9 replies to this topic

[alex b]

Hi everyone, I'm a 24y old male who is studying and working and I'm having a hard time keeping myself motivated and processing all the information. Some time ago I heard about nootropics and now I am interested in trying some out but i still have a few questions.

I am mostly seeking to increase mental clarity & energy and motivation for studying and possibly improve creative thinking to become better at my job as an animator.

The ones that caught my attention besides piracetam are CDP-choline, hydergine, centrophenoxine, vinpocetine and 5-HTP.

I'd like to know if it's better to start one by one or combining a few of them?
And how long does it take before the effects are noticeable and I can decide which are working for me and which are not?
Are attack doses necessary with every nootropic?
If you were to pick three from the ones I mentioned above which would it be?
Ofcourse I'm open to suggestions regarding any other nootropics.

I don't have any known diseases but I do have a history of drug use (mostly weed). The only things I'm taking now are vitamine C 1000mg because I smoke and fish oil, both almost daily.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[rabagley]

Many nootropics will interfere with smoking. Hydergine in particular will make that particularly unpleasant. If you want to quit, here's your chance. Since this is a life extension forum, smoking is particularly reviled here.

Also a nootropic/neuroprotectant and a great anti-smoking tool (since it can replace some of the effects of smoking in the brain) is l-deprenyl (selegiline).

Your first nootropic should probably be a racetam, probably aniracetam or oxiracetam. Often combined with a cholinergic (like the CDP-choline you mentioned).

Given your goals, I'm more than a little surprised that you didn't mention modafinil, which is very popular for alertness, focus and motivation. Depending on where you live, adrafinil (a modafinil prodrug) may be easier or cheaper to obtain.

[alex b]

Thanks for your reply.

I hadn't heard about the effects of hydergine and smoking yet so thanks for bringing that up! I guess it had to happen some time for me to stop smoking. Thinking about it, that's money i can spend on noots! Out of curiosity, what are the effects of combining the two?

Deprenyl seems to fit my needs very well, from what I have read about it, it's more a protecting substance than one which will have short-term noticeable effects, am I right? Nonetheless I will be adding it to my order aswell.

And isn't modafinil quite strong compared to other options? If so I think I will wait trying this one out.

So far I have decided to get piracetam, CDP choline and deprenyl. Maybe I will add one more and a multi vitamine.. Any recommendations?

[spacey]

Ortho-Core should be your multivitamin of choice.
I think your starting stack should be good, if you want another nootropic with neuroprotective attributes then I recommend Idebenone.

[graatch]

>Since this is a life extension forum, smoking is particularly reviled here.

Actually, I think smoking is cool.

>I guess it had to happen some time for me to stop smoking.

You could try switching to nicotine, which is potently neuroprotective and lowers the risk of developing Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Actually, smoking does these things by itself (look it up) although inhaled tobacco smoke definitely qualifies as toxic.

Galantamine is also a good option. Combined with deprenyl you should be able to recover most of the cognitive bonuses smoking provides.

[tothepoint]

I'm in the same situation. I vaporize marijuana a few times every week and I decided to start taking piracetam and CDP-Choline to see if it could give me a boost of some sort. Anyways, I started last year for a few weeks because I didn't notice anything.

I found out that it can take more than a month to notice any results, so last week I started taking 250mg of CDP-choline (every morning) and this monday I'm going to start taking 800mg of piracetam in the morning as well.

I think it's better to take both in the morning but I'm not sure... any opinions?

Keep us updated alex b. And you definitely wanna take a good multivitamin and eat right, exercise, meditate, etc.

[rabagley]

Just checked on the various nootropics we're talking about and it seems that l-deprenyl can cause negative side-effects with smoking, not hydergine. If you're taking a daily dose of 5mg or more, smoking is likely to cause nausea (primarily due to an overabundance of dopamine). Sorry for the incorrect information in my first post. On the other hand, hydergine will stabilize oxygen levels within the brain and can protect against some of the side effects of smoke inhalation. It's also synergistic with the various racetams (piracetam, aniracetam, oxiracetam, etc.).

l-deprenyl can be used at least two ways. Long term is neuroprotective. 0.5g/day or 5g weekly are typical doses. This slows the age-related degradation of the dopamine-producing part of your brain (substantia nigria). Short term usage has significant anti-depressant effects, notably including libido enhancement. In the short term, it is commonly used to slow the progress of Parkinson's disease as well as for mild depression. This dosage is 5g-10g oral delivery per day.

There is also a much higher transdermal dosage used for severe depression. This is called EMSAM and induces blood plasma levels of the drug equal to 100-200mg when taken orally (avoiding the digestive tract results in much more of the drug hitting the bloodstream). Unless you and a doctor agree that you need it, don't mess with EMSAM or equivalent oral doses as the MAOI side effects quickly become significant.

Many people who have a supply of oral or sublingual deprenyl use it long-term with occasional additional 5g doses before times when they want to be "on". This appears to be a reasonable balance between short-term utility as a nootropic and long-term neuroprotection. To kick smoking, you may want to start taking 5-10mg/day along with galantamine and gradually reduce that to 5mg/week as you find yourself able.

Modafinil is one of the few drugs that has been shown to actually improve a significant executive mental function (in this case, focus). It's a controlled substance in the US, and quite pricey, but highly effective for most people. Be sure to only take it in the morning, unless you want to stay up late.

As for the multi-vitamin, ortho-core is widely used, but can be expensive. There's a whole thread in the supplements forum about multi-vitamins that's worth reading before you start spending money on a pricey multi.

[alex b]

Good info rabagley! I am not really concerned about depression so i won't be needing the EMSAM. But since deprenyl is a MAO-B inhibitor, what consequences does this have as far as combining it with other substances?

I had a look at the prices for various compounds and I didn't expect Galatamine and Modafinil to be that pricey. Still interested but I will start with some cheaper things first and see how that goes. I will also have a look in the multi vit thread and see what else is out there.

About the nicotine, when I stop smoking I would rather leave out the nicotine altogether.

Btw I also did the Braverman Assessment to see if it would yield some usefull information, although it's ofcourse far from accurate, I found that I was both GABA dominant and deficient.. Does anyone know if it is more important to focus on the least dominant neurotransmitter (in my case acetylcholine by far) or on the most deficient? Or basically, what do I do with this info?

I think I will order from Relentless since I read a lot of good things about it and the fact that it's possible to use paypal. I did see that they don't have Hydergine in their list of products. Are there other places that accept paypal? The supplier thread doesn't mention much about it so I'll have to continue my search. Or is there a good alternative for hydergine?

@ tothepoint - Let me know how it works out for you and if you notice any differences this time.

Thanks for all your help guys.

[flatline]

Thanks for the heads-up on this test, I just took it and found it interesting.

My guess would be that the least dominant one is most important to start with. The test I took mentions that you can be dominant and deficient in the same neurotransmitter, that in fact you are more likely to notice its deficiency because you are used to feeling a certain way.

You might find it interesting that nicotine acts on Acetylcholine (according to wikipedia, anyway. there is a whole list of active agents).

Adrafinil is the prodrug of Modafinil, meaning that it is metabolized by your liver to modafinil. However, it may effect liver enzyme levels, so it is recommended that you have that tested to establish a baseline and to measure any changes every 3 to 6 months.

[tothepoint]

I'll let you know how my CDP-Choline + Piracetam experiment goes. However, my doctor told me to lay off all the supplements (besides a multivitamin) before a muscle biopsy I had 3 days ago, so I've been supplement-free since I last posted. I'm going to once again resume taking 250mg CDP-Choline for about 5 days and then I'll start taking 800mg Piracetam with that in the morning.

I also read a post on this forum saying that taking DMAE at night helps regulate something in acetylcholine synthesis and that taking DMAE with something like CDP-Choline could be beneficial. I'm definitely going to look into this before I jump into it, but for the next month I'm going to see how this CDP-Choline + Piracetam deal works. I'll keep everyone updated.