13 replies to this topic

[ataraxis]

Excuse me for my English, it is not my native language.

 

This is a great shame, that being normal covers so much conditions, from being a healthy and happy individual, to being a miserable, sad trainwreck of a person, living a mediocre life, looking forward to better days, knowing they won't come, but still hoping... because, he is NOT clinically depressed.

 

Both individuals are normal. They do not deserve medical treatment. The one poor lonely failing bastard just deserves to die this way, because... fuck him! The really depressed people, they are the one deserving attention, not the one who is borderline, but still in the NORMAL group.

 

This is of course the frame of mind in current western medicine. We are treating "conditions" i.e words, not Suffering. When the Suffering is great, we invent a new word to name it, but when it is mild... we just are not interested.

 

I know this because i am a doctor

 

Well my story was one of testing various psychoactive substances over the course of several years, until I finally left my synapses a bit tired (no real depression or anything, but emotional blunting, for sure). I REALLY went over the top a few times, and put myself into danger, I still feel scared about some of these times (4 PMPD was the last one... won't take it again ever. Never mess with it at high doses. I went into full blown generalized seizure... I am happy it didn't end up being Status Epilepticus, as the person who was with me at the moment was under the influence, and was so much out of it, that he just didn't realize how serious it could have been).

 

Just to say, I am not a wise man in any manner, so don't expect what follows to be smart, it is just an experiment, and I am the guinea pig

 

After all these years of looking at how fast the shit can hit the fan when using untested chemicals for fun, i decided to calm down, but was feeling anhedonia, as if something was missing that prevented me from enjoying life. This is why I had a short lived love story with gabapentin (and pregabalin), bromazepam, then when the gaba overload made me really tired and forgetful, I switched to hydroxyzine to withdraw, then stopped everything. Still feeling as if living under my own potential of well being. Not depressed (and this is important, NOT A SINGLE TIME in my life, even in the most miserable moment, have I been clinically depressed).

 

So antidepressants were not an option to feel better. Moreover, their sexual side effects were not an option either (gaba agonists left me with a limp dick that thankfully subsided upon cessation).

I still wanted to give tianeptine a shot, seeing that it was not a classical antidepressant, and then... BOOOM! I feel great, yeah!

 

The low level opioid agonism is a great Healer of the Aching Heart

 

The problem with tianeptine is that downregulation and dependence and toxicity, and....

Well no. The REAL problem with tianeptine, is that after two weeks, the powder in the bags becomes sitcky and it is a pain in the ass to put into gelcaps!

 

The solution would be to put all of the powder into gelcaps as soon as the bag is opened, but that is without  considering how lazy I am.

 

So I went with another solution : Low Dose Naltrexone.

 

I want to drown in my own endorphins!

I want them to flood my synapses... I just love them!

That is not to get high, as I was doing in my younger years. That is to live a richer and more meaningful life. As was the case on tianeptine.

 

But tianeptine's time is over now! Place to Mu Antagonism.

 

I will try to update my subjective feelings for the sake of the science of nothing. Just because.

 

Day 1:

 

Because I am a real adventurer, I decided to try Low Dose naltrexone after a mini relapse in my old addictive behaviors compelled me to consume tramadol more often and in greater doses than healthy over the course of a month or two... or maybe three, on top of the tianeptine.

And after being in a kind of brain fog for the greater part of the morning, i decide that enough is fucking enough, and it's time to act like a man!

I make a prescription for myself, go to a pharmacy that is not used to see me, and order the naltrexone.

I dissolve the half of a 50 mg pill in a 50 mL bottle of water, and down the quarter of it.

 

Ooooh my...

 

Why did I think that I wouldn't experience withdrawal?

I sure did...

 

Just to summarize, it was physically and mentally painful. My skin felt like it was burning, I had trouble breathing, I had vasoconstriction in extremities, my pupils were dilated, and I had "tracers"... wait... i already felt like that...

It was strangely similar to the bodyload and the anxiety of a very bad Mushroom Trip.... interesting, I wasn't thinking it would be similar.

That thought eased my mind a little bit, and i managed to sleep through the worst of it.

 

Strangely enough, I felt ... cleansed after this experience.

 

So the same night, I downed another 3 mg of the stuff, to much milder results

 

Day 2 and 3 :

 

I can feel the endorphin boost working during the day... and the antagonism during the night sure makes for weird weird dreams...

The feeling upon waking up is one of great fatigue, and it is really tough to get going.

 

I do not feel sad or anxious.

 

Let's set a scale. Say depression is the 0. Euphoria is the 10. The objective would be to live in the 5-8 range most days, with just a few 9s and maybe one or two 10s.

Before tianeptine, my baseline was a disappointing but "clinically normal" 3.

Under tianeptine, i lived in the 4 to 6 range. Pretty close

Now today, at the end of day 3 I feel at a 5 or maybe even a 6 Great!

 

I want to do stuff... read some Edgar Allan Poe... don't know why, except that he's great! Ok maybe not the most cheerful read... I try to convey how good i feel by telling you i want to read "The Raven", I think there may be a chance that you won't be convinced. Well nevermind....

 

Final note : A side effect of low dose naltrexone for me is a quasi systematic hard on everytime i take it.

 

Now this is about the time for my nightly dose.

 

Sorry for my rambling.

Well in fact I do not REALLY feel sorry. Sorry for that.

 

See you.

[ataraxis]

Day 4 at still 3 mg at night :

 

This time I would say I barely felt any effect from the naltrexone apart from : increased libido upon taking it and increased sleepiness during the day.

I will try to update frequently for the first week, as it seems from reviews all around here that it stops brightening the mood and starts to numb the feelings after a few days.

And then... I have read of someone here who advises to take it no matter what for a few weeks to reap all the benefits from it, without wondering what it does to one's body and mind, and only then to try to ascertain what it's really like.

 

For now, my mood is still OK, I would say it's a 4 on my personnal scale (knowing that my maximum goal is 8, as 9 and 10 are "happy and excited" and "euphoric" and therefore not desireable states to live in for longer than the moments that created these states, 4 really is an alright mood).

 

I really can't know if Naltrexone is responsible for maintaining this relatively good mood, because right now the weather is amazing here. Maybe it is the solution to naturally increase endorphin secretion... well naltrexone seems cheaper than moving to Hawaii...

 

So for now I will just pin a poster of Hawaii on my wall and go on updating on my experience with LDN.

 

Edit : I still feel like eating some tramadol or other weak opiates, but this was to be expected as low doses of naltrexone aren't known to extinguish lust for mu agonism, contrary to 50 - 150 mg doses.

 

Edit n°2 : I would like to correct what I said in the first post, but it seems I can't edit it. My mood before starting tianeptine should be rated 2 instead of 3, so 4 under naltrexone is really not that bad.

Edited by ataraxis, 06 June 2015 - 12:36 PM.

[ataraxis]

Day 5:

 

Mood was to be rated 4. I can't quite tell the difference between the night after taking naltrexone and the day where the endorphin burst is supposed to take place.

Is it because tianeptine, opiates and other drugs desensitized my receptors and I need some time to get them going with LDN? Or should I reduce or maybe up my dose?

I can feel my motivation, my drive to do useful stuff getting lower and lower every day.

 

The initial libido boost is less pronounced, the weird dreams are less memorable. I am less tired upon waking up.

 

Seems like I am beginning to get used to the effects.

 

Seems like homeostasis works in both directions : right, the endorphin burst occurs as the answer to nightly mu antagonism, but sure enough my brain adapts to it and brings me back in my ordinary mood.

 

One interesting effect is that I don't feel the everyday pains that I was used to feel. I have had back pain more or less everyday for some years now, and for the past five days it is virtually nonexistent.

 

[ataraxis]

Day 6 to 10 :
Mood is still pretty much stable, despite some very unpleasant events that happened lately. Because of that, mood would be rated maybe 3 today, but it has to do with outside events and not with an inner weakness.

Yesterday I had sex maybe 2 hours after taking the naltrexone. This was the firqt time i had waited so long after taking it to play the beast with two backs! And now I can confirm that orgasms are in fact endorphinergic. I came but got virtually no pleasure from it.

Another thing that was more surprising for me : naltrexone seems to have mild anxiolytic effects... upon taking it! How come? I was expecting the opposite to be true... is it kappa antagonism?

Thought patterns seem a bit more positive. I am always telling myself how awesome I am. It's like I am Barney Stinson everyday. Actually it's like I am barney stinson's BOSS everyday

The fatigue really is annoying. I had begun a habit of lightly exercising for 10 minutes each morning before starting LDN, and now I feel too exhasted to do even that. I hope ther is a tolerance to this, and that it will come shortly, because it negatively affects my motivation to study and work. So basically, because of the endorphins i feel like I am the boss, but I am actually too lazy to be one... that sure is unsatisfying.

See you

[ataraxis]

This is a summary for the first 24 days of LDN:

 

Mood is not that great. It was to be expected from many anecdotal reports one can find around the web.

The thing is... mood is actually stable, but I wake up feeling terribly tired and the fatigue persists all day, so I have no motivation to do anything, so it has a negative impact on my mood.

 

On an unrelated note : One interesting side effect was increased libido, but something I noticed, and it's probably nothing to do with low dose naltrexone, but it's unusual enough to be mentionned : girls I meet in the street, in the bus seem to notice me more. Like they see me looking at them, and they look at me and smile. Nothing extraordinary... but where I live girls are usually shy. They do not smile that often. It really seems to me that I spark an unusual interest in them... unusual for me anyway I am average looking, maybe kinda cute guy actually do not know, but I think I am not the kind of guy that girls notice at first sight. I actually always found it hard to date.

Now... things seem to flow more easily... unfortunately for science but fortunately for me, I can not confirm that this thing is real, because I have a wife and soon a kid. So no flirting for me, even in the name of progress

Has anyone noticed the same thing on LDN? I know it is supposed to increase testosterone levels, so maybe it changes the way your sweat smells. Some girls are sensitive to smells and can find some guys sexy just because of his smell, I do not have any scientific data to back it up, only anecdotal reports... If anyone of you notices the same thing (and if any woman notices more interests from men) I would be very interested to know.

 

So back to the fatigue thing : I have read that too much opioid agonism disrupts sleep architecture. If the naltrexone taken at night works for too short a time, the endorphin rebound taking place in the third or fourth hour of sleep can disrupt the architecture of the remainder of the night's sleep.

So the theory is : if I increase the naltrexone dosage, less sleep is disrupted.

So today, day 24 i increased to 4,5 mg ==> will report on subjective feelings.

 

See you

[ataraxis]

Well after all, I never made it to day 30...
The permanent tiredness was unbearable. But still one interesting effect is the one on opioid tolerance. I ve been taking tramadol for a few days for modefately severe shoulder pain and tolerance seems to be less the times when I remember to predose with 100 micgr of naltrexone. Nothing revolutionary but definitely there. So i resumew taking tianeptine and associate ultra low dose naltrexone and for the moment, mood is great and the fatigue has pretty much disappeared.
See you
Will not be updating again

[fntms]

So you just take the 100mcg during the day before the tramadol and it helps with no side effects at all?
I might be trying this because I need something for persistent neck pain. I have taken tramadol 50mg for this and it's not enough, but I am afraid 100mg would cause some unpleasant issues... Hence the ULD naltrexone... It also have been taking Tianeptine for years at 12.5mg tid for anxiety.

[Duchykins]

Ugh.  This is incredibly unreliable testimony.

 

OP abused tramadol.  Tramadol on its face doesn't seem to be as sinister as other opioid painkillers but this is not true.  Tramadol will fuck you up if you abuse it and will keep you fucked for at least 6 months or a year afterward.  When he stopped the tramadol ride, his serotonin crashed.  Fatigue, body aches, all that crap.  Tianeptine (SSRE) and naltrexone mitigated some of the worst withdrawal symptoms.  Tianeptine appears to alleviate depressive symptoms better than LDN.  No big surprise there given his history.

 

But he hasn't yet recovered from his addiction and he is indeed in a state of depression, and denial.  He is not in a position to diagnose or treat himself.

 

 

Edited by Duchykins, 07 July 2015 - 08:11 PM.

[ataraxis]

Well tramadol was never abused for long periods. To be honest it was always in the context of back pain so never more than a consecutive week, then there were a few days of unpleasant withdrawal. I really do not think I can be diagnosed as depressive, but i sure did wonder sometimes, and to have an unbiased advice I went to a psychiatrist, this was when I had a real problem with benzos and the worst i've felt, and he was 100% sure i was not depressed. Regarding addiction, I will always have addictive personnality, I just have to learn to minimize the damage it causes to me by trying to control the substance use as much as i can. I frankly do not think my testimony is unreliable, nor am I depressed, nor have I crippling addictions problems like i used to. Maybe I have not made myself clear enough in my posts for you to think otherwise, but actually now with the return to my tianeptine routine I feel well. As for the danger of tramadol abuse, i dont know in what state you end up when abusing it for long periods, because i never did, but when abused here and there I can say of first hand experience the withdrawal symptoms are really benign. If you think this fucks you up for months afterward you obviously had a nocebo effect with tramadol withdrawal. I have gone through benzo and pregabalin withdrawal, tramadol is a piece of cake, and it doesnt need to be overestimated. Sure there IS withdrawal and it can be SEVERE if taken for long periods, but don't say to people that because tjey have abused tramadol by taking 400mg a day for a week they will have months of withdrawal because it simply is not true and i frankly don't even know where is your back up for bringing up such a weird idea as scientific fact...

As for the use of ULD nalttexone, I have found that you can take it 20 minutes prior to tramadol to help with the subsequent tolerance, but if you are not tolerant to tramadol, it will not make you more sensitive than you already are, it just mitigates the build up of tolerance. As for the dose, 100 mcg now seems too much for me. I now try 3 mcg with the resume of my daily tianeptine intake to help with tolerance and so far no problem. But I must insist that ULD naltrexone WILL NOT help with the tramadol's unwanted effects. It will in fact make them MORE prominent,especially nausea, by lowering tolerance a bit. By reading your post, fntms, i feel you may have a low level tolerance to tramadol , soyou may benefit a little bit from ULD nqltrexone, but you must not expect less side effects...

[Duchykins]

I have never been addicted to anything except nicotine and perhaps the internet.    I have merely seen tramadol abuse in others.  I certainly have never even experienced withdrawal from tramadol because I am a migraineur.  Opioids and opiates can be nasty migraine triggers.  I learned this nearly a decade ago when I was prescribed tramadol for a back injury.  I tried it for a week then dumped the rest after the pattern became clear.  Later on after some dental work I was prescribed oxycodone and it was the same as tramadol.  Even later still I had a spinal tap where they gave me morphine.  Last year I was given codeine syrup for bronchitis, nasty stuff.   Migraine, migraine and migraine.  The only painkiller that is commonly abused that does not bother me is hydrocodone.  But of course I would never abuse it because that would lead to an increase in migraine frequency and severity, and that's pretty much how it is with all the other drugs that are recreationally abused.  My willpower is very strong, I can even resist extremely strong urges to take sumatriptan when I know I only get a certain amount each month and they must be used wisely, I can't just throw a triptan at every migraine because I'll run out before I can refill my prescription. So I'll triage the migraine and decide if I can hold out or take a triptan now.  When it's time to hold out, that means I suffer the full migraine until it becomes so bad it incapacitates me.

 

Drug addicts who are struggling to stay away from their drug of choice and nearly failing is something I cannot identify with and have a low opinion of since such a thing is a fucking cakewalk to me.

 

 

But I am always amused by how addicts tend see addicts everywhere.

[fntms]

Thanks for the reply ataraxis.

How do you dose 3mcg? If by water dilution then at some point it must get unreliable I would think.

Yes I am probably still tramadol 'naive' in that I have never taken it more than 2 days in a row at just 100mg and then 50mg because I was scared of tolerance. And the sides were not hugely unpleasant bit still annoying (slight nausea, heart burn, anger, weird dreams...)
The pain relief was maybe just 30% to be honest, though of course it gets better the second day.

[ataraxis]

Well it was indeed water dilution, and indeed i think it is quite unreliable, but I thought that if there is an error in my dilution (if it is 30mcg for example) then the next time if i take the same volume of the same solution it will probably be in the same range, so those 3 mcg are a theoric dose, i would advise to find one you are comfortable with by working your way up. But at the same time if you have no tolerance to tramadol and tianeptine, you would certainly see no benefits to using ULD naltrexone. Maybe try it once to see if you perceive any difference, and if not, then it means you have no tolerance to lower !

Cheers

[vaarmen]

Hi LC community!

I have been doing some research on LDN and came across to the major active metabolite of Naltrexone 6-beta-Naltrexol. It is known that 6-beta-Naltrexol has a half-life of about 13 hours, and that Naltrexone undergoes much first pass metabolism which make the plasma levels of 6-beta be much higher than Naltrexone. 6-beta is reported to have lower affinity for mu opioids, but not too low and combined with the large AUC it can even have more effects on the receptor than Naltrexone itself (controversial). The problem with the 6-beta is the longer half-life, as it means opioid receptors will be blocked the next day as well after a bedtime dose.

What is your take on the above information?
Do you know how significant is 6-beta-Naltrexol in LDN effects?

How long do you feel dysphoria after taking an LDN dose. Does small amount continue up to 24 hours or more?
What if the effectiveness of LDN is because of constantly blocking Opioid receptors rather than causing rebound and desensitization?
Has anyone tried LDN with Naloxone rather than Naltrexone? It has shorter half life and no active metabolites as far as I know, so could potentially cause more rebound and less blockade the next day after a dose.

Any insight will be appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[AlexCanada]

I appreciate the boost in loving emotions which LDN provides. Unfortunately mood and function related benefits for me seem to wane in successive doses. The best benefits I derive from LDN are usually from the first or 2nd day. Beyond that it makes me feel Really hungryy.  Why do I get such strong hunger from it?  Due to existing infections?