Hi, all.
FYI: You probably know this already, but accidentally clicking a link in a Longecity sidebar and hitting the "Back" button
will completely erase the message you were composing, so word to the wise.
Also, there'll be a
TL;DR at the bottom for all of the impatient or busy, and a form of summation with the
bolding throughout. So it isn't just to be pompous or aggravate people.
*~*~*I last posted about six months ago, but I stopped in today to give a huge
"thank you" to Cephalon for suggesting anyone interested in Craze's nootropic properties
check out Gaspari Detonate. I'm here to tell anyone searching for something to help with focus and/or motivation that this stuff decidedly works, at least for me, at least for now.
Where I left off in November, if I remember correctly, was having experienced the amazing sense of normality and can-do-it-ness for the first time in my life, courtesy of
DS Craze, only to have it only work that one time and never again. I tried experimenting with a number of variables (dose size, dose timing, full and empty stomach, etc.), but
nothing helped. Furthermore, since I'd gone with Craze entirely for its purported nootropic capabilities, rather than to aid my non-existent fitness regime, much of its ingredient panel was useless to me at best: the bloat-inducing creatine, for example. So I gave it to an acquaintance for use in
his fitness regime and moved on.
My next stop was
Focus XT. I was anxious to avoid another tub of wasted money, so I only went with Focus after copious research and hearing marvelous things about it. It seemed to have what I was looking for in its ingredient panel, which stood to reason, since, unlike Craze, it was actually geared towards my intended purpose: clarity and focus. However, it
too proved to be a disappointing case of "Whoo-hoo!" on the first day and "Meh" by the third.
I wasn't sure what to do at that point, but I kept on my quest. Bulk piracetam by itself gave me headaches and depressed me, even with choline, B-12 made me angry, and
brain staples like alpha lipoic acid and acetyl l-carnitine
seemed to have no effect at all.
Then one day -- again, I forget how -- I stumbled across Cephalon's suggestion to try
Gaspari Detonate. So I did.
It's
marketed as a thermogenic, and that's its primary purpose, but it seems to do the focus trick so far. I seem to think more clearly on it, and
I just feel smarter. I started with the recommended one pill a day, then tried two at once yesterday.
The result of two at once was 15 minutes of what may have been euphoria; just this overall sense of having all these great ideas and the confidence to execute them (nothing crazy like conquering the world; simple ideas like writing postcards I'd procrastinated on for ages...while I did my laundry). It was actually during this
slight mania that it occurred to me that I needed to come back in here and add my hopefully helpful two cents. My mental composition of the intended post included words like "garrulous" and "synergistic", but as I moved through my day,
the effect wore off and left me feeling exhausted and staring at my carpet.
Today, I opted to
split the Detonate doses (one at 9, one at noon, each on an empty stomach), and so far, I've had better results. But thirty-odd minutes ago, I may have found the mother lode:
piracetam. (Another huge "thank-you" to Cephalon, because I believe that was his suggestion as well.)
After the bad experience last time, I was hesitant to try it again, but I'm incredibly glad I did. I think I'm currently experiencing on a very low level what
Adderall must feel like: I just feel smarter. It's a small case in point, but I was able to type "Cephalon" without double-checking the spelling or copy-pasting it, and normally, I would have had to do one or both.
So I'm definitely going to keep experimenting with
piracetam as combined with Detonate, and hopefully the effects will only improve.
A few
small, but important caveats:
First, I was
recently prescribed Celexa (citalolam) for anxiety, and I've been taking 10 mg every night for about three weeks now. I hear it takes up to six weeks to build up in the system. I'm honestly less than impressed with the results of Celexa as a standalone treatment, but it's incredibly synergistic (ha; I got to use the word after all!) with focus enhancers like Detonate, as it cuts any resultant anxiety way down from where it might otherwise have been.
Second, Detonate does what it promises, and it does it every well. One of the things it promises is
appetite suppression, and it definitely follows through. So if you're on some kind of bulk, bear that in mind, but no complaints from where I'm sitting.
Lastly, the recommendation is to
take a month-long break from using Detonate
after four weeks of using it consistently. I'm not sure I intend to comply, but thought I'd throw that out there.
A huge post like this feels incredibly narcissistic, and having read several garrulous posts by Adderall users (there goes the other ten-dollar word), I definitely see the similarities between theirs and my own. But thinking of everything I've gone through looking for relief makes me want to do whatever I can to help people still searching for answers.
Thanks for reading, and
thanks again, Cephalon!*~*~*TL;DR -- After trying both Craze and Focus XT,
Gaspari Detonate does everything I'd hoped for in a nootropic: it
consistently provides energy and focus. The downside is that Detonate also ratchets up anxiety, mainly in the sense of wanting to be productive and for things to go right the first time, and being irritated with situations and people that hold you back from glory. Also,
you won't feel like eating; not a deal-breaker for me. My next step is experimenting with
adding piracetam for even better results; a half-hour ago was my first attempt, and
so far, it's been golden.
*~*~*Edit: I should add that
it isn't so much I feel more intelligent as it is that
my brain seems to be working the way it ought to have all along. Or in other words, I finally feel able to access my brain's full capacity, or at least a great deal more of it than before. Time will tell whether this continues, but I feel the stirrings of hope.
Edited by Kolin, 15 May 2013 - 01:14 AM.
