12 replies to this topic

[olav23]

Hi all! What a great area of discussion.

I recently purchased Cyprenil (liquid deprenyl) and received the bottle today. I am 27 years old and in normal health.

I have noticed a "brain fog" ever since I got off antidepressants around 3 years ago, which doesn't seem to subside very often. I feel like I walk in a daze a lot of the time. And both my short term and long term memory seems to disappear rather quickly. I am a rather scattered and disorganized person.

So, anyway to get to my question. All I currently take is a a multivitam (2 a day w/o iron from Twinlabs). What would you recommend I take? I have looked into the book "40 Day Brain Longevity Plan" but after calculating the cost, the supplements alone came to about $200. This is way out of my budget.

I just took 2mg of deprenyl, I was trying to take 1, but the dropper is kinda crappy and 2 came out. I put it into about a tablespoon of cold water and sloshed it around the mouth and drank it down. I read that you should try to hold it under your tongue for absorption but maybe thats just the tablet form.

What should I add to my regimen? I have heard good things about Lecithin, maybe Piracetam? Vinpocetine is cheap at Puritan Pride. What do you guys think? Hydergine?

Maybe a top 5 list or something that I can afford?

Thanks again!
Olav

[chomsky]

Supplementing DL-Phenylalanine (DLPA) with the Deprenyl gives a nice synergy in my experience. The DLPA can either be converted into tyrosine (which then leads down the pathway from L-Dopa to Dopamine), but it can also be converted into an endogenous neuroamine called phenethylamine (PEA), which is related to the amphetamine class psychotropic substances. PEA is usually rapidly deaminated by the enzyme monoamine oxidase type-B (MAO-B), but Deprenyl being a MAO-B inhibitor, it leaves a significantly larger amount of PEA in neurons before it is recylced. DLPA, being the precursor to phenethylamine, used concomitantly with Deprenyl, will yield a much larger amount of PEA in the nervous system, and should give a general feeling of mental stimulation. I personally have used 10 mg of Deprenyl (Jumex tablets) with 1000 mg of DLPA daily with great results on mental energy and overall directed motivation (not to mention it caused me to cease smoking without that being the intention of taking the drug).

There are lots of other supplements out there that can help you with mental fatigue and/or feelings of mental "fogginess." I'm sure lots of other informed members on the board will give you some helpful info on some other products which aid in overall cognitive status.

[pSimonKey]

What is the name of your anti-depressant? What is your diet like? Do you do any excercise? What is your favorite movie?

[olav23]

I am not currently on any anti-deps. I eat a generally vegetarian diet, but I do eat fish regularly. I wish I did more exercise, but alas, I have a docile computer job and the main exercise I get is walking to the train station and from the other station walking home. Around ~30mins walking per day. I know i know....

Movie-wise, fight club.

I did what chomsky recommended, except I use a much lower dosage, based on recommendations in the Brain diet book I am reading. I am only 28, and dose 2mg a day of Dep. 1 in the AM 1 in the PM. I added 500mg of DLPA as well.

I also do Pir + Alpha GPC and Vinpocetine. So far nothing major, except I do believe my short term memory has become much stronger. Its been almost 2 weeks. Though maybe my mood has improved. Thats the major differences. I thought it would be more of a night and day, but I guess its just a slow push....

THanks for the help everyone!
Olav

[pSimonKey]

Great movie! [thumb] I was just thinking of the "...some guys name on your boxers shorts..." line, today for obvious, and now, even more annoying reasons. Which is your favourite part?
I was wondering what kind of anti-d it was as some of them can effect dopamine and/or serotonin.
Personally, I have found that dairy products and wheat make my head alittle foggy, do you consume those? And to clear my head in the morning 15-20 mins of stretching and deep breathing, after my smarts, works great for me.
And at what doses do you take Pir+Alpha GPC and Vinpo ? I have no experience at the later 2 but have and do experiment with Pir doses.
I also take 1.5mgs of Dep but I take it with 100mgs of NAL-Tyrosine and green tea, it sharpens me up a tad. I have not tried it with DLPA but I think i will as I have always had a bit of a passion or PEA, as y' do.

[macdog]

WOW!!

Okay, first off I want to caution you against what chomsky said. he obviously knows what he's talking about, but what he's talking about is HIM. NOT YOU.

All due respect chomsky, I'm not even saying you're giving bad advice, or trying to tell him a line, but man do I have experience with psychotropes. Somebody ought to write a paper about me.

Deprenyl is an MAO-B inhibitor, which in my book means CAUTION. DANGER! DANGER! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!! There are very few drugs which don't warn you against taking them in conjunction with an MAO-B inhibitor. That class of drugs seems to react with EVERYTHING.

First off, if you used to take anti-depressants, maybe you should consider them again. That might be the source of your fog. now I've got Tourette's syndrome, and until I found the doctor I have now their attitude was basically to dope into a state where it took all my intellectual energy to watch cartoons. Clonazepam. Gabapentin. Olanzapine (which caused me a heart attack). Nuerontin. I've tried most of them.

right now I take a pill called effexor. Now I take 300-425 mg a day in two doses, which is a medium high dose, some people find it works at just 37.5 mg. The worst side effect i had was a bad tremor, which cleared up eventually and after i started splitting my dose. i take plenty of other stuff along with it. My mind is as focused and as free of depression as it has ever been.

I really think you need to be careful.

[olav23]

Macdog, thanks for the information. According to lots of stuff I have read on Dep, it seems that its a very selective MAO-B. And at the dosages I am taking, (2mg per day) you do not have to be too careful with diet, other meds, etc. The dosage is so low, and since it is so selective, it doesn't cause the "Cheese Effect" that many MAO-I drugs can cause when mixed with certain other substances. I think I read that upwards of 10mg or even more remove the selectivity of it, and then BEWARE as you said.

Self medication isn't a good idea, I know, but I believe I have done the necessary research.

pSimon, I'd have to agree, that is the best part of the movie! But there are soooo many You are not a different and unique snowflake... Reminds me of that despair calendar:
http://www.despair.c...ividuality.html . That site is awesome!

I took Prozac, then Zoloft in the past. I really wish I hadn't. I really feel that most of my problems are due to it, including Brain Fog, general laziness and shyness, insomnia at times, overthinking, a terrible short term/long term memory, etc, etc.... If I could go back in time I would not have done it in the first place. And this is even like 4 years later. I think once your brain "learns" a new way of processing data, it never corrects, even LONGGG after the meds half-lives.

Just my opinion.. Thank everyone!
Olav

[pSimonKey]

olac23, can you remember what it felt like to have crystal, clear, clarity in your head?

[axiombiological]

WOW!!

Deprenyl is an MAO-B inhibitor, which in my book means CAUTION. DANGER! DANGER! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!! There are very few drugs which don't warn you against taking them in conjunction with an MAO-B inhibitor. That class of drugs seems to react with EVERYTHING.

I think you are getting confused with MAO-A inhibitors.

[olav23]

pSimonKeyolac23:  can you remember what it felt like to have crystal, clear, clarity in your head?

Unfortunately, no. As I said, once you become "re-wired" its hard to look back with any real recollection. I sometimes feel like drug addict rock stars from decades gone by on VH1 when they say things like 1973-5 is really just a blur. A lot of times I find myself confusing things I did when I was 18 for things I did when I was actually more like 23. Then, I go through the locations, notice that the location doesn't coincide with the time, and then have some type of brain fart.

So far, I am super impressed with the supplementation. I think most of the help though is coming from the Deprenyl. I have always had "shaky hands" genetically. My sister is MUCH worse and my father also has it. Well, I am still taking the Pir, Vinpo, Alpha-GPC and Dep, and all I can say is DAMN... My hands are rock steady, like almost to the surgeon level. My sister went to a neurologist a long time ago and he attempted to prescribe some serious meds that at the time made her believe that the side effects were far worse then the shaking itself.

I'm pretty darn sure that affect is coming from the Dep, since its prescribed for Parkinson's symptoms. And in therapeutic dosages like I take, is life-beneficial AS WELL AS helping the shaking. So, I'm sold.

Needless to say, I have just placed an order for another bottle from cytopharma for the sis. I'm worried cause I read that its effects are potentiated like 20x or more when taken with birth control, so I'm going to have her start with 1mg 2x a week, for about 2 weeks. See if that helps. If not, maybe work it up to 1mg 3x a week.

Does anyone know long term effects of therapeutic dep? As in, I read that its irreversible MAOI-B, but does it regenerate after a certain period of time? I have heard that 2 weeks to get it out of your system, but is that after a SINGLE dose? Or does it somehow build up in your system and take longer and longer to get out. After baselining your body to it, can you spread out the dosage to just keep yourself at that level so that you don't get a "build up" but just a staying at the same level type dosage?? Anyone know?

Thanks again!
Olav23

[celica]

anyone knows that answer?

[xgrouper]

DEPRENYLMAO-B INHIBITOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

By 1971 Knoll had shown that DPR was a unique kind of MAO inhibitor - a selective MAO-B inhibitor, without the cheese effect. To fully appreciate what this means, some technical background is necessary.

Some of the most important neurotransmitters in the brain are the monoamine (MA) transmitters: serotonin, dopamine and noradrenalin. After being secreted into the synaptic gap, where one neuron connects to another, many to the transmitter molecules are reabsorbed by the secreting neuron and then disposed of by enzymes called monoamine oxidases (MAO). This prevents excessive levels of transmitters from accumulating in the synaptic gap and over-amping the brain. However, with aging MAO activity significantly increases in the human brain, often to the point of severely depressing necessary levels of MA transmitters. (1) In the 1950s the first antidepressant drugs to be developed were MAO inhibitors (MAOI). By the 1960s however, MAOIs began to drop out of medical use due to a dangerous side-effect - the so-called cheese effect. When most MOIs are used in people consuming a diet rich in a substance called tyramine, a dangerous, even fatal, high blood pressure crisis can be triggered. Tyramine is found in many foods, including aged cheeses, some wines, beans, yeast products, chicken liver and pickled herring, to name just a few. (23)

By 1968, further research had shown that there were two types of MAO-A and B. It is primarily intestinal MAO-A that digests incoming tyramine. Most of the MAOIs that have been used clinically inhibit both MAO-A and MAO-B, thus setting up the danger of the cheese effect by inhibiting intestinal and brain MAO-A, allowing toxic tyramine levels to accumulate. DPR is unique among clinically used MAO-Is. At normally used clinical dosages (10-15 mg/day), DPR is a selective MAO-B inhibitor, so it doesnt prevent intestinal MAO-A from digesting dietary tyramine.(1) In addition, DPR has the unique ability to prevent tyramine from getting into noradrenalin-using nerve calls, and its only when tyramine enters noradrenalin nerve cells that control arterial blood pressure that it triggers the cheese effect. (1) DPR thus has a dual safety lock in preventing the cheese effect, making it far safer than other MAOIs. At doses over 20-30 mg/day, however, DPR does start to significantly inhibit MAO-A , so there is some risk of the cheese effect at these higher (rarely clinically used) doses. (1)

MAO-A enzymes break down serotonin (5-HT) and noradrenalin (NA), and to a lesser extent dopamine (DA). MAO-B breaks down DA and the traceamine phenylethylamine (PEA). At doses of 5-10 mg per day DPR will inhibit MAO-B about 90%. (1) It was initially presumed that DPR would increase synaptic levels of DA in DA-using neurons, and this lead to its use to treat Parkinsons disease in the late 1970s, Alzheimers disease in the 1980s-90s, and depression starting in the late 1970s. In his 1983 paper on the history of DPRs clinical benefits to its unique MAO-B effects. (1)

Yet many experts have questioned whether DPRs MAO-B inhibition can significantly increase synaptic DA levels. (14,15) This is due to the fact that MAO-B is found only in glial cells in the human brain, non-nerve cells that support, surround and feed the brains billions of neurons. (1) And whether there is any exchange of DA between these glial cells and the DA-using neurons is still an unanswered question. It is commonly believed that it is MAO-A in DA neurons that breaks DA down. By the 1990s Knoll believed he had discovered the real basis of DPRs being a MAO-B inhibitor. (2)

Yet as will be made clear shortly, even if DPRs originally hypothesized mode of action - directly increasing synaptic DA levels through MAO-B inhibition - is false, DPRs MAO-B inhibition still provides part of its benefit

[lynx]

Does anyone know long term effects of therapeutic dep? As in, I read that its irreversible MAOI-B, but does it regenerate after a certain period of time? I have heard that 2 weeks to get it out of your system, but is that after a SINGLE dose? Or does it somehow build up in your system and take longer and longer to get out. After baselining your body to it, can you spread out the dosage to just keep yourself at that level so that you don't get a "build up" but just a staying at the same level type dosage?? Anyone know?

Thanks again!
Olav23

Deprenyl is an irreversible inhibitor, so once the MAO-B is knocked out, it needs to be replaced, that it what takes time.

As far as dosing, most of the recommendations I have seen are based on age ranges, you probably saw the same ranges.

The long term effects are unsatisfying in healthy humans and it has not delivered as hoped in Parkinson's.

Now, Rasagiline, that is the new superstar molecule, my doc says they think that is what Michael J. Fox is taking. Hopefully it will be approved and we can all benefit.

On that note, Lundbeck, a Danish Co. is marketing Rasagiline in the developed world and they developed and license Memantine, so for anyone looking for a long term stock play, they are a good bet.

Edited by lynx, 11 July 2004 - 03:28 PM.