can tolerate some minor ups and downs.

Flowery, glad you found the right balance. The times that I’ve found mine, I’ve stayed stayed stable there for some time and have been able to accomplish a lot and even found myself generally happy more times than not. Thanks for your uridine input. I think I’ll try to incorporate it in some fashion to facilitate healing or something along those lines.

Edited by cat-nips, 02 December 2018 - 03:03 AM.

[cat-nips]

ok, pretty much done with the selegiline.  went into possible hypertensive crisis yesterday, after 5mg selegiline and 20mg sublingual noopept.  A migraine, inability to handle any light, sound, noise, splitting headache, nausea at one point.  The funny thing was when I checked my blood pressure, my pulse rate was normal to slightly low, but my blood pressure was 165/106.  Took ashwagandha, magnesium and a beta blocker + thiazide, 2 advils, and went to bed to breathe for the night.  

 

Could have been the noopept or the combo, or something else I ate that had tyramine, but that was definitely not cool.

[CWF1986]

^

 

I'm amazed at the varied responses and interactions people have with MAOi's in particular.  I guess it just goes to show how unique each individual actually is in regard to their neurochemistry.  

[cat-nips]

Agreed. I found selegiline to have some merit as possibly part of a stack, but a small part. At 5mg or 20mg there were some things that I found uncomfortable like the slight disassociation and the decreased need for physical activity. I’m sure that had something to do with aiding with focus but it’s not a good tradeoff for me. Anything that kills desire to exercise is not a good option and I should have seen that red flag. My eyes also got so dry that I stopped wearing contacts and stopped exercising or even attempting or caring enough to want to.

On the flip side, I had major increases in mental work and productivity in learning and some antidepressant effects, which temporarily blinded me to other effects. It wasn’t just a lack of physical stimulation but also blunting of it. I’m sure that as part of a larger stack it would be different. Getting close to hypertensive crisis due to an interaction though, is a bit of a scary deal breaking experience for me. I’m not willing to monitor tyramine content in food as the results just didn’t give me enough to want to do that.

Edited by cat-nips, 03 December 2018 - 12:55 AM.

[cat-nips]

Forgot to add that BP been regular for the prior few days and because pulse rate was normal it didn’t occur to me at first (I wear a fitbit). Early stages, I thought it was a choline deficiency headache of some sort. When Alpha GPC first and then Advil did nothing, I thought to check blood pressure and nearly passed out from the splitting headache and couldn’t handle any light or sound in my periphery and felt some momentary waves of nausea along with the drill going off in my skull. Today I’ve been fairly useless with fatigue.

Hypertensive crisis is fairly rare at smaller dosages but should mention that Pulse/HR is not necessarily an indicator. You need a monitor. A headache should be cause enough to check if you’re on MAOI as buildups can occur over time as well as food and other random supplement interactions. If I didn’t check or have the precautionary BP lowering meds that I keep on hand for emergencies, I feel that could have potentially turned into a fatal situation.

Edited by cat-nips, 03 December 2018 - 01:58 AM.

[MichaelFocus22]

Just to follow Up, Cat- Nips I used to take concerta and it gives me the ability to easily sustain tasks but the inability to be social or consistently dictating vibes and inability to enjoy life, hence it becomes pointless to take it. Then I toke, dexerdrine and it caused me to not eat much or it became significantly harder to eat and it was causing me to have messed up testosterone levels.  Which was strange to say the least and it seems to still affect my socialability.  Right now, I have a stack I'm going to take a again but like I said those are the only two drugs, I've done as of late.  My ADHD is PI and co-morbiditiy with anixety. I used to have vert severe rejection sensitivity dsyphoria but it's gotten better through months of therapy. Overall,  most of my potential has leveled off sense I've been off medication and I'm still forgetful and miss details obviously.  My ADHD appears to be unique, because coffee does nothing except give me horrid anxiety and make me neurotic. I'm still to stack ideas and suggestions, I need all the advantages possible to maximize my glory .

[cat-nips]

What's the stack you're thinking of taking again?   

 

I'm understanding that stims help your focus but worsen depression, anxiety, sociability and everything else.  It's hard to treat both at the same time with pharmaceuticals.  I pretty much found all prescription depression treatments to be useless with stimulants because they either blunt the effect of the stimulant, change your personality, numb your emotions, kill your libido, etc.  I haven't tried them all, but I've tried many and remain skeptical of them in conjunction with stim treatment.  The most useful antiD in my experience was 10mg Prozac, but even at that dosage, it killed libido and worsened ADHD symptoms, while improving sociability and depressive ones.  I know it seems like a constant trade-off, but it's kind of what you have to get used to in regard to ADHD treatment with these stims.  There are many things that work on anxiety/depression, but finding one that works that doesn't effect your ADHD treatment or worsen thinking, can get pretty frustrating.

 

Guanfacine may help with some anxiety and help with concentration, but may give you such bad hypotension that you don't want to do much moving around.  The dosing is finicky to get right at first and you have to stick it through for about a week as the first couple of days you're most likely snoozing.  If it doesn't drop your blood pressure too much then it might be an option with your Concerta.  But that doesn't cover the dysphoria/sociability issues.

 

There are alternative options that you can try with your Concerta that may be more subtly helpful for mood/anxiety.  Things like 5-htp, or Aniracetam even, but I'm not sure how consistent they would be or what the dosing schedule would entail.  While on Dexedrine, and even now, I find Ashwagandha a necessary staple with all stims and even coffee to avoid overstimulation.  That being said, I found success with managing mood/anxiety issues on stims, by dosing Prozac a couple of times a week, lots of HIIT exercise, Magnesium, and that was enough to get me out there to be able to handle things via amounts of manageable exposure.  During one period, I used aniracetam/alpha gpc for a few months with good results.  Off stimulants, the effects were completely different and I definitely take and try a lot of different alternatives treatments now that I'm off standard stimulant treatment.  

 

Because everyone's neurochemistry is so varied, it can be frustrating to go down the path to figure out what works for you and what doesn't.  I hope others with ideas will chime in with things to be used with stim treatment to manage either mood/anxiety side effects or co-morbidities. I also hope that you do research, and maybe post on Longecity to throw a new stack idea out there when you want to try something different with your regimen.  A lot of smart folks on these boards who have gone or are going through similar issues with knowledge and experiences to share that can be helpful in figuring things out sometimes.   

Edited by cat-nips, 03 December 2018 - 07:05 PM.

[floweryriddle]

ok, pretty much done with the selegiline. went into possible hypertensive crisis yesterday, after 5mg selegiline and 20mg sublingual noopept. A migraine, inability to handle any light, sound, noise, splitting headache, nausea at one point. The funny thing was when I checked my blood pressure, my pulse rate was normal to slightly low, but my blood pressure was 165/106. Took ashwagandha, magnesium and a beta blocker + thiazide, 2 advils, and went to bed to breathe for the night.

Could have been the noopept or the combo, or something else I ate that had tyramine, but that was definitely not cool.

Ouch, that doesn’t sound nice at all. Sorry to hear that!

From my experience with Concerta, the bigger the stimulation (or the higher dopamine I guess) themore I am retreating in my head. It’s kind of like a curve and finding your right dosage is important.
Without any, it’s not goodf.18mg is better. 27mg is perfect in that I don’t feel any different, but can just do more things. 36mg is already getting a little high (now with selegiline).
Sometimes when I know that the day is going to be mentally exhausting and I know I won’t have that many people interactions, I take 27mg then 2h later 18mg. Splitting it off is pretty nice because it’s not too much at the same time. That then usually turns me into a task master. I usually don’t get distracted a bit and just marathon through whatever I want to do, but I am pretty much in my head.

Anyway why I bring this up is because you mentioned it increased your mental energy, but killed drive to exercise. Maybe it could be similar?

Also again keep in mind that Selegiline at 5mg/10mg and Selegiline at 20mg are basically 2 different medications. One is a selective MAO-B inhibitor, one is a non-selective MAO inhibitor.

My personal thoughts: even without Concerta or the rest of my stack, Selegiline is still bettering things. There seems to be more drive to do things vs just sitting around and wasting time. It won’t raise dopamine levels like Methylphenidate or Amphetamines do, but compared to baseline it should still better things (and I don’t mean the initial rush from L-methylamphetamine metabolization)

[mono]

What first comes to mind for me would be phenylpiracetam, fasoracetam and uridine. But I see these have already been mentioned in the thread.

 

What I am looking at trying personally next would be 9-ME-BC and BPC-157, both work on dopamine and may be worth looking into.

 

The last thing I might mention would be bromantane, I have tried this myself and had a great few days on it, but a tolerance developed. I have heard of others having great results with it.

[CWF1986]

Those two are quite a bit more experimental than I'm willing to try, but that's not at all to say I won't look at the results you have from it with keen interest   

 

Those weren't even on my radar before, but now I know to keep an eye on them through the upcoming months to years.  

[cat-nips]

What first comes to mind for me would be phenylpiracetam, fasoracetam and uridine. But I see these have already been mentioned in the thread.

What I am looking at trying personally next would be 9-ME-BC and BPC-157, both work on dopamine and may be worth looking into.

The last thing I might mention would be bromantane, I have tried this myself and had a great few days on it, but a tolerance developed. I have heard of others having great results with it.

Bromantane didn’t do much for me in any instance or any duration, but I tried it right after cutting off amps so effects may have been a little skewed from acute withdrawal.

Selegiline has a bit of a discontinuation effect for a few days resulting in some rebound depression, cognitive fog, and fatigue, but it’s clearing after about a week.

Will report back on Racetams trials once I start them, Phenyl, Pramiracetam, Oxiracetam as well as seeing if Lions Mane daily makes a difference. I passed on Faso for the time being. Have you tried Faso and what are your thoughts on it?

Does anyone know if those Racetams are ok for daily use or if there are any negative effects or disadvantages from daily dosing?

Let us know how the 9-ME and BPC work out for you.

Edited by cat-nips, 06 December 2018 - 01:55 PM.

[mono]

I took fasoracetam for three weeks without any effects.

I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was younger, but as I grew older psychosis developed and my main treatment and diagnosis has been for schizoaffective disorder.

Right now I am about to try uridine, I will look into trying 9-ME/BPC at a later date.

I can let you know how the uridine goes as I suffer from a lot of the symptoms mentioned in the thread. I am however on a different spectrum so YMMV. 

[cat-nips]

I took fasoracetam for three weeks without any effects.

I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was younger, but as I grew older psychosis developed and my main treatment and diagnosis has been for schizoaffective disorder.

Right now I am about to try uridine, I will look into trying 9-ME/BPC at a later date.

I can let you know how the uridine goes as I suffer from a lot of the symptoms mentioned in the thread. I am however on a different spectrum so YMMV. 

 

Thanks for the experience.  I have yet to actually come across someone (other than product reviews) that claim faso works for them and therefore remain undecided. 

 

Please share your uridine experience when you can.   It's currently still in maybe status.

[cat-nips]

Flowery, thanks for the sympathy.  It wasn't a good experience, but probably my own stupid fault for changing dosages too fast or eating too much food with tyramine or something.  It's pretty much over now and my contact lens use has come back and I'm realizing the disassociation I felt was indeed attributed to the Selegiline.  Sometimes the fog felt slightly serotonergic.  Hard to explain.  

 

My psych trialed me on Concerta once and I didn't respond positively, so went back to Dexedrine.  Even tried Concerta plus an afternoon IR booster of either Ritalin or Adderall.  If Concerta was my only option, I'd probably need something else to negate the negative effects. I think I used Prozac at the time which kinda sucked as well.  Those are options that I will consider once I finish going through my "unmedicated" phase, and taking what I can from it. For a few months longer, I remain committed to the (mostly) non-pharma path and exploring options therein.   

 

And that slight rush is the best part, lol.  The rest of it was fog for me.  Powered through so much mental work, but I don't remember doing it.  Glad it's still working for you and it's probably a good thing that it improved things while allowing you to reduce your Concerta dosage.

 

 

Ouch, that doesn’t sound nice at all. Sorry to hear that!

From my experience with Concerta, the bigger the stimulation (or the higher dopamine I guess) themore I am retreating in my head. It’s kind of like a curve and finding your right dosage is important.
Without any, it’s not goodf.18mg is better. 27mg is perfect in that I don’t feel any different, but can just do more things. 36mg is already getting a little high (now with selegiline).
Sometimes when I know that the day is going to be mentally exhausting and I know I won’t have that many people interactions, I take 27mg then 2h later 18mg. Splitting it off is pretty nice because it’s not too much at the same time. That then usually turns me into a task master. I usually don’t get distracted a bit and just marathon through whatever I want to do, but I am pretty much in my head.

Anyway why I bring this up is because you mentioned it increased your mental energy, but killed drive to exercise. Maybe it could be similar?

Also again keep in mind that Selegiline at 5mg/10mg and Selegiline at 20mg are basically 2 different medications. One is a selective MAO-B inhibitor, one is a non-selective MAO inhibitor.

My personal thoughts: even without Concerta or the rest of my stack, Selegiline is still bettering things. There seems to be more drive to do things vs just sitting around and wasting time. It won’t raise dopamine levels like Methylphenidate or Amphetamines do, but compared to baseline it should still better things (and I don’t mean the initial rush from L-methylamphetamine metabolization)

 

[mono]

I have been taking uridine for the past two days. I am taking 250mg sublingually morning and evening for a total of 500mg/day. I have noticed today, the second day on uridine, the effects are just slightly stronger than yesterday, suggesting taking uridine each day may result in a cumulative benefit.

 

What I have noticed so far is that it gives me a very nice improvement in my mood. Not euphoric, but a decent boost that has a dopaminergic feel to it. It also has what feels like, as opposed to dopamine, a more antidepressant kind of effect, my mood was just generally better throughout the day and I got more things done than usual. So it felt to me there was on the one hand a mood boost due to increased dopamine, but on the other hand a more subtle serotonergic ssri type feel to the mood enhancement where I was just generally more happy. It has been nice, though I would say only gave a 50% improvement to my depressive symptoms, which is still quite a significant gain.

 

It did help with my motivation, but again it a subtle way. I didn't feel like I was immediately ready to take on a whole lists of tasks, but the things I did choose to do were significantly easier and I enjoyed them more than usual.

 

The other thing I noticed was what felt like an improvement in my emotions, which obviously comes with an improvement in mood. But what I noticed was that instead of feeling caught and weighed down by negative emotions, I had the ability to be aware of them and choose how to express them and then move on. It was an interesting feeling, and I felt more like a more normal, intelligent human being where I could express or let go of things that normally I would get caught up over.

 

Lastly I even felt a minor reduction in my pain/fatigue symptoms, which was great, but only minor. It had the feeling of making my body a little stronger and my muscles functioning a little better. 

 

On a scale of 1-10 I give it a 7 out of 10, it is still a very subtle feeling and I would like it to be stronger to be honest but for what it is worth it is one of the best nootropics that has worked on me so far. What I am interested in seeing is if the effects continue to build and get stronger over time, or if a tolerance develops quickly, or even if it stays the same. If it continues to work for me over the next few weeks I will probably stock up on uridine so I have a few months worth.

I'll let you know how I am going in a few weeks time.

[mono]

P.S. I forgot to mention it has also improved my ability to focus and concentrate on tasks. It is like a very calm and relaxing kind of focus, just enough to make a difference and makes me feel really chill.

 

I can see how this would be useful to people wanting to reduce or come off their stimulant medication, I'm sure it would make a difference considering the way it is effecting me right now. I have heard of people using the uridine stack for up to a year+, so hopefully tolerance is not an issue.

Edited by mono, 08 December 2018 - 01:47 PM.

[cat-nips]

Thank you!  That's a great experience.  Oh and you mentioned dosage, but was it Uridine Monophosphate or TAU.  And did you dose sublingually or capsulized.  Vendor/brand?  Please let us know if it continues to provide additive positive or negative effects during the upcoming weeks.  

[mono]

Sure I'll see how it goes in the upcoming weeks and let you know. Yes it is turning out to be a really nice experience.

 

I am using uridine monophosphate and I am dosing sublingually. I am using Jarrow Formulas from iHerb.

 

Edited by mono, 08 December 2018 - 02:03 PM.

[cat-nips]

Powder, under the tongue?  Does it taste gross?  Lol.

[cat-nips]

Concerta didn't kill drive to exercise at all, or effect the workout negatively.  And physicality wasn't an issue either.  It just made my mood and creativity kind of negative, and perhaps something akin to that wall you first described in the initial post.  But there was no fog on Concerta and things got done and dealt with, just not as imaginatively, patiently and creatively as I would have wanted.  "Taskmaster" is pretty accurate, just tack bitchy to that on my end.  Thus far, the only thing that has negatively impacted exercise in my experience is Guanfacine, Propanalol, Clonidine, pretty much every SSRI I've tried, and now Selegiline, which I'm assuming was due to some hypotensive effect and/or serotonergic ones.  

Edited by cat-nips, 08 December 2018 - 03:20 PM.

[mono]

Powder, under the tongue?  Does it taste gross?  Lol.

 

Haha, it's honestly not so bad. If I keep it under my tongue properly, I don't taste a thing.

If I do happen to get some on my tongue, it reminds me of a milder version of the taste of baking soda.

[cat-nips]

Oh ok as long as it’s milder than baking soda as I think sublingual bicarbonate would induce some serious gagging.

Edited by cat-nips, 08 December 2018 - 09:12 PM.

[cat-nips]

Sublingual administration of UMP seems to be the most effective according to user reports. I guess that would be the way to go if trying Uridine.

[mono]

Yes I find that the sublingual method of administration is a bit stronger than the oral one, even though I am emptying the capsules out under my tongue.

 

I have increased my dose to 500mg sublingual once in the morning and am still finding positive effects, but at this higher dose now.

What is most remarkable to me is the reduction in fatigue, which I have tried so many other things in order to get some relief. I suffer from both fatigue and pain symptoms and I've tried quite a few things but so far uridine is the only thing that has worked in that area of my symptoms. It also increases my mood and motivation, two other areas I also struggle with. I am finding some benefit to my cognition also, such as verbal fluency and memory etc. just noticing things working easier.

 

So I am glad to say that uridine is still working, although I have had to increase my dosage in order to find a sweet spot. I must need a little bit more than most people, unless I am developing a tolerance, then I will know it after a few more weeks. 

 

[cat-nips]

Pretty interesting. Do you use a choline source and fish oil and B vitamins? They’re supposed to synergise but I think choline is something to work up to because it can cause negative reactions in the beginning. 500mg seems to still be within range despite being higher.

I took 250 this am with 37.5 Armodafinil and so far so good. No negative reactions. I’ll work up to the under the tongue thing cause I’m still chicken.

[cat-nips]

Flowery, didn't mean to hijack your thread with Uridine discussions.  Although it does fall under general range of 'ADHD induced motivation' issues, it's not quite the stack you first mentioned.  If it bothers you, I can start reporting in another thread.  Hope it's still going well . 

Edited by cat-nips, 12 December 2018 - 04:08 PM.

[mono]

Yeah I take all the fish oil, b vitamins, choline, vitamin e etc.

[mono]

I actually was already taking choline and most other things before I started on uridine, the only things I had to change was from fish oil to max dha and add in a vitamin e supplement, everything else I was already taking. So I feel I should just continue taking the cdp choline as I have been for a month or two already, as long as I don't notice any adverse effects, rather than taking a two week break from cdp.

 

Yes didn't mean to derail your thread either flowery, just figured it would be a good place to share considering it is actually helping my motivation. I can always move to another thread too if necessary.

 

Interestingly enough I feel the increase in motivation from uridine is just slightly more pronounced than what I get from stimulants such as methylphenidate or amphetamine, not sure exactly why that is but something different is going on in the way it effects me. It feels more like the way a race tam would increase motivation so perhaps it has some glutamatergic effect but obviously I do not know. I didn't really get a decent boost in motivation from stims, just a heady sort of mood high more so in the higher dosages. I feel the increase in my mood also has some sort of different antidepressant effect as compared to stimulants, perhaps it also effects serotonin in this way, I am not sure to be honest, I am just trying to explain how uridine feels and how it feels in comparison to stimulants.

 

Even with these positive effects I have written about, I have to mention that uridine still has a very subtle sort of effect. It's not like some sort of hardcore drug (of course), but I would even say racetams are stronger in their effect, just for comparison. I think it is much more similar to a caffeine buzz in its subtlety, but probably more noticeable and more enjoyable than caffeine itself.

Edited by mono, 13 December 2018 - 12:29 AM.

[CWF1986]

^

 

There's several different dopamine pathways that each do different things.  

[cat-nips]

^ 5 + possibly 2? Such a tangled neuronal web to understand.