Kudus to yadayada and Q-did-it! for putting this buy together. From the looks of things, it must have been quite a task. So thanks for the time and focus it took to make this happen.
My next comments have no bearing on the people involved, so please don't anyone take this personally. My observations are mostly about the drug and the nature of group buys. Yes, it does get funnier...
Mine came around Christmas. It was frozen and the rubber dropper cap was swollen and leaking, valiantly wrapped with a deflated white party balloon to keep it from leaking more. The bottle had 27 ml when it arrived.
It wasn't clear to me at first that it should be refrigerated, but I didn't know it would freeze again when I did. So the dropper cap again expanded with some leaking even though it was upright. I also didn't know about keeping out of the light. So it spent about 2 days incorrectly stored before I fixed that.
I initially took 6 drops with some result. After measuring the drops, there was clearly a lot of variability in the size of the drops so I used the dropper (marked) to measure .5 ml. This was only a little more than 6 drops. By the third day, I switched to 1 ml. This is the dose I stayed with. My research sample may have degraded due to probably several freeze/thaw cycles as well as the light exposure, so my dose may have needed to be higher. At this dosage, if I hadn't lost some due to transferring to smaller containers, I would have had 27 doses at 1 ml.
Sublinguial I tried only once. Though very effective, the taste and odor lingered so persistently in my mouth that I spent the entire New Year's Eve holiday trying to purge the taste and smell. The effect is interesting, once you calm down from the feeling that you may have just consumed antifreeze.
Next, I figured that since DMSO is usually used as a topical carrier for drugs it should work pretty well that way and applied to my ankles, figuring that was far enough away from my nose and everyone else's that I should be socially acceptable. Not the case, the odor seemed to spread even more, permeating the atmophere around me. The effect was still evident, though arriving more slowly and quietly.
The effects for me were:
"warm fuzzy" as someone else mentioned. Just don't be expecting to share those "warm fuzzy" feelings with anyone else, unless they like the scent of dragon breath.
some increase in mental clarity and focus, though I definitely focused on the wrong things
a small increase in cravings and impulses
a big increase in laziness and procrastination, possibly partly due to the holidays
alcohol had zero effect on me. 4 drinks over 3 hours (a lot for me) on New Year's had no effect whatsoever, none. No hangover the following day either.
noticeable body effect, but hard to describe
Half-life seems to be 3-4 hours, there are still some effects 6-8 hours later, though mild.
I fell asleep this morning after taking 1 ml. I rarely, if ever, fall asleep after I wake up. So it's doing something...
It seemed to increase anxiety on one of the first doses. Taking rhodiola and then exercising helped tremendously.
I had a prolonged and severe spell of coughing after swallowing it for the first time. It causes a very unpleasant hot sensation.
I really don't know whether or not my sample degraded due to temperature changes and light exposure. A 1 ml dose is probably a bit high even if my sample had been kept stable. So maybe (-)-BPAP has potential if used correctly. As always with the stronger nootropics, what correct usage is for each person may differ considerably, and figuring out how to make the best nootropic use of it always seems to take me a long time.
DMSO as a solvent for research chemicals in group buys is a great vehicle for scams, as the buyer can't determine the true physical characteristics of the drug, (flavor, consistency, color, etc) along with all the other difficulties that DMSO presents: taste, odor, and stability. This group buy was all above board, the drug is clearly present and probably in correct proportion to the solvent. But there is probably a better way. I personally have my doubts about the safety of ingesting DMSO.
Oh, and the irony. I transferred my sample into 1.5 ml bottles intended for perfume samples. Just dab a bit of that behind your ears!
Edited by MizTen, 02 January 2014 - 10:54 PM.