3 replies to this topic

[mackwell]

Hello,

I've been a lurker in these forums for some time now, mostly was trying to deal with my social anxiety, and when that cleared up my lack of social motivation problems. I'm a daily cannabis smoker, and I definitely feel that it has reduced my anxiety and OCD issues which surfaced after significant diphenhydramine abuse when I was 16. I still smoke daily, with a 2-3 month tolerance break once a year, and have been taking

200-400mg 5HTP (once or twice a day)
1000mg d,l-phenylalanine (daily)
Orange triad multivitamin (daily)
Kratom (3-4 times a week)
15mg xr Adderall (once a week)
2.4g Piracetam (once or twice a day)
1g Fish oil tablet (once or twice a day)
200mg l-theanine (once or twice a day)
Soy lecithin (when I feel piracetam brain fog)
Marijuana mixed with Tobacco (sometimes a small amount once a night, sometimes excessive amounts 3 times a night)

I've been using the 5htp and cannabis as they seem to really elevate my serotonin, and in the last 3 months that I've been using this stack I've felt a dramatic reduction in appetite, anxiety, libido, social motivation, and an increase in apathy. To combat this I take the Kratom or adderall so I can feel social motivation (which is required for my job, as I'm currently a stripper).

5 days ago I took methamphetamine for the first time before work (plugged 20mg), felt great until I took a big dip of chewing tobacco, at which point my heart rate increased, I started sweating, vision blurred, and my head and parts of my shoulder turned red. I still had to go to work though, and after taking 3 shots I felt much better and my symptoms dissipated.

Now 2 days ago I decided to snort some methamphetamine (after taking rhodiola for the first time, and some kratom). I started with 30mg, and redosed 20 mg three times over the course of three hours. I was feeling pretty amazing, hyperfocus, grandiose thoughts, lots of pleasure from organizing or cleaning. I had to sleep early that night though, so I took some strong cannabis oil, and within two hours I felt the symptoms of serotonin syndrome again. This time was much worse, my pupils were extremely dilated, I had a bad stomach ache, I felt inner agitation, my hands had a tremor, and my temperature was fluctuating between 99-100 F. I tried to cool myself off to prevent hyperthermia, and stayed up all night. The following morning around noon my symptoms cleared, and despite my sleep deprivation I managed to go to the gym and go grocery shopping. I also took phenibut and noopept as I thought they may alleviate my drowsiness and edginess. I decided I should quit all the messy recreational drugs I had been doing (amphetamines, marijuana, tobacco, occasional caffeine, kratom) and not touch anything that messes with serotonin. I couldn't fall asleep that night so I tried ashwagandah, melatonin and some l-theanine and finally did. Today I have a good deal of brain-fog, difficulty concentrating, a dull headache, short-term memory issues and a diminished appetite. I'm sitting at the library trying to study for my MCAT, and I'm having a difficult time getting anything done.

Now the problem is, I've been a 4.0 student since highschool (have a bachelor's degree in molecular biology with a 3.99), and never had any problems concentration and studying for ridiculous hours on end (I actually enjoyed the challenge of it). But with this great academic ability came a lot of OCD and anxious tendencies, which is why I began smoking marijuana, getting rid of some of the anxiety and OCD, and also diminishing my performance in school somewhat. Based on the feeling I've been getting from the added support of 5htp with my daily marijuana habit, I've come to the conclusion that my daily nighttime toking was increasing my serotonin, which is why I felt a reduction in anxiety. With the added 5htp I was feeling very little anxiety (but I was a stripper and not in school during this time). I've also read that serotonin increase (esp with 5htp) leads to a dopamine decrease, which may explain the inverse relationship between my anxiety and academic performance.

Anyway, It may be too early to tell, and I might just be experiencing tobacco/marijuana/kratom withdrawals simultaneously, but is it possible that with all that 5htp supplementation and the resulting serotonin syndrome that I decreased my catecholamine and dopamine levels, leaving me in this anxiolytic but unfocused state?

Well I think that is what happened, so I'm considering a new stack to increase my dopamine/catecholamine levels while I study for the 3months I have before taking my MCAT.

Orange triad
Fish oil
1500mg dl-phenylalanine (morning, empty stomach)
2000mg tyrosine (afternoon, empty stomach)
extra b6 vitamin (24mg) to take with tyrosine
200mg L-theanine (twice a day)
2.4g piracetam (2-3 times a day)

... and possibly noopept as it made me feel more motivated the past two days, and bacopa or ashwaganda to sleep at night (instead of cannabis!)

Also considering the Mr. Happy Stack, but I have heard from anecdotal experiences that it feels serotogenic which makes me want to wait a while on that.

Sorry for the length of my first post! Thanks for reading, and any input you guys might have. I feel like I messed up myself by carelessely mixing and matching supplements and I don't want to make that mistake again in my attempt to fix myself.

[Flex]

Firstly I´m not a MD so take everthing with a grain of salt.
Secondly, go in those cases better allways to a Doc.

I would reduce or avoid extra Dopamine/Tyrosine if I were You, this could increase the damage of Meth because Afaik the synaptic vesicle gets a leakage and the Dopamine becomes a oxidant.
But again I´m not a Doc and I´m not sure if this only happens after chronic consume.

As far as I know is that after 1 or few times of meth consume(alone), the brain is capable to repair it self, but maybe this could take time ( Days,Weeks, Months??) depending on the ammount.
Regarding the 5-Htp mix I cant say anything, I just dont know.

So it could be something transient.
If not; Cerebrolysin and/or Nsi-189, Ashwagandha( be carefull it´s a anticoagulant, but the sensoril extract is seemingly a weaker one) and other stuff could be a option.
But this could also be a question for the doc

And please dont touch Meth again or Cocaine or DXM or other sythethic drugs.
You need Your brain for Study

Edited by Flex, 06 March 2014 - 07:08 AM.

[mackwell]

Thanks for the advice Flex. Tyrosine seems like something to avoid while taking stimulants, as it just increases the dopamine/NE available, leading to the greater oxidative stress that you are talking about. Should be safe to combat the down-regulation of dopamine that occurs after. Cerebrolysin sounds very interesting! But people seem to look at it as some panacea, and my experience with panacea is the effects never live up to the hype. Also it's too expensive for me to justify right now. Ashwagandah was a great help in aiding my sleep during cannabis withdrawals, but I feel it just prolonged the gaba down-regulation that cannabis causes. It would be very effective the night I took it, and if I didn't take it the next couples days my sleep would suffer as badly as my first day of withdrawals.

I have, since this post, cut out all drugs (marijuana, stimulants, kratom, tobacco), quit my job, and have been studying 8-10 hours a day to prepare for my MCAT (which I will take 3 months from now). After a lot of self-observation and reflection I think my main problem is I increased my serotonin levels too high with 5-HTP (I was taking it daily for ~3months, and many times I would just take two big scoops, probably around 500-600mg without measuring). Since starting with the 5-htp my usual OCD/anxious tendencies were greatly reduced, but I developed low libido, decreased appetite... symptoms indicative of high serotonin levels.

Now after a week of abstinence from these past habits/drugs, I still found myself struggling to concentrate on my studies (which was NEVER an issue before starting the 5-htp), so I decided to combat my hypothesized high serotonin levels with 2g d,l-phenylalanine, b-complex, 4.8g piracetam daily, and l-theanine (always helped get me into a deeply focused yet stimulated state in the past).

I've made some improvements. My libido has definitely come back, I'm starting to organize my room and find myself planning my meals and schedule the day before, and I experience cravings for carbs (which is fine by me as I've gotten pretty skinny since all of this). I'm still having trouble concentrating on my work however, so maybe this isn't enough.

I've decided to start taking the controversial Mucuna Pruriens, as I really do miss my perfectionist, energetic, anxious, OCD self. Hopefully this will offset the high serotonin, and bring back some of the dopamine that I depleted through use of 5HTP and other stimulants. I'll make sure to stop if I become TOO anxious and OCD. I just miss the old me that couldn't accept getting even one practice question wrong without obsessively pouring through my notes and making sure I had a perfect understanding of the concept and the obscure facts that it tested. I have 80 more days until the MCAT.... hopefully the Mucuna will make me a different person by then.

[mackwell]

Edit: I meant *poring over. Oh hey it's coming back! Must have been all that tyrosine I took today

Edited by mackwell, 10 March 2014 - 08:18 PM.