LONGECITY

I have become kindled through multiple benzos binges and severe cold turkery withdrawals from GABAergics. 10 days ago I drank 2 glasses of wine and was unable to sleep for 2 days, and so far have had 2-4 hours of sleep a night with a BPM of 90 - 110. Previously I had binged 1 month ago, and since then I was waking up 1-2 hours too early with no improvement in symptoms over the course of 30 days.

Each abrupt GABA withdrawal kindles and permanently sensitizes the glutamate system, especially AMPA receptors. This process can also be caused by things like seizures and even manic episodes in bipolar. Along with changes in GABA receptors, this senstisation is a leading cause of PAWS (post acute withdrawal symptoms) in gabaergic cessation.

I came across some studies that showed that sarcosine reverses glutamergic sensitisation caused by seizure kindling and excess glutamate from schizophrenia. Should I give it a try? Could sarcosine worsen my symptoms - apparently it increases glutamate in mGluR5 knockout mice? I know very little about neurology and don't want to cause any further damage.

Studies:

" Together, these findings suggest that sarcosine has unprecedented disease-modifying properties in a kindling model of epileptogenesis in rats, which was associated with altered hippocampal DNA methylation. "

- https://www.frontier...2020.00097/full

" This is the first study showing that a pharmacological intervention in schizophrenia, particularly augmentation of the antypsychotic treatment with sarcosine, may reverse the pathological increase in glutamatergic transmission in the hippocampus. "

- https://www.scienced...304394015301099


 

Do you have experience with benzodiazepines? That's basically how I got into spending tons of time on this forum and elsewhere, because I used (mostly) modest self-"prescribed" doses of diazepam and clonazepam for ~1 year every other week to deal with insomnia and whatnot. Eventually that didn't work out so well. And I got insomnia and later problems speaking and whatnot after quitting it. Some of which laster for insane amounts of time (speech problems for example). Anyway for me what helped with the symptoms I had months after completely off anything benzo related, was cerebrolysin. I could immediately speak again without "coughing" up words. I'm not sure how that happened.... Now if you have bipolar then I probably wouldn't recommend cerebrolysin, unless you just feel like you have to try it. Because it's quite powerful despite how subtle it is, for me it causes insomnia and at other times it causes lethargy, it's quite stimulating for the brain on some very deep subtle level. I can well imagine both mania and hallucinations could be produced taking it.

However for more short term and less severe management of some anxiety and balancing out the workings of the brain, I think Selank seems really good, and I doubt that it is anywhere near as potent on the whole as cerebroylsin, but with specific regards to anxiety and things like that I think it's more potent (at least short or intermediate-term). Both of these drugs should presumably have long-lasting effects, at least to some extent.

I think glycine, sarcosine, and even d-serine (or whatever it's called) has been discussed before on the forum but I don't know in this specific regard. I do remember some person that had benzo PAWS said that the east-European professor that sold him some Mexifin said they might consider either NMDA agonists or NMDA antagonists to deal with some of his persistent problems (which at that time might've been more like anhedonia or emotional blunting and maybe some tension, I'm not sure).

What dose was used in the schizophrenia study?  

The dose used in the rat study seems impractical for humans  - 3 g/kg ÷ 6.2 (rat to human HED) x 70 kg = 34 g/day.

I saw a discussion for schizophrenia discussing a 2 g/day dose.  Is that was the first study used?  I'm at work and SciHub is blocked here.

You could try low does glycine first, and work your way up to somewhat higher doses of glycine and then to sarcosine. They aren't exactly the same thing, but your response on glycine should be encouraging enough to continue without diving headfirst into methyl glycine and its potentially stronger side effect profile.

If / when you do take sarcosine, and if you are a male, consider taking it with a demethylating agent that is proven to have action in the prostate, like sulforaphane. Not everyone agrees that sarcosine is potentially carcinogenic in the prostate, but there is enough evidence and not yet enough counter-evidence to warrant caution.

What dose was used in the schizophrenia study?  

 

The dose used in the rat study seems impractical for humans  - 3 g/kg ÷ 6.2 (rat to human HED) x 70 kg = 34 g/day.

 

I saw a discussion for schizophrenia discussing a 2 g/day dose.  Is that was the first study used?  I'm at work and SciHub is blocked here.

2 grams were used to lower glutamate overactivity. Do you think sarcosine can help modulate/decrease over activity of sensitized AMPA receptors?

I do worry about sarcosine's potential ability to increase the rate of prostate cancer proliferation. 

I suppose if I were 20 I probably wouldn't worry about it too much, though it's not something I would want to take long term.  At a young age you probably don't have any prostate cancer cells lying around to be ignited.

At 50 I think the risks may be much more elevated (if sarcosine really does fuel prostate cancer). At 60 I wouldn't take it unless there was decent evidence that the studies implicating sarcosine in prostate cancer are in fact wrong.

Did you try captodiamine? its pituitary antidepressant that show effective in people on benzodiazepine withdrawals

Did you try captodiamine? its pituitary antidepressant that show effective in people on benzodiazepine withdrawals

Is there some research that you can post a link to? Sounds interesting.

Off course, found some links, but can't buy this drug, maybe someone knows where

https://pubmed.ncbi....h.gov/15383182/

I've had some success post-cold-turkey Nardil withdrawal (Nardil is an MAOI; one of its metabolites inhibits GABA transaminase) with bacopa monnieri (Synapsa), lion's mane (Nammex 8:1 water extract) and curcumin (Longvida).

Note: 5-alpha-reductase inhibition of curcumin and lion's mane may cause depressed mood and cognitive impairment in some males even after discontinuation ("Post Finasteride Syndrome"). PFS can be remedied in some cases with subQ Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin (HCG).