11 replies to this topic

[moleface]

I just started adrafinil this morning. I started with 300 mg, didn't feel a very noticeable effect, so I took another 300 mg a little over an hour later.

I became extremely drowsy within an hour of taking the second dose. I didn't feel sedated or mentally impaired, but I just felt the profound need to lay down and close my eyes. I ended up taking a three hour nap only a couple hours after I'd woken up from 9 hours in bed.

To make this matter even weirder, I've been a hardcore insomniac for years and I rarely sleep more than a consecutive hour at night. Being able to easily fall asleep like that is very notable to me, and it's so bizarre that it happened right after I took a drug that's meant to counteract narcolepsy of all things.

I took the adrafinil with a 12 oz cup of coffee. I'm also taking a stack of noopept, aniracetam, piracetam, and phenibut(which never makes me drowsy). I was also on a low dose of sida cordifolia and panax ginseng, both of which are so mild that I didn't worry about mixing them with another stimulant. I take sida for its liver regenerating effect and ginseng for its antioxidant and immune boosting properties, not for their fairly negligible stimulant effects. None of this should've interacted with the adrafinil as far as I can tell, aside from maybe the phenibut. But wiki says that modafinil may work via "inhibiting GABAergic neurotransmission", so if anything wouldn't that mean that it would make phenibut LESS effective?

I'm also in the process of recovering from a ridiculously severe pulled muscle I got from excessive exercise, so maybe the drowsiness is just due to my body trying to recuperate and has nothing to do with the drug.

Has anyone else here had this strange reaction to adafrinil?

Edited by moleface, 05 March 2013 - 09:10 PM.

[peakplasma]

Where did you get your Adrafinil?

I was disappointed with Adrafinil on my first day. I felt it took very long (6+ hours) to reach full effects - possibly since I took it with Milk Thistle(silymarin).

[moleface]

Where did you get your Adrafinil?

I was disappointed with Adrafinil on my first day. I felt it took very long (6+ hours) to reach full effects - possibly since I took it with Milk Thistle(silymarin).

I got mine from Cerebral Health.

That's interesting re: Milk Thistle. I've heard a little about it interfering with medications, but I honestly haven't looked enough into it to find out how it produces that side effect. I actually take sylymarin and NAC every day to try to counteract potential liver stress from longterm phenibut use.

The adafrinil was definitely doing something yesterday - I got a weird tingly feeling in my lips and tongue, very similar to what I get during the first couple weeks on a prescription SSRI. I already felt off yesterday, so I wasn't exactly in the best condition to discern the effects of a subtle drug. I've been a lot less in tune with my mind and body lately due to a serious muscle injury that's been preventing me from doing my usual daily workout routine.

I'm trying it today on an empty stomach and then waiting an hour before I take my usual mountain of other supplements.

[peakplasma]

I got mine from Cerebral Health.

I got mine from CH too. Check out my post here from a few days ago.

I don't want to jump to conclusions but I think that Cerebral Health's Adrafinil may have a problem with it.

I had tried Adrafinil powder a few years ago and it looked/smelled/tasted much differently - although, this was before Cephalon ceased production so perhaps it was a better formulation.

[moleface]

Yeah, that's interesting.

It's difficult to tell with nootropics though. I had the identical experience with phenibut when I first tried it - I was expecting more than the drug provided, and I also sat around consciously looking for the effects instead of just taking the stuff and then going about my day. Once I approached it with a different mindset and different expecations a couple years later, suddenly I was able to identify its effects.

I'm going to hold off on trying any more adrafinil until I'm in a better overall mood and I've been able to pick my exercise routine back up. It definitely does SOMETHING - it's just far far less overt than what I was expecting. Once spring break is over, I'm going to take it before class, forget about it, then later on try to gauge if my studies went any smoother than normal.

[moleface]

I tried it again over the last couple days, and I wanted to throw in my other experiences.

Yesterday I skipped the milk thistle, took 900 mg of adrafinil, and a few hours later got really severe hypertension to the point where I had to take a large dose of valerian root, phenibut, taurine, niacinamide and l-theanine then lie in bed with my eyes closed for about a half hour meditating on trying to decrease my heart rate (which I've successfully done as few times in the past, but I can't always pull off). I'm quite sure it wasn't a panic attack. I may have had something to do with the other mild stimulants I was taking along with the adrafinil.

Today I took 600 mg and only took a tiny dose of sida cordifolia and ginseng, which would normally not even be enough to give me the slightest stimulation. Within a couple hours, I was really unpleasantly stimulated with cold sweats. Six hours later I'm getting tingling in my lips, mouth and extremities, along with an odd tingly sensation behind my eyes that's difficult to describe. My brain has the saturated feeling of dopamine overload, sort of similar to when I used to smoke tobacco and I'd occasionally get a gross overstimulated feeling from taking in too much nicotine all at once.

Maybe the lack of milk thistle had something to do with it, or the fact that I was taking other stimulants(albeit mild ones). Or maybe this drug just responds to "priming". In any case, I'm only going to take 300 mg 2x a week on school days and never mix it with sida again.

Edited by moleface, 08 March 2013 - 09:22 PM.

[moleface]

Today I took 300 mg minus any of the other stimulants, and I'm getting very noticeable sharp energy, though it feels cold and lacks euphoria or any sort of sensation of well being.

I'm going to experiment with 100-200 mg doses now that I'm getting effects. I'm not getting very pleasant effects from it in 300+ mg doses.

I think it might have somethng to do with mindset though, since I tend to not be a stimulant person. I had the same issue when I first experimented with MDMA a couple times a few years ago - I bought two identical pills and decided to try one on two separate occasions. The first time, I got a really grotesque ice-cold overstimulated feeling with no euphoria. The second time, I was in an adventurous upbeat mood where I wanted to fully dive in and embrace the effects of a stimulant, and this time had a profoundly revelatory experience. I think stimulants tend to feel gross when you fight their effects.

Also - I want to point out that I'm not being reckless with the adrafinil, and I take full responsibility in the unlikely event that I die of a heart attack or something. I have tranquilizers on hand, and I've developed effective coping strategies to deal with these sort of symptoms from living with daily panic attacks for decades.

Edited by moleface, 09 March 2013 - 05:39 PM.

[moleface]

This stuff's great. I was able to run 8 miles today, the first exercise I've been able to do in the week since I severely pulled a muscle in my side, and I feel fantastic.

To be fair, I think it would be wrong to attribute all of those disturbing cardiovascular effects to adrafinil. Sida cordifolia and ginseng are so unbelievably subtle, I didn't think twice about mixing them with this - if anything, I thought it would be synergistic. It looks like I was right, but it's not the kind of synergy you'd want. I guess mixing even tiny amounts of ephedrine alkaloids with another amphetamine-like CNS stimulant is a recipe for disaster. I know, that seems obvious - but like I said, I'm very sensitive to stimulants and sida still does very little for me. I take it for my liver, not for the stimulation.

I can't wait for school to start on monday so I can try out the adrafinil in the proper setting. I have to get up at 5 am then I'm stuck at school until 5 or 6 pm, so this drug seems ideal for my circumstances.

Thumbs up!

On edit - I realize that this post makes it sound like the stimulant effect of the adrafinil motivated me to run 8 miles. That wasn't the case. I was just saying that I'm in better mindset today after finally being able to exercise again. Now that I've worked out and I'm feeling more in tune with my mind and body, the positive effects of the adrafinil are much more apparent to me.

Edited by moleface, 09 March 2013 - 09:23 PM.

[peakplasma]

the positive effects of the adrafinil are much more apparent to me.

I'm glad to hear that.

I think my issue might be a bioavailability/absorption of the powder since sometimes it works and sometimes it duds.

When do you take it? How long until you feel it? How long does it last?

[moleface]

I take it with my coffee in the morning on a completely empty stomach. I wait 30-60 minutes before I take any of my other supplements.

I feel it within an hour, then the stimulation is pretty overt for around 6 hours. I still feel cardiovascular stimulation for around 12 hours, though your mileage may vary if you're not as sensitive to stimulants as I am.

I'm glad that 300 mg is effective for me - at this dose, the 50g I bought will last a long time. I was originally thinking that this was a rather expensive drug, but even taking this dose 5x a week would last me around eight months. That comes out to about $10 a month, cheaper than the far inferior Primatene(ephedrine hcl) I was using prior to this.

[moleface]

More thoughts on the effects -

I haven't been in the position to do much of anything mentally taxing while on it because I'm currently on spring break, but yesterday I got a glimpse of adrafinil's potential.

I was playing this game Skate 3 on Xbox. To briefly sum it up, the game uses the control's analog thumbsticks to mimic the movements involved in real skateboarding. I used to skate for years, and the video game simulation is very similar to real skating in the sense that you can't perform well unless you're in a loose and relaxed yet focused mindset. It's difficult to describe, but you have to flick the thumbsticks in just the right smooth precise natural motion in order to fluidly pull off any of the moves. When I'm unfocused or depressed, I play the game horribly.

Yesterday for about an hour, I was skating flawlessly in the game without crashing even once. Even on a good day, I've never done this well before. I didn't realize until about a half hour in "Holy shit... look how I'm playing... this is uncanny". Then I realized that I'd taken the adrafinil earlier, and that's when I started to pinpoint the specific cognitive enhancing effects of this drug.

Like I've pointed out before, the best way I've found to approach nootropics is to just take them and then go through your day like you normally would, instead of consciously trying to identify the effects. Now that I've done that, I'm starting to notice ridiculously profound enhancement in my mental performance.

[moleface]

I always try to strive for complete accuracy in what I write online, so I wanted to point out that I've never done MDMA - it was methylone. About five years ago I bought fake e online to try a couple times, just to see what sort of experience these legal stimulant club drugs provide. It's sort of embarrassing to talk aboug resorting to gray market research chemicals, so I called it "mdma" instead.

I don't know why I'm bothering to post this correction, but I'm OCD about presenting myself completely honestly online, and I don't like talking out of my ass about a drug that I have zero experience with.

I think my point was still valid though - the overall tone of a stimulant expeirence comes from the person's psychological reaction to the effects of the drug.