I am not sure about your problem with gaba, however, raising serotonin might be an idea to lower dopamine levels. Through an ssri or 5-htp.
Alas I already tried that with Moclobemide, a reversible MAO-A inhibitor. Results were initially highly positive, but I eventually realised it was probably prolonging the condition overall by partial dopamine increases and I was having more GABA-ergics to compensate, so I tried to reduce it and quit, and being out of my mind in withdrawal supplemented with too much tryptophan. This led to two lucky escapes from serotonin syndrome. Since then I've had a kind of cyclothymia, which has gotten less pronounced and more mixed over the last 6 months. Now I have stimulated highs (sometimes with agitation/dysphoria developing), good days, occasional normal days and some depressive days but it seems to be normalising. I'm hesitant to try anything else serotonergic as its already been messed with but I'm open to suggestions. I suspect the antagonist actions of seroquel were instrumental in stabilising my mood, but it could just be the antihistamine action. If only I had tried Tianeptine an SSRE instead of an MAOI.
Did you consider acetylcholine to be a problem, too? Antihistamines can inhibit it, and maybe that is part of your problem.
I used to take DMAE for energy and memory but after a few months it ended up just making me really anxious and nervous so I had to stop it. I see your point, but I don't want to lose much cognitive ability. What would you suggest in relation to this?
Do you have any idea what the actual problem is? What kind of injury is it exactly? I am curious.
Well, I only know what happened, everything else is my theory and I'm hardly educated in this field. No professional I've talked to so far understands what I'm on about, but I expect people here will have more insight. I suspect this was the beginning of my dopamine related troubles: 7 years ago I was smoking too much weed, after a few years I very gradually developed intolerance (reverse tolerance). Clearly my body had enough. I had to quit altogether when I started getting panic attacks from the tiniest amounts. Then the same thing happened with dextro-amphetamine for my ADD - I got a reverse tolerance until eventually I had to stop altogether. Fast forward to 2 years ago, and I had found Methoxetamine (MXE) which is a dissociative similar to ketamine but with much stronger Dopamine reuptake inhibitor activity, as well as NMDA antagonist. As I was using it for as an anti-depressant and for ADD, I was having very small amounts daily with weekly breaks. I noticed after some months that I was developing an intolerance to this also, the nice dissociative, antidepressive and anxiolytic effects were diminishing, and the speedyness/potential anxiety was increasing way beyond how it was when I started. I also began doing escapist sessions with a friend every week or two, a large component of that was my worsening depression due to lack of progress in life. I was beginning to have a rollercoaster of mood swings that echoed bipolar and became worrying.
One day I foolishly let my friend give me too much and I OD'd, after I'd been so careful up to that point. At some point I crossed a threshold, a very distinctive barrier (from the over-flooding of dopamine I presume) when I suddenly realised something had gone horribly wrong. I had the worst anxiety and frightening perspective hallucinations, I was afraid I was going crazy (things were giant then tiny, then tall and squashed vertically, then fat and squashed horizontally etc). After it, I had this severe mental pain/agitation/anxiety recurring very frequently and very gradually reducing over the next 6 months, during which I found occasional GABA agonists like baclofen, phenibut, and gabapentin worked at the worst times. The feeling itself felt like a black hole in my stomach. I still get that a little to this day, both with too much dopamine/sugar in mornings or sometimes at night when I lie down. I had to cut out caffeine as that was the worst trigger. After 6 months of that, I tried the Moclobemide with amazing results initially.
It is already in trials for newborn epilepsy. Here its temporarily switches the brain into "adult mode" (hyperpolarization by GABA), and I assume that it could also help adult people with paradox reaction to gabaergic drugs.
From what I read about it, it allows chloride ions to leave cells more easily, and reducing the chloride inside brain cells may help GABA neurons’ inhibitory functions work better. In theory, this may well be effective for me.
Its strange, I didn't see this intolerance coming. It happened exactly at the same time of my first partial serotonin syndrome. I wondered whether they were somehow memory-linked events. I had anxiety one day and as soon as I popped an etizolam (which I later found out has additional SNRI activity), my energy drained and I became weak so fast I panicked hard, vision converged and lost consciousness in front of a friend for 4 mins, after which my heart raced at 90-120 bpm for 24h. Since then my GABA has been messed up. I first noticed when I tried alcohol, it was a real weird feeling, especially red wine which contains GHB. It was worsened extremely by Seroquel, just 2 light beers threw me into the worst nightmare of anxiety and depression for days.
2-3 years ago I was also using GHB almost nightly (1.5-2g) to combat my chronic insomnia. I didn't realise it could lead to problems down the line, I just thought as long as a tolerance doesn't develop I'll be fine. Boy was I wrong. In retrospect, its possible that I developed a reverse tolerance to this as well, as I noted I wasn't having to take 3g for maximal effects. I remember when I was first introduced to it 3.5g was my sweet spot for occasional social use, 4g was just unpleasant. But when I started using it for insomnia 1 or 2 years later (perhaps the fact I made it myself with perfect pH) 2.5g got me maximal effects, so mostly used 1.5-2g. I ran out of it 2 years ago thankfully.
Edited by BioInfinite, 22 April 2013 - 05:00 PM.
