10 replies to this topic

[coolcalmjoe]

Hey, just read up on nootropics for the first time last night and have been browsing around the site for the last couple of hours. I am interested in going right into this starting with the essential starter's supplements and have read up on some other noob's stacks, but figured it would be best to customize the stacks to my own needs. I am very unfamiliar with how chemicals react with your body, so I will not feel patronized if ya'll feel the need to talk to me like a child.

Starting with some background, I am a 24 year old male who weighs 220 and stand 6'4" tall. I work out/run about 4-5x a week and have put myself on a healthy diet recently. I drink about 10 shots of vodka 2-3x a month and smoke marijuana daily. I have taken adderall and xanax off and on over the last few years and believe that consistent adderall would do much to help me succeed in life. I have taken 30 mg XR Adderall 3x a week for the past 2 months and have learned more about computer networking than I have in my whole life, but I am running out. I have been acquiring these through friends who have prescriptions and found that my insurance does not cover psychiatric visits. I am not in a position to be spending 300 dollars to visit the psychiatrist in order to get more of the adderall.

Needless to say, I have vastly enjoyed the productive state I've been in for the past 2 months and would like my life to continue heading in this positive direction without having to dish out 300 dollars a month for my adderall prescription. This has led me to nootropics.

With my background, what would be a good starter stack for myself? If need be, I can completely eliminate alcohol from my life, however the benefits of marijuana are too great and I would need a very very very good reason to quit. However, I can definitely reduce the amount I smoke or keep it to certain time periods in the day. From some of the stuff I've read on the website, I would much prefer to phase these supplements in, rather than taking them all at once, so that I can feel out the effects and add on to my stack more efficiently.

I try to be aware of myself and have been trying to modify my behavior to lead this productive lifestyle without the need for drugs. However, I've found that even if I force myself to study without adderall, I still cannot gather or retain the knowledge anywhere near as efficiently as I can when on adderall.

Not sure if there is a lot of unneccessary information here, but just wanted to give a full scope so that I can start off on the right track and not have to back up too much later on. From what I've gathered on the site so far, it appears that piracetam is one that would be good to start with as well as chloine if my body reacts poorly with the piracetam. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

[Mr. Pink]

http://www.smarterno...ur-first-stack/

[Crispy Cat]

Research! Research! Research!
You sounding like an intelligent person but a couple of hours on any site even this one that has the best information i have found so far is not nearly enough!
Nootropics are a very exciting subject and most people do want to dive right in! but anything that alters brain chemicals and function that has not been prescribed (and some prescribed) even with extremely low toxicity should never be taken lightly! (personally i read 3 books cover to cover on "smart drugs" and spent a good few months on this and other sites just reading before i bought my first bag of piracetam and im honestly still learning new things every day)
As such i would recommend several months of research into the chemicals most often mentioned on this forum before jumping into the deep end!
also nootropics are not cheap and although starter stacks will be considerably cheaper than $300usd pcm you will be very unlikely to get the same results as adderall on just one nootropic and even less likely for it to be the first one you try !
having said that i am certainly not trying to discourage you!
but you have to understand that nootropics requires alot more than just a few hours to get right .. you should be looking at month long trials with each substance you acquire (with some it has even taken me a few months of daily dose to find the perfect dose) and if you are currently doing courses you may want to think about when test dates are etc or wait till term time is finished before dropping the adderall which you already know works
yet when you find a chemical combination that really works for you it can be great! you can feel like the person you want to be and vastly improve your chosen aspects

and a final word of warning ( i know i can be overly cautious sometimes) alot of racetams will change the effect you get from marijuana (which in itself seems to impair memory)

[coolcalmjoe]

Thank you Mr. Pink, that was a good read and will help me on my approach to starting. Appreciate your reply very much as well Cat. I have not ordered my stuff yet, although excited to do so, as I am definitely looking to research fully. I have taken many psychadelics and mind/body altering substances early in my college years, so I have tempered expectations when it comes to all forms of mind altering substances. Just saying that to show I will not be discouraged by results that are not completely blatant, as long as I know I am headed in the right direction. After a week or two of more research, I am planning to start on piracetam and order some choline incase I need that. This has just been what I've seen most people recommend starting on. I do plan to research this issue, but just to see if someone could get me started in the right direction; I plan to test racetams first and get the dosages correct before starting on other supplements that have noticable effects. What I'm wondering though is if it is better to start now on the stuff that shows benefits later on, such as the Lion's Mane, since that would not interfere with me trying to figure out certain supplemental effects.

Also, do ya'll generally get your information more from forums or published articles and such?

[Crispy Cat]

its really good to see someone taking the sensible approach!
i have read far too many threads started by people new to nootropics that think they can stack 10+ chemicals together at the highest recommended dose and come out like the main character in limitless often only to turn into a shaking self induced mess of mania and overstimulation

personally i use this forum more than anything else for my info! alot of the more chemistry minded individuals will post links to pubmed and other online articles but most of these are a little too complex for myself... for now

I agree with starting with piracetam it is really the most researched and well known racetam!
there is a very good post on piracetam dosage here : http://www.longecity...-48-grams-dose/
it can have a very subtle effect, however i find that after a week of 4.5 to 6g I no longer have to think about what word to use it just comes naturally and its often a better word than i would of struggled to use previously!

another thing you could do to help map your progress is to use the exercises on this site to track any changes in mental abilities! : http://www.cambridge...nsciences.co.uk
if you start before you get the piracetam then you can work through the learning curve and work out your baseline scores to compare once you have your chemicals

[coolcalmjoe]

That is funny that you mentioned Limitless, as I've noticed many parallels between adderall/nootropics and that movie. I read that thread that you provided, and it seems to be a good starting point. One thing I am not too clear on is the dosages. I read a few people stating that a flat 2.4-4.8g per dose would be sufficient, yet there are others who are taking 100 mg piracetam/kg. I'm assuming kg is your weight, so do these chemicals affect you differently depending on your weight? Basically, is my weight any factor when determining my dosages? Thanks for all the help.

Edited by coolcalmjoe, 12 October 2012 - 07:58 PM.

[Crispy Cat]

From what i have read myself even the branded drug says the dose is between 2.4 to 4.8g
it seems alot of people recomend doing a week at 4.8g letting your body become used to it then on week 2 using the 2.4g dose and working your way up from there until you find your sweet spot ....it may be that 2.4g is just right for you or maybe you feel it affects you better at higher dose..
Thats always part of the problem with nootropics as the effects are noticed by you the dose is more dependent on your personal brain chemistry and thats not an easy thing to lab test in a living human
so you are left with trial and error loosely based around others experiences!

Kg/mg conversion guides are normally very rough guides or based on lab test which have been converted from rat to human but do not correspond so well for nootropics as while a rat can appear to learn a maze faster he cant exactly tell you that he feels like god and you should be worshiping every squeek he makes!
for example at 70kg body weight if i was to take 7grams of piracitam 2 or 3 times a day i would get the choline headache and slight mania (feeling that the world centers around me and that im above everyone else) from the first dose and then getting brain fog on the second dose
however 4.5g twice a day (3 times on long or particularly hard days) works amazingly for me improving confidence (especially when taken with 20mg noopept) and improving verbal skills which is mainly noticeable after a week or so at 4.5g at which point i have found i can drop it down to 3g per dose as a maintenance dose to keep those effects

so while its not much help as you will still have to do alot of testing to do on yourself id say start at 4.8 (or 5g as its easier to weigh if you get powder) and do that for a week or 2 (unless you get effects that are too strong in which case half the dose and continue) .. once you feel that you "know" the drug better and can identify the effects you like then drop the dose again and find the minimum amount by adding 100mg to your dose each dose till you can get those desired effects!

Edited by Crispy Cat, 12 October 2012 - 09:16 PM.

[Mr. Pink]

you never know how you'll react to a new substance. better to start really carefully for a few days in my opinion and then slowly work your way up. if there's an unwanted effect, it's really easy to just cut back down.

also, on the topic of dosages, don't just use the straight mg/kg dose given for say rats. to convert to an adult human, you have to multiply that by 0.16. there's different factors for other lab animals.

[Crispy Cat]

you never know how you'll react to a new substance. better to start really carefully for a few days in my opinion and then slowly work your way up. if there's an unwanted effect, it's really easy to just cut back down.

also, on the topic of dosages, don't just use the straight mg/kg dose given for say rats. to convert to an adult human, you have to multiply that by 0.16. there's different factors for other lab animals.

while i agree wholeheartedly with you when it comes to most drugs id say piracetam has been tested to the point that we know its harmless and im a fairly strong believer in the attack dose with piracetam but thats just how it works for me..
however you do have a good point and maybe just to stay/get into the habit of good practices it would be a good idea to start day 1 with a small dose 800mg-1g just to test for any allergic reactions (as unlikely that is) before moving on to the recommended doses!

oh and my evil side suggests that you get a good taste of the piracetam before swallowing!

[panhedonic]

More to Pink's and Cat's point: I took Uridine and Piracetam started concurrently (on top of my preexisting stack) and I got serious brain-fog on a very important presentation day. It sucked, and it lasted for a few days. It's like suddenly someone says: you can't really speak clearly anymore, deal with it. I felt retarded.

And i still don't know whether it was P or U that did it. I'm re-starting with P today on a lower dose and see how I feel.

[coolcalmjoe]

I read up on piracetam for a bit yesterday and came upon way too many terms I did not understand. That got me really interested in how the brain functions and I have taken to reading about basic chemistry on my free time. Other than further research, I don't feel I have much more to do before starting on my nootropics quest. Will order some piracetam and choline this Thursday, and I am excited to get started. Will share if I stumble upon anything interesting. Thanks for all the help guys

@Crispy nice try evil, crispycat. One of the constants in the forums I read was regarding the taste