30 replies to this topic

[medievil]

I used to get more clarity but now i feel foggy again, i dont know why as ive only been taking piracetam for 2 weeks.

I'm taking 4 grams a day.

[medievil]

Actually i added in 11 grams of inositol every night, could that be causing the brainfog?

[FunkOdyssey]

Could be the inositol, and/or dose of piracetam is too high, and/or insufficient choline.

[medievil]

I have no choline source except lecithin, cant get anything else as those sites to order from only accept visa etc and i can only pay using bank transfer.

[FunkOdyssey]

In that case I would eat eggs daily and reduce the dose of piracetam until fog disappears (assuming inositol does not turn out to be the problem).

[Imagination]

11g of inositol! that's a lot, it's got to be the inositol, that makes me a bit foggy even at low doses. Or maybe your just working too hard and tired.

[acantelopepope]

I have no choline source except lecithin, cant get anything else as those sites to order from only accept visa etc and i can only pay using bank transfer.

How did you feel after taking 11g Inositol?

For me it was great the first couple of times, then after that I found it gave me horrible diarrhea, so I stopped using it.

4g Piracetam is usually not too much for first time users, but for me it seems to be a sure way to cause brain fog. My advice would be to try 300mg divided into 3 doses, then titrate from there.

edit: Whose products are you using?

Edited by acantelopepope, 01 October 2009 - 05:58 PM.

[medievil]

I have no choline source except lecithin, cant get anything else as those sites to order from only accept visa etc and i can only pay using bank transfer.

How did you feel after taking 11g Inositol?

For me it was great the first couple of times, then after that I found it gave me horrible diarrhea, so I stopped using it.

4g Piracetam is usually not too much for first time users, but for me it seems to be a sure way to cause brain fog. My advice would be to try 300mg divided into 3 doses, then titrate from there.

edit: Whose products are you using?

I got piracetam prescribed by my docter and got the lecithin from a local store that sells stupplements and stuff like that, also got rhodiola, ashwaghanda all from my local pharmacy, they can order anything for me here.

Apart from airsealed i cant order much online as most sources dont accept western union etc.

I got terrible OCD so i felt pretty shitty when taking the inositol in hope of feeling better.

[FunkOdyssey]

I would recommend NAC over inositol, its much easier to dose and doesn't destroy the gut.

[medievil]

I would recommend NAC over inositol, its much easier to dose and doesn't destroy the gut.

I wanted to try inositol for OCD, but if turns out to cause this brainfog i wont keep taking it anywhay.

[FunkOdyssey]

Yes, I am suggesting NAC specifically for OCD, there are several studies suggesting that NAC can reduce obsessive/compulsive behavior.

[medievil]

Yes, I am suggesting NAC specifically for OCD, there are several studies suggesting that NAC can reduce obsessive/compulsive behavior.

Didnt realize that, but my ocd is only mental, ive never had any problems with compulsive behaver, but i'l try it.
Whats the dosage for treating those symptons?

[FunkOdyssey]

Anywhere from 600mg - 2400mg daily have been used in psychiatric studies. The abstracts for the few that relate more directly to OCD do not specify dosage, if you have full text access check them out though. I would try 600mg 2x or 3x daily.

Edited by FunkOdyssey, 01 October 2009 - 08:48 PM.

[medievil]

Is it possible the piracetam just got more effective so my doses are too high? did this happen to anyone before?
As ive taken my evening 2 gram dose and the fog got whorse?

[meursault]

Yes, I am suggesting NAC specifically for OCD, there are several studies suggesting that NAC can reduce obsessive/compulsive behavior.

Do you know of any other neurological effects of NAC?

[FunkOdyssey]

This abstract summarizes effects that have been studied:

CNS Spectr. 2009 Jul;14(7):357-60.
Nail-Biting Stuff? The Effect of N-acetyl Cysteine on Nail-Biting.
Berk M, Jeavons S, Dean OM, Dodd S, Moss K, Gama CS, Malhi GS.

Department of Clinical and Biomedical Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia.

N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) is a widely available nutraceutical with a variety of actions. As a precursor of cysteine and glutathione, it has antioxidant properties that may impact on mood and contribute to an effect on impulsivity and obsessive behaviour. Via its additional effect on glutamate via the cystine-glutamate exchange system, NAC has been shown to mediate impulsivity in preclinical models of addiction, reduce craving, and cue extinction. Further, by boosting glutathione, NAC acts as a potent antioxidant and has been shown in two positive, large-scale randomized placebo-controlled trials to affect negative symptoms in schizophrenia and depression in bipolar disorder. We describe three cases in which its actions specifically on nail-biting and associated anxiety may offer a potential treatment. The spontaneous findings are reported as part of an ongoing treatment trial examining the utility of NAC in bipolar disorder. Its actions, if robustly replicated, also point to potential treatment targets in glutathione or glutamate pathways in the brain.

PMID: 19773711

[brain]

i'm too lazy to try and look up the abstract right now, but i remember reading one where it demonstrated that piracetam causes a buildup on inositol even without dosing seperately. i took a piracetam with choline/inositol combination once and ran into some mild loss of efficacy, but piracetam has also always been unreliable for me.

what i'd suggest is cutting back on the dosage. i actually find that piracetam's effects peak after 4 - 5 days for me, after which the effects start to diminish. this might be because i already have a near-optimal level of choline, or that i'm sensitive to piracetam, or also that the piracetam causes depression in me when the levels get too high. i'm pretty sure there is some 5HT/DA antagonism going on there, and that probably only gets stronger and stronger. other studies have actually shown that piracetam increases dopamine.

i'd suggest trying a much lower dosage once you reach peak effects, using it moreso as a maintenance dose of sorts. maybe .5 - 1 gram daily, or .5 grams twice daily. like funk said, eat some eggs for breakfast or get a better choline source. it's possible you're already on the other side of the U curve. with piracetam there seems to be a fine line there.

in conclusion: more is not better with piracetam. it's effects build up as your acetlycholine recepter density increases. so when it works for a while and then stops working, this should be a alarm that you've gone too far onto the other side of the dose response curve and that you need to tamper down your dose until you reach that level again. sometimes i'll even stop taking piracetam completely and after 1 - 3 days i'll notice that the good effects of the drug come back again despite me not even being on it. i think this has to do with up/downregulation.

hope this helps

Edited by brain, 03 October 2009 - 02:30 AM.

[brain]

i take 1 gram a day, by the way, and find this is the best dose for me.

[medievil]

i'm too lazy to try and look up the abstract right now, but i remember reading one where it demonstrated that piracetam causes a buildup on inositol even without dosing seperately. i took a piracetam with choline/inositol combination once and ran into some mild loss of efficacy, but piracetam has also always been unreliable for me.

what i'd suggest is cutting back on the dosage. i actually find that piracetam's effects peak after 4 - 5 days for me, after which the effects start to diminish. this might be because i already have a near-optimal level of choline, or that i'm sensitive to piracetam, or also that the piracetam causes depression in me when the levels get too high. i'm pretty sure there is some 5HT/DA antagonism going on there, and that probably only gets stronger and stronger. other studies have actually shown that piracetam increases dopamine.

i'd suggest trying a much lower dosage once you reach peak effects, using it moreso as a maintenance dose of sorts. maybe .5 - 1 gram daily, or .5 grams twice daily. like funk said, eat some eggs for breakfast or get a better choline source. it's possible you're already on the other side of the U curve. with piracetam there seems to be a fine line there.

in conclusion: more is not better with piracetam. it's effects build up as your acetlycholine recepter density increases. so when it works for a while and then stops working, this should be a alarm that you've gone too far onto the other side of the dose response curve and that you need to tamper down your dose until you reach that level again. sometimes i'll even stop taking piracetam completely and after 1 - 3 days i'll notice that the good effects of the drug come back again despite me not even being on it. i think this has to do with up/downregulation.

hope this helps

Allright thank you, i've eaten eggs today and have taken 1 gram of piracetam and we'll see how it works out

[medievil]

I'm feeling way to foggy again (more then before i started taken piracetam), tomorrow i'l try half a gram.

[medievil]

I tried 0.5 gram piracetam and i still dont have the clarity back.

Is it possible that its caused by more sleep?

[meursault]

Placebo effect?

[navyblue]

Sounds like the Piracetam needs more choline to feed off. I would try upping the Choline and laying off the Inositol and see what happens after 2 or 3 days.

The Inositol could be a big issue in the matter as well. For me taking Inositol helps with my ADHD, but it causes some my body temp to go way up and I start feeling like I have a fever. Later on the day and towards night I tend to get a little cloudy while on it. And that was after 4grams of the stuff.

[medievil]

Sounds like the Piracetam needs more choline to feed off. I would try upping the Choline and laying off the Inositol and see what happens after 2 or 3 days.

The Inositol could be a big issue in the matter as well. For me taking Inositol helps with my ADHD, but it causes some my body temp to go way up and I start feeling like I have a fever. Later on the day and towards night I tend to get a little cloudy while on it. And that was after 4grams of the stuff.

I stopped taking the inositol for days now, and the only choline sources i've got are eggs and lecithin.

[medievil]

I stoppd taking the piracetam, no matter what i did the clarity didnt come back, right now i'm on a sulpiride trial for motivation and i added in NAC today for OCD.

Turns out the inositol didnt cause the fog so i will probebly start taking it again, this time i will titrate my doses op slow to avoid that bad gut feeling the next morning.

Edited by medievil, 09 October 2009 - 09:08 AM.

[acantelopepope]

I stoppd taking the piracetam, no matter what i did the clarity didnt come back, right now i'm on a sulpiride trial for motivation and i added in NAC today for OCD.

Turns out the inositol didnt cause the fog so i will probebly start taking it again, this time i will titrate my doses op slow to avoid that bad gut feeling the next morning.

Would you say you feel more clarity with no piracetam?

I agree with Brain completely: piracetam and choline both seem to have a very sensitive dose-response curve.

I am utterly confused as to why more people have not experienced this or reported it. All publications like Smart Drugs I & II give the impression that you can't overdo it with Piracetam. This also seems to be the advice we give to first-time users.

How many others have experienced:
a) increased clarity while using piracetam+choline for a period (2 weeks to 2 months, etc.) and then:
b) a very noticeable decline in cognition to the point of worse functioning than without the combination?

Let your voice be heard.

[brain]

I tried 0.5 gram piracetam and i still dont have the clarity back.

Is it possible that its caused by more sleep?

it is in fact possible that it's caused by more sleep, or even the same amount of sleep. is the piracetam making you sleep more? vamping up your acetylcholine system is going to increase the duration and intensity of your REM cycles, and it's possible that this is going to have some kind of impact on your clarity or mood. i've actually been suspicious before that it's necessary to sleep less while on piracetam after noticing that the effects seem to come back on days when i forced myself to wake up earlier for whatever reason. i usually have a tendency to oversleep (around 10 - 12 hours per night). not sure if cutting down on sleep is really going to be a workable or healthy solution for this, however.

anyway, i think it's essential that you try a better choline source before giving up on piracetam. I'd suggest alpha-GPC. i'm really not sure if the eggs are going to cut it or not.

another thing. i have no idea why, but the piracetam/alpha-gpc combo doesn't seem to kick in for me unless i drink some amount of caffeine. i don't know why that is, but i've noticed it again and again. piracetam's effects have been so unreliable for me that i've kind of been put into the position of coming up with a lot of different possibilities for why this is, and so i've noticed a lot of different connections. i don't know how accurate they are, but you could try the ones i mentioned. piracetam has a very distinct feel to it for me, and has effects which are strange and which i can't replicate, but i can notice them and can notice that they're correlated with the times that piracetam seems to work in its typically desired way. memory flashbacks caused by very loose/strange connections are one of these effects. for example, recently: hearing a whooshing sound and immediately making the connection (it's not even a choice, or a thought process, it's something which pops up instantaneously) to a level on super mario 64, which i hadn't played since i was a 7 year old kid, which had a similar sound effect on a particular part of one of the levels. now, normally i'd just hear a whooshing sound and that would be the end of it. i don't know if this is interhemispheric communication or what.

Edited by brain, 10 October 2009 - 07:54 AM.

[medievil]

I stoppd taking the piracetam, no matter what i did the clarity didnt come back, right now i'm on a sulpiride trial for motivation and i added in NAC today for OCD.

Turns out the inositol didnt cause the fog so i will probebly start taking it again, this time i will titrate my doses op slow to avoid that bad gut feeling the next morning.

Would you say you feel more clarity with no piracetam?

I agree with Brain completely: piracetam and choline both seem to have a very sensitive dose-response curve.

I am utterly confused as to why more people have not experienced this or reported it. All publications like Smart Drugs I & II give the impression that you can't overdo it with Piracetam. This also seems to be the advice we give to first-time users.

How many others have experienced:
a) increased clarity while using piracetam+choline for a period (2 weeks to 2 months, etc.) and then:
b) a very noticeable decline in cognition to the point of worse functioning than without the combination?

Let your voice be heard.

That is exactly what happened, i took the piracetam and it made me incredivle foggy, after wich i lowered the dose but it didnt work, i tried 0.5 gram but i was still foggy. A few days i felt more foggy with piracetam but that settled so when i stopped taking it, it was the same level of fog.

Edited by medievil, 10 October 2009 - 10:08 AM.

[medievil]

I tried 0.5 gram piracetam and i still dont have the clarity back.

Is it possible that its caused by more sleep?

it is in fact possible that it's caused by more sleep, or even the same amount of sleep. is the piracetam making you sleep more? vamping up your acetylcholine system is going to increase the duration and intensity of your REM cycles, and it's possible that this is going to have some kind of impact on your clarity or mood. i've actually been suspicious before that it's necessary to sleep less while on piracetam after noticing that the effects seem to come back on days when i forced myself to wake up earlier for whatever reason. i usually have a tendency to oversleep (around 10 - 12 hours per night). not sure if cutting down on sleep is really going to be a workable or healthy solution for this, however.

anyway, i think it's essential that you try a better choline source before giving up on piracetam. I'd suggest alpha-GPC. i'm really not sure if the eggs are going to cut it or not.

another thing. i have no idea why, but the piracetam/alpha-gpc combo doesn't seem to kick in for me unless i drink some amount of caffeine. i don't know why that is, but i've noticed it again and again. piracetam's effects have been so unreliable for me that i've kind of been put into the position of coming up with a lot of different possibilities for why this is, and so i've noticed a lot of different connections. i don't know how accurate they are, but you could try the ones i mentioned. piracetam has a very distinct feel to it for me, and has effects which are strange and which i can't replicate, but i can notice them and can notice that they're correlated with the times that piracetam seems to work in its typically desired way. memory flashbacks caused by very loose/strange connections are one of these effects. for example, recently: hearing a whooshing sound and immediately making the connection (it's not even a choice, or a thought process, it's something which pops up instantaneously) to a level on super mario 64, which i hadn't played since i was a 7 year old kid, which had a similar sound effect on a particular part of one of the levels. now, normally i'd just hear a whooshing sound and that would be the end of it. i don't know if this is interhemispheric communication or what.

Allright thx, i'l see what i can do to get some choline.

[dumbdumb]

Hi Medievil -
sorry to hear about your bad luck with piracetam. I was running into similar trouble and have stopped taking it for a while myself.
I did find that the following measures do help at least somewhat, at least in my case:

Taking a mixture of racetams rather than just piracetam. Add in some oxi, or ani, or whatever - still taking mostly piracetam, but with a chaser, or dressing, so to say.

Trying different choline sources - or taking different ones concurrently. I have my best luck when I take both Alpha-GPC AND CDP choline, at once.

Like Brain, caffeine - or some kind of stimulant - seems to help too. I go for chocamine or sulbutiamine, usually.


Brain, say - are you advocating the taking of piracetam before sleep, or warning against it? I thought that piracetam sapped one of acetylcholine, not vamped it up? And that the more REM sleep one gets, the better?