I suffered an ischemic stroke in my left hemisphere march 31, 2006. It caused long term damage to my communication skills; reading, speech, finding and saying the right word, verbal comprehension (my ability to understand speech), and even my ability to 'hear' a song in my head were all scrambled. It took me 3 says in the ICU and 5 days in a hospital bed before I was able to write my own name, and then I was allowed to be discharged under supervision. However, it was months before I was well enough to try communicating with anyone outside my immediate family. It was a full-blown cerebrovascular accident, and I was 32 years old.
As the years followed, I got 'better' and continued to work on my stroke-recovery on my own, because I had no insurance. However, 4 years after the incident I was still acutely aware of how screwed up I was (am) and how far away I was (am) from being normal again. So, I began researching possible treatments for the chief symptoms that continued to trouble me, alexia and aphasia, and this in turn lead me to piracetam. Around the same time I read about adderall.
It was actually easier for me to try Adderall first because there were so many friends who had prescriptions for it, while Piracetam eluded me because I wasn't sure it was legal or available in the US. So, I tried a low dose (10mg a day) of Adderall IR for a week and the results were amazing. It worked so well that for the first time in 4 years I was quick enough to take part in a social conversation! Previously, I'd become a hermit because never understanding speech quickly enough or getting the right words out in time was frustrating to the point of tears. Trying to understand speech in a noisy environment actually made my head spin and hurt. On Adderall i didn't matter if I was in a restaurant with music playing and a hundred people talking in the background, because I could tune into one voice and latch onto it, as long as I wanted to. There were a few problems with adderall, I soon discovered: 1.) I was intense on adderall. I was more like an interrogator once I joined in because I was so focused, and only onto one person at a time. It was like a mental spot-beam, and I often didn't even hear other people talking to me, just the one I'd 'tuned in to'. 2.) Its efficacy faded after a short time, and then seemed to stop working at all if I ate anything 3.) doing extreme physical exercises shortly after taking it made me worry that my heart would be damaged. I only had a week's supply, so I immediately began contacting doctors to see if they would help me get on Adderall, but no one wanted to touch me with a 10-foot pole because I'd suffered a stroke.
Then a family member discovered Piracetam at a local nutrition store and bought me a 240-count / 800mg bottle of CTD-brand Piracetam. The first day I took (3) doses of (3) 800mg pills , each dose with 2 heaping tablespoons of soy lecithin, and I felt no change. The second day at the same regimen, I began suffering headaches that started in my temples, then spread to behind my eyes, then all the way back to the back of my neck, but I did begin to feel quite mentally... off. The third day I took the same regimen and I the headaches were so all-encompassing that I was bed-ridden with fevered dreams, and I would wake up in a cold sweat. I tried this for one more day at the same doses because I wanted very badly for it to work, but I was so out of it with the pain that I thought I may be in trouble. So I stopped, and after another day of bed res and a lot of food and water, I got back to normal. When I was able to, I researched and discovered that I should have been taking a LOT more choline and that my body was not getting the choline out of the lecithin and into my brain fast enough, thus the headaches. My family member, who was on adderall (I was NOT on adderall at all) and was also trying Piracetam at the same time, suffered no headaches at all but also felt no effects.
My next time around, I took the same 3 daily 3 pills of 800mg Piracetam but this time with 2 pills of 300mg choline bitartrate per each pill of Piracetam, meaning each dose I took 2400mg Piracetam and 1800mg choline bitartrate, and viola: no more headaches at all. Prior to that, I'd tried getting my choline source by eating tons of hard boiled eggs and massive amounts of lecithin, and it never got enough choline into me to prevent the Piracetam headaches. After 3 days at that dosage I reduced my intake to 2 Piracetam + 4 choline bitartrate (3) times per day, and the results were good. My speech and verbal comprehension were at least as good as I did on the Adderall, plus I felt more creative and had better workouts than I did prior. There were a few unexpected, angry outbursts that concerned me because there was no warning that I would do something impulsive, and also my reflexes were greatly improved and also very impulsive (diving to catch falling objects unexpectedly, that sort of thing). So when I finally had a doctor willing to give me adderall and put my on XR at a higher dosage, I stopped taking the Piracetam because a.) they seemed to cancel each other out when I tried taking both together, and b.) the FDA pulled all piracetam off the shelves at all of the store that carried it. Then I started suffering the same problem everyone else who ever takes adderall regularly: tolerance.
I need to sew this rambling message up here... I decided to get off the Adderall again because the increasing doses of adderall (20mg/daily now) started to make me nervous, and eating at all on it makes me suffer a terrible narcoleptic effect. So now I am back on Piracetam, on day 4 now, and discovered that choline citrate gave me headaches and once again, bitartrate does not. So for me at least, choline bitartrate seems to be more effective with Piracetam. Adderall seems to make me "feel" smarter and it definitely gives my give me energy and I feel motivated, but when it comes right down to it cognitively, Piracetam beats it hands-down. Thanks.
Edited by keintabak, 19 August 2011 - 06:10 AM.
