Posted 05 August 2010 - 01:10 AM
20 year old, 160lb, male. Physically and mentally above average (physically fit from non-stop involvement in sports since age 7, 36 ACT, National Merit Scholar, etc..)
I started out with:
Piracetam 1.5g twice a day
Vitamin B5 250mg once a day (was taking before and noticed nice improvement in energy, but 500mg doses didn't let me sleep)
The first dose was like a good dose of ritalin (seems to happen to most people). I took the doses 5 hours apart. Subsequent doses made me really sleepy, so I cut it down to:
Piracetam 800mg twice a day
B5 250mg once a day
After a couple days I started getting headaches and became tired again, so I threw in DMAE which helped the tiredness and headaches. I started taking 200mg with each dose (400mg per day), but this gave me a bit of insomnia too, so I cut it down to 100mg with each dose:
Piracetam 800mg twice a day
DMAE 100mg twice a day
B5 250mg once a day
I wanted to continue being a bit sharper later into the evening, so I added a third dose of piracetam another 5 hours after the second (no DMAE with this one for fear of insomnia). I also recently started taking 1g of ALCAR twice daily, in the same pattern as the DMAE for the same reason.
Final stack:
Piracetam 800mg thrice a day
DMAE 100mg twice a day
ALCAR 1g twice a day
B5 250mg once a day
(multivitamin and omega 3 as well; don't count those)
I feel like piracetam has improved my sensory ability a bit (slightly sharper images, more vivid smells), though it has had some funny effects too, like increased sensitivity to bass for some reason (all music is a bit more vivid, but I've had to turn down my subwoofer as well as turning down the bass dial in my car stereo).
I can think faster and can focus for longer periods of time, but this focus can be hard to control. A more accurate word could be momentum. For instance, when I am browsing forums, I open up a bunch of topics in separate tabs then go through them. I can actually sit and stare at the screen for hours on end if I just keep grinding through articles and posts. But as soon as there is a natural breaking point (run out of tabs, get to a new chapter in a book), I am a lot more likely to get distracted and stay distracted. My daydreams are just too cool to ignore now lol
One of the best parts is increased energy. The B5 was rather nice for this, and the piracetam seems to help a bit too. Even after the toughest karate classes, I feel like I could go for another. I'm doing a bit of weight lifting for the summer, and after I started taking these two, I've had to start bumping up the weight a bit more often. I feel like a god at the end of a workout. The ALCAR gives me a bit more energy too, but this is only from what I have seen from taking it for a few days with little physical activity.
However, piracetam has made me more irritable too. I have a habit of looking down on others, but I know I can learn a lot from people and have some fun with them too, so I was usually very tolerant. After I started taking piracetam, every once in a while I get legitimately angry at someone. This is usually when they directly get in the way of my goals, but getting mad rarely helps matters, so even this is too much by my standards. Also, I used to rarely worry about anything, but (after starting P) sometimes I find myself disturbingly anxious if I have several deadlines coming up (self imposed or otherwise).
I think both of these things can be remedied with a bit of self control (I'm a big supporter of mental discipline in lieu of meds, especially after seeing so many lazy friends going for ADD pills instead of learning to focus), but the ALCAR seems to be helping quite a bit. I've been taking care of my little (single digits) cousins for the past few days; these kids are a giant pain in the butt as far as time and energy drains go, but I haven't gotten mad even once. Some people on the board have reported that ALCAR remedies their need for a choline source; the next step would be to try to phase out DMAE.
