18 replies to this topic

[chroncile]

I have been suffering from depression for over 4 years now and one thing that really bothers me about it is that I cannot laugh normally; I can watch the funniest videos and only get a slight chuckle out of them whereas others might complain about dying from laughter. I'm also extremely unmotivated, have no libido, and I have to sleep for more than 12 hours everyday. Anyway, I have noticed that the longer I stay up at night, the better I can laugh at funny things, but not as much as this one time when I stayed up late and took cold medicine.

I remember this one night in the winter of 2011/2012 I was really sick and had to take cold medicine for it. It was late at night and I had to sleep so I took Benlyin All-In-One Cold & Flu Nightime Syrup and I watched this video on YouTube and I laughed really hard at it. I couldn't remember the last time I laughed as hard as I did when I watched that video. It's like someone turned up the intensity of my laughter from almost 1 to 7 on a scale of 1-10. I want to be like this everyday. I want to be able to laugh like normal people do. It's really frustrating when you want to be able to laugh, but nothing can make you laugh. It feels like you've been robbed of your emotions.

Now obviously I can't take the medicine everyday, but I was wondering if there is something that I can take everyday that will produce similar results to the syrup. One of the ingredients in the syrup is Chlorpheniramine which is an SNRI. Could this have been the cause of the enhanced laughter?

[gizmobrain]

Wow... Benylin looks like a party.

Chlorpheniramine Maleate is a histamine H1 receptor antagonist (so probably anticholinergic as well) and a serotonin-norepinephrine re-uptake inhibitor.
Dextromethorphan is a non-selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor and a sigma-1 receptor agonist, and causes NMDA receptor antagonism. In massive quantities, it is a dissociative hallucinogen.
Pseudoephedrine is an amphetamine derivative that releases norepinephrine, and causes dopamine re-uptake inhibition.

That is a cocktail for fun for anyone!

Edited by zrbarnes, 13 June 2012 - 08:50 AM.

[hippocampus]

more healthy alternatives:
- vitamin C - antihistaminic
- zinc and magnesium - NMDA antagonists

[jadamgo]

Yeah, you got a boost of all 3 monoamines. That explains it. If you're interested in a pharmaceutical antidepressant, you'd probably respond well to milnacipran or bupropion. (Maybe bupropion+escitalopram or bupropion+venlafaxine.)

I'm not seeing the H1, cholinergic, or NMDAR antagonism as relevant. I can't speak for the sigma-1 activity, except to say that it's probably miniscule at common medicinal doses of dextromethorphan -- only hallucinogenic doses seem to involve strong sigma effects.

[chroncile]

I already tried bupropion for 7 weeks and its effects were very subtle. I was taking 150 mg XL. I couldn't take 300 mg because the side effects were just too much for me.

I also tried Selegiline 5 mg for 30 days and it too did nothing.

[gizmobrain]

I already tried bupropion for 7 weeks and its effects were very subtle. I was taking 150 mg XL. I couldn't take 300 mg because the side effects were just too much for me.

I also tried Selegiline 5 mg for 30 days and it too did nothing.

Both of these mainly influence dopamine and norepinephrine.

Since serotonin and dopamine compete with each other, directly increasing dopamine with medicine can make you less emotional, less prone to laughter, etc. I'm pretty sure serotonin is what you are enjoying when on the medicine.

There is a lot of debate on the role of serotonin in depression though, because merely increasing serotonin in the brain has not proven to help as much as we originally thought it should. In fact, its been linked to increased risk of suicide, time and time again (not something you want in an anti-depressant!).

But, if you want to increase the duration of your own serotonin release, there are a handful of herbal MAOI-A's. Lots of people have had success with them. Rhodiola Rosea is a pretty popular one right now.

[chroncile]

The reason why I tried selegiline and wellbutrin was because I thought I had low levels of dopamine and/or noradrenaline since I have these symptoms:

• Absolutely no sex drive. Even the hottest porn doesn't get me turned on. Looking at a hot girl outside is like looking at a tree; there's no difference for me. I have no urge to masturbate or to get with a girl or anything.
• Severe anhedonia
• Low energy
• Absolutely no motivation to do anything. This might be related to the no sex drive thing.
• Procrastinate about everything
• Have to sleep for more than 12 hours and still wake up tired
• Poor attention span. I'm pretty sure I have ADHD-PI since I remember having attention issues long before my depression started
• Poor learning ability
• Poor memory

What do you think I should try to remedy my problems? I am exercising, eating right and trying to sleep for 7-8 hours at a time, even though I need 12 hours or more. The only motivation I have right now is to become like a normal person again.

[gizmobrain]

If it's been this way for your entire life and not after some traumatic experience, I would guess you have a high COMT profile, like me. I've had every symptom you list, with a little less severity. The CILTEP stack has been a huge win for me.

Before I stumbled upon the CILTEP stack, my doctor always wanted me to take drugs like Cymbalta and Effexor for depression and low motivation. I knew that it had taken 20 some years of having these issues for it to actually make me mildly depressed, and that the depression was not one of a chemical imbalance, but because I blamed myself for all the mistakes I had made because of my "laziness". I couldn't see a way out. I think that would make anyone mildly depressed. Unfortunately, depression makes all of the original symptoms worse, and obscures the underlying issue. Seeing my mom take various SSRI's, SNRI's, and Wellbutrin over the years, and knowing the horrible short term side effects (and not knowing the long term side effects), I never wanted to touch them. Thank God I didn't, since the depression went away once I was able to take control of my life again.

What has worked for me (I'm still tweaking it for long term usage): Forskolin + Quercetin + Caffeine in the morning; Magnesium L-threonate + Melatonin at bedtime.

I'm currently experimenting with various herbal stimulants in combination with CILTEP. When I had insurance, I took 5mg of Adderall IR daily, but I wanted to get away from it (it was much better than the 60mg I was taking before CILTEP). Not that I recommend it, but if you were going the amphetamine route, I would suggest a low dose (5-10mg) d-amphetamine extended release in combination with forskolin and quercetin (or artichoke extract).

Also, sublingual methylcobalamin helped me overcome a moderate b12 deficiency that regular b12 wasn't helping (my blood work looked fine, but some of the symptoms you mentioned can be related to b12 deficiency). I recommend Jarrow's brand. Side note: if you are b12 deficient, make sure to have potassium gluconate or some bananas on hand for the first week you start treating it. As your body repairs itself, it will use a bunch of potassium from your muscles, and since most people don't actually get the RDA of potassium, it causes muscle cramping.

Edited by zrbarnes, 15 June 2012 - 08:38 PM.

[gizmobrain]

Can't edit my post, but this is what the last paragraph should say :

My blood work looked fine, but some of my symptoms could be related to b12 deficiency. I found out that the regular CBC blood tests don't really show if you have a metabolism issue, so I picked up a $5 bottle of Jarrow's brand sublingual Methylcobalamin as a test. The first day I took it, my whole body/brain felt amazing.

Side note: if you are b12 deficient, make sure to have Potassium Gluconate or some bananas on hand for the first couple weeks you start treating it. As your body repairs itself, it will use a bunch of potassium from your muscles, and since most people don't actually get the RDA of potassium, it causes muscle cramping.

Along these same lines, I would give methylfolate and P5P (pyridoxal-5'-phosphate) a shot. There are a lot of people with genetic vitamin metabolism issues that never get treated because doctors seem to think that if you are young, then you can't possibly be deficient. Since they are so cheap to try, it is always where I recommend starting.

[chroncile]

Hi zrbarnes, what is a CILTEP stack? Is it what you currently take? The forskolin, quercetin, caffeine, magnesium and melatonin?

Anyway, I'm taking Panax Ginseng in the morning with fish oil and coffee (caffeine). I take a LEF multivitamin in the afternoon which contains 150 mcg of Vitamin B12, but it's the cyancobalamin compound.

So I'm wondering how those herbs you take benefit you? How do they work? What have you felt and how long after you started taking them did you notice the effects?

[gizmobrain]

The whole CILTEP thread is pretty long, but it is a good read. If you read through it, you can see where I started reporting how Forskolin + Artichoke + Adderall demolished all of my symptoms.

It's a work in progress, and everyone is a little bit different in what brands they use, what they prefer, and what dosage. But from the very first day I combined the 3, I had immediate results on energy, motivation, concentration, passion and libido.

The only missing piece of the puzzle for me is working memory. Mine has not seemed to improve much. But those things that make it into long term seem to be much stronger now.

Here is a nice summary post:

I got a PM asking me to answer a couple of questions.... So here's a little FAQ. Remember, this was all invented on this thread by me piecing the scientific research together so please report back with any information you may have on this stack or studies you think may shed light on it. All the information presented here is based on my personal experiences, the journal articles I have referenced in this thread and contributions from forum members.

What is the effective dosage?

I have experimented around with a lot of different dosages and the most predictable and reliable for me is

*Herbal PDE4 Inhibitor
one to two pills Now Foods Artichoke Extract *or* Source Naturals Activated Quercetin (1 or 2 pills max),
*cAMP increase
One Solaray Forskolin pill and
*Dopamine Source
2 or 3 Now Phenylalanine pills.

I take this in the morning and do not re-dose for the rest of the day. If I want to pick things up a little, I add some caffeine later in the day as necessary.

Your results may vary. IMHO, dosages are better too low than too high.

I feel weird sometimes is this because of the Forskolin?

I would suggest lowering dosages. Yes, this stack is powerful.

Or could it be because of the Quercetin?

1g a day is waaaaay too much Quercetin in my experience. 3 Artichoke Pills is also too many for me. 2 is a high dosage that I use when studying hard crap like the MITX course. 1 is good for general social interaction.

Or is it the L-Phenylalanine?

Luckily, with L-Phenylalanine the body is in charge of how much gets metabolized, it's an essential amino acid after all, so the Phenylalanine is not where I would expect to run into dosage problems.

What about Coffee?

Coffee tends to wear off really fast but seems to positively stack. I use it to give little boosts to the stack throughout the day.

What about Tolerance?

I can only speak from personal experience. However, I've been taking this stack since last December. I was really worried that it was too good and there were going to be some sort of side effects, which is why I only vaguely hinted at how this stack works until recently. So far so good and I haven't built up any tolerance, neither has ZRBarnes or anyone else taking it so far that I'm aware of. In fact, ZRBarnes' says his Adderal tolerance has significantly decreased on this stack.

What about DOPAC build up and PDE1-5 Inhibition?

Based on the evidence I've seen, I don't think this stack increases dopamine metabolism significantly enough to cause excessive DOPAC build up. It's my theory that the main effects come from the increased downstream effects of dopamine on memory per unit of dopamine.

PDE1-5 inhibition except 4 are a bit of an unknown. I haven't researched these deeply. Just to be safe, I wouldn't take Vinpocetine(PDE1) or Horny Goat Weed(PDE5) with this stack, as it may increase their effects unpredictably, for better or worse. Resveratrol works on PDE1, 3 and 4... So I wouldn't recommend it as the main PDE inhibitor either.

It is possible to take too much of this stack. When that happens I take GABA to slow things down (Natural Factors chewable brand is pretty good). The effect of the stack is really awesome IMHO, so it's easy to think that more will help but at least in my experience, my brain has its limit and any more than that brings negative effects.

I've found that it stacks well with:

Magnesium Threonate (at Night)
Piracetam
Caffeine

Does not stack well with:

Adderall (dosage needs to be greatly reduced) (Thanks ZRBarnes)
Aniracetam ( LTP induction causes Aniracetam to act as a GABA like signal inhibitor) (Thanks Health Nutty)
In my experience, stacking with pramiracetam is a bit weird. Makes me feel unmotivated and too relaxed. Probably similar to the aniracetam effect.

Edited by zrbarnes, 15 June 2012 - 09:16 PM.

[nupi]

The reason why I tried selegiline and wellbutrin was because I thought I had low levels of dopamine and/or noradrenaline since I have these symptoms:

• Absolutely no sex drive. Even the hottest porn doesn't get me turned on. Looking at a hot girl outside is like looking at a tree; there's no difference for me. I have no urge to masturbate or to get with a girl or anything.
• Severe anhedonia
• Low energy
• Absolutely no motivation to do anything. This might be related to the no sex drive thing.
• Procrastinate about everything
• Have to sleep for more than 12 hours and still wake up tired
• Poor attention span. I'm pretty sure I have ADHD-PI since I remember having attention issues long before my depression started
• Poor learning ability
• Poor memory

What do you think I should try to remedy my problems? I am exercising, eating right and trying to sleep for 7-8 hours at a time, even though I need 12 hours or more. The only motivation I have right now is to become like a normal person again.

Sounds a lot like the symptoms that low Testosterone would cause (regarding learning/memory I am not sure). I would try and see what an endocrinologist would find (still have that to do on my own plate, although I am not quite at zero sex drive, just not far from it)... Or maybe you are gay and have not figured it out yet?

[gizmobrain]

If you can afford getting your hormones tested, it might be something to check into.

Forskolin has been show to have a positive impact on Testosterone for those with low Testosterone, and may be related to why some people lose weight, gain lean muscle mass, and have a more positive outlook while taking it. It won't push it above healthy limits though, so no "roid rage".

[nupi]

Only references for Forskolin increasing T I could find was in obese men. Do we know whether it would do so in otherwise healthy men with low T, too?

[chroncile]

The whole CILTEP thread is pretty long, but it is a good read. If you read through it, you can see where I started reporting how Forskolin + Artichoke + Adderall demolished all of my symptoms.

It's a work in progress, and everyone is a little bit different in what brands they use, what they prefer, and what dosage. But from the very first day I combined the 3, I had immediate results on energy, motivation, concentration, passion and libido.

The only missing piece of the puzzle for me is working memory. Mine has not seemed to improve much. But those things that make it into long term seem to be much stronger now.

Here is a nice summary post:

I read that Forskolin increases progesterone which is bad for males and can lower libido. Wouldn't taking this have a bad effect on libido?

Anyway, I can't get adderall since I have no insurance to pay for it and I have not been evaluated for ADHD, but I do know that I have it.

The reason why I tried selegiline and wellbutrin was because I thought I had low levels of dopamine and/or noradrenaline since I have these symptoms:

• Absolutely no sex drive. Even the hottest porn doesn't get me turned on. Looking at a hot girl outside is like looking at a tree; there's no difference for me. I have no urge to masturbate or to get with a girl or anything.
• Severe anhedonia
• Low energy
• Absolutely no motivation to do anything. This might be related to the no sex drive thing.
• Procrastinate about everything
• Have to sleep for more than 12 hours and still wake up tired
• Poor attention span. I'm pretty sure I have ADHD-PI since I remember having attention issues long before my depression started
• Poor learning ability
• Poor memory

What do you think I should try to remedy my problems? I am exercising, eating right and trying to sleep for 7-8 hours at a time, even though I need 12 hours or more. The only motivation I have right now is to become like a normal person again.

Sounds a lot like the symptoms that low Testosterone would cause (regarding learning/memory I am not sure). I would try and see what an endocrinologist would find (still have that to do on my own plate, although I am not quite at zero sex drive, just not far from it)... Or maybe you are gay and have not figured it out yet?

I got a blood test done a week ago and I'm still waiting for the results to come back. I had to tell my doctor to test for testosterone and prolactin levels because of my dead sex drive. He kept insisting that it was because of my depression that I have no sex drive.

If you can afford getting your hormones tested, it might be something to check into.

Forskolin has been show to have a positive impact on Testosterone for those with low Testosterone, and may be related to why some people lose weight, gain lean muscle mass, and have a more positive outlook while taking it. It won't push it above healthy limits though, so no "roid rage".

But doesn't it also increase progesterone?

Ok so here's what I'm going to order from iHerb:

• Thorne Research, Coleus Forskohlii
• Now Foods, Quercetin with Bromelain

Anything else I should get or is that good enough?

[abelard lindsay]

Ok so here's what I'm going to order from iHerb:

• Thorne Research, Coleus Forskohlii
• Now Foods, Quercetin with Bromelain

Anything else I should get or is that good enough?

I usually add a dopamine pre-cursor like L-Phenylalanine. The Quercetin is quite strong in this stack. I have not had good experiences taking more than 2 of the activated Quercetin pills.

[chroncile]

Okay so I'm wondering how exactly the CILTEP stack is going to help me? zrbarnes mentioned that I might have a high COMT profile so does the CILTEP stack work against that or what? It's suppose to increase cAMP from what I've read, but what exactly does cAMP have to do with catecholamines? Can someone please explain this to me?

[chroncile]

No one knows?

[Mr Serendipity]

I had the same problem with funny youtube videos. I'd watch them, find them funny sort of, but wouldn't laugh.

However when I was experimenting with megadosing fish oil 60g/30g (60/30 capsules) a day, my laughter came back in full force, and I had the same effect as you, laughing at funny videos became easy.

I now just take 10 fish oil, I think it works at this dose, can't say really, I think my laughter leveled out to normal now, I do laugh more often, and happier when making jokes with friends.

I think it's to do with serotonin production, and I remember reading years ago fish oil helps increase serotonin.