4 replies to this topic

[PDW]

Hey everyone so I'm gonna do my best here with a starting place and just roll with it. I'll start with Choline which will later be brought back up. So, Alpha GPC was the first "nootropic" I tried well I waited for an order of Noopept to arrive. I used it about 5 days with varying results, but overall didn't find it useful. What I did find though was that by day 4 and 5 it gave me massive headaches. I looked into this (most notably from an interview with Dave Asprey) and decided that perhaps I am acetycholine dominant. At this point I decided to stay away from Choline supplements. My noopept arrived (from New Edge Nootropics) and I took one 10mg tablet with a tablespoon of hemp oil. The effects were good and I felt very focused and got a lot done. I took another 10mg tablet about 5 or 6 hours later as the effects seemed to wear off, everything was still good. I continued this dosage for about 3 more days before deciding to take my noopept with a protein shake, cereal (glucose and carb source) and hemp oil. Upon doing this I realized how potent this stuff was and experienced a strong effect and got some anxiety. Fast forward a week and I determined I am very responsive to noopept and only need 10mg a day split into two 5mg doses after a meal with hemp oil. So heres my dilemma. Taking Noopept in this current regiment only seems to be half good. In the morning time I take my noopept after breakfast and feel pretty good, focused, mood enhancement, motivation seems very effortless, I get a bit of energy that helps me wake up, though I sometimes notice a bit of irritability and aggression some days. Second half of the day I take my other 5mg of Noopept around 3pm. By 3:30pm I really feel it, all the good stuff previously mentioned plus I feel kind of weird, slightly spaced out, communicating with people seems strange to me, some anxiety like an overall anxious feeling and sometimes shortness of breath, fatigue, and more irritability and aggression. Fast forward another week, still having the exact same results with my morning and afternoon dose, except now I've been getting headaches. Why would noopept make me feel good only with my first dose? And why headaches? Any Ideas would be greatly appreciated. I did do my own research as well and found that Noopept uses a lot of Choline and glutamate in the brain which might contribute to my headaches and possible weird feelings. I hesitantly decided to use Alpha GPC again. I stacked a 300mg capsule with my 5mg noopet dose in the morning and found great synergy in this combination and felt awesome! I was totally on point with things and no irritability or aggression. However, come my afternoon dose, well it was the same feeling as all of the other afternoon doses before it which really confused me. No headaches yet though, but I'm closely monitoring it. So thats another question, why would that happen? maybe I should take a 300mg Alpha GPC capsule with both noopept doses? That seems like a lot to me though and a website suggested that you take 20 times more Alpha GPC to your Noopept dosage. So in my case 10mg noopept would be 200mg Alpha GPC, I take 300mg. I'm concerned about taking more though based on my previous experience with Alpha GPC and massive headaches. I should also mention, whenever I drink coffee with noopept its like the noopept really amplifies the caffeine, I ended up drinking half as much coffee as I usually drink because of it. However, when I drink coffee with noopept my jaw gets really tight and sore. I dunno what thats about, any ideas? Also, concerning glutamate is their any literature or thoughts on supplementing something like l-glutamine with noopept to supply the brain? Thank you to all future posters for any provided information!

 

 

[Ames]

Give your symptoms (tight/sore jaw and headaches), your problem isn't likely to be too little Glutamine. It's likely to be too much NMDA receptor activation/Glutamate/Calcium influx, etc.

 

If you are getting headaches on noopept, personally, I would recommend getting off of it. Consistent headaches are a somehwat reliable sign of excitotoxicity, especially when present during supplementation of substances that have an NMDA agonist effect. If you don't get off of it, given your side effects, I predict a lessening of its effects over time as you continue to over-excite your neurochemistry and 'burn' out the recpetors you are stimulating.

[PDW]

Well thats not good! Thank you for this information though! I've been keeping my dose at two 5mg servings and I don't get any headaches or tight/sore jaw at the moment. However, if I drink more then say half a cup of coffee well using noopept then I get the tight/sore jaw. Does coffee stimulate NMDA receptors? I've also noticed that if I use a little choline here and there I don't get headaches. I'm going to try CDP choline because I read it is a psychostimulant and stimulates the sympathetic nervous system so you get more energy. Alpha GPC differs in that it effects the the PARAsympathetic nervous system which ultimately makes you tired. Let me tell you, after a few days of using Alpha GPC I was ready to just pass out and take a nap, which I did. I don't particularly like Alpha GPC for this reason. Also, CDP Choline has been shown to help more with dopamine then Alpha GPC. Thats also good for me because I actually do have low Dopamine levels. Energy is something I am always low in. Especially when I first wake up, which is due to low dopamine levels. If I use Alpha GPC a few days in a row instead of say every other day I end up getting a headache. I don't know if this is due to choline dominance or just Alpha GPC in general. It is from Soy and I tend to not tolerate Soy well, so I often wonder if that could also be an issue. One other thought, I often notice that with noopept, I will feel awesome the first 30-40 minutes and then start to get pretty tired but still feel awesome at the same time. Any ideas what that could be? All of that aside, if I do infact have excitotoxicity with noopept, what would you recommend as a better alternative to noopept? I really do like its positive effects. Thanks again for the reply and information!

[Ames]

Caffeine blocks adenosine receptors, which in turn dis-inhibits glutamate. So, yes, coffee increases glutamate in the brain. I have a sensitivity to excitotoxic overstimulation, but tolerate coffee just fine. I think that it even helps me, which lends credence toward the view that coffees action is more complex than ultimate glutamate promotion. However, the issue is the potentiation that you are realizing through noopept supplementation, and how that may interact with the caffeine stimulation. If you are sensitive to excitotoxicity due to prior brain injury (sublcinical or clinical) through possible  activities such as extended running (bouncing our brain against your skull) to drug use or TBI, then I would recommend against any racetam. Specifically, they tend to disinhibit glutamate in a manner, in my experience, that is much different and less desirable than the seemingly more benign caffeine. That's only an opinion, though.

 

Racetams are heavily promoted on this board, but seemingly more-so in its embryonic years. People new to nootropics seemingly tend to make the first dive with the quintessential racetams. However, dig deeper and you'll find 'noot vets' throughout this board who have sworn them off due to bad reactions. Personally, racetams gave me tinnitus, which is known to be caused by neuronal degredation, that has not yet gone away (although it is transient) and it likely never will.

 

My perspective on neurochemistry and aging is rooted in the second law. All energy pushed through a system at a rate greater than the homeostatic level in a healthy brain increases the rate of aging after your growth has peaked (before, it likely promotes faster growth). Therefore, no stimulation, unless its a felt adaptive reaction to inhibition (ie: NMDA anatagnists, hormesis inducing substances) is ultimately nootropic but is, instead, promoting faster aging. Stimulants invariably come with a crash, even if that crash isn't felt until receptors are aged/desensitized months to years after the beginning of use. If stimulants are nootropic just because they increase metabolism or provide a glutamate push, then in the same vein cocaine is nootropic. Energy homeostasis in the brain needs to become more efficient (re-sensitizing both insulin and neurotransmitter receptors is one way to theoretically achieve this), otherwise nothing beneficial is occurring. Again, this is all my opinion.

 

If you are prone to excitoxicity, then your refuge should be in NMDA antagonists such as memantine and nitromemantine (not out yet). Also, rest from stimulants and, especially, early-to-bed sleep is crucial. Unfortunately, combating a predisposition to excitoxicity is still a developing science. Remember, you don't have to have a headache for an excitoxic condition to exist. I view a predisposition to headaches, especially in reaction to glutamate regulation, as a symptom that speaks to a probable predisposition toward excitotoxic over-stimulation. However, they aren't necessarily going to occur.

Edited by golgi1, 26 July 2014 - 03:49 AM.

[PDW]

Thanks for the replies! I think you may be right golgi. I recently tried l-theanine and got a headache from that and felt like dump. Did some research and found out that also mess's with the glutamate receptor a lot.