30 replies to this topic

[xks201]

After hearing some people claim they got good effects from tianeptine I tried it and took about 20mg and now I'm just sleepy. Literally just feels like I took a sleeping pill. What the hell?

I feel emotionally and mentally blunted - like my entire glutaminergic system was just inhibited or something. It's not like I'm gonna jump out of my skin or anything but it's not what I would call a desirable feeling - which makes it hard for me to believe that this is labeled an AD unless ppl here needed 3 weeks to notice it. Considering it's half life is so short I doubt it needs weeks to kick in.

Edited by xks201, 17 August 2013 - 09:03 PM.

[spookytooth]

I tried Tianeptine and it made me very spacey. I will give it another try someday.

[normalizing]

only 20mg ? it comes out as 12,7mg in many cases. i dunno what other mg there are but i think less than that per pill. also i know generics are just as qualifiable as potent drugs like the originals but i read in cases relation other drugs that some generics fail to deliver same punch. are yours generic ? coaxil, stablon ?

you should read through this thread on bluelight for more depth relation to it; http://www.bluelight...iate-tianeptine

[nowayout]

It takes weeks. Brain changes have to occur, and that has nothing to do with the half life of the drug

Edited by nowayout, 18 August 2013 - 09:32 AM.

[nupi]

It takes weeks. Brain changes have to occur, and that has nothing to do with the half life of the drug

I think that is only partially true - it depends a lot on the drug and your own neurochemistry.

Example: I could always feel Escitalopram (~16h half life) coming on (and also wearing off) whereas Fluoxetine (with many days of half life) is completely smooth but took a little longer to actually be noticeable.

[nowayout]

Nevertheless, even if you do feel an acute effect from ingesting an AD drug, that effect won't necessarily be a good one until a few weeks after starting it for most people. Beneficial effects of antidepressants (even ones like agomelatine and tianeptine with short half lives) typically take at least a couple of weeks to occur, and that is for the fast-onset ones. The slower ones such as SSRIs need up to 6 weeks or more.

On the other hand, side effects (such as the ones experienced by the OP) are typically immediate and can take weeks to go away.

The hypothesis is that it takes a few weeks for, e.g., receptors in the brain to adjust (upregulate/downregulate) sufficiently for the AD to work and the sides to go away, and the brain takes its time to do that. This time scale is independent of the half life of the actual antidepressant itself, so a short half life is not necessarily indicative of a fast onset AD.

Edited by nowayout, 18 August 2013 - 12:34 PM.

[xks201]

Before any of you chime in...please try this drug
It is like a chenical lobotomy.

[rwac]

xks, what's your diet like right now?

[nowayout]

Before any of you chime in...please try this drug
It is like a chenical lobotomy.

So are many antidepressants. Mirtazapine, for example, will make many people catatonically sleepy for days the first time they take it. It is a side effect that goes away in most cases. And it is a very effective antidepressant for many people. The same goes for various tricyclic antidepressants. Again, this side effect mostly goes away.

So the fact that tianeptine made you sleepy is nothing impressive or unusual. It is par for the course for ADs. If you are going to immediately stop any antidepresant that makes you sleepy the first few times you take it, you are going to miss out on what are considered the beter ones.

Edited by nowayout, 18 August 2013 - 02:49 PM.

[therein]

Before any of you chime in...please try this drug
It is like a chenical lobotomy.

Yeah, I tried it the other day and was very disappointed by the results. It made me sleepy and spacey. Gave me a headache and made my neck very tense. It also made me more anxious in social occasions than usual. Not to mention the gastrointestinal issues that it created. I don't think I'll be giving this medication another chance. I was sincerely worried about acute neurotoxicity at some point as I was sleepy, had a headache and was having anxiety.

I took one dose of 15mg. I don't know how I would have felt if I had taken three doses as advised.

Edited by therein, 18 August 2013 - 06:05 PM.

[rwac]

Just kinda curious, If you're disappointed with tianeptine, what sort of effect do you get from alcohol, smoking, etc?

[nowayout]

Before any of you chime in...please try this drug
It is like a chenical lobotomy.

Yeah, I tried it the other day and was very disappointed by the results. It made me sleepy and spacey. Gave me a headache and made my neck very tense. It also made me more anxious in social occasions than usual. Not to mention the gastrointestinal issues that it created. I don't think I'll be giving this medication another chance. I was sincerely worried about acute neurotoxicity at some point as I was sleepy, had a headache and was having anxiety.

Again, it is silly to give up after one dose when, like many antidepressants, the drug is known to take weeks to kick in and is also known to have side effects like you describe that are transient. Really silly.

[therein]

Before any of you chime in...please try this drug
It is like a chenical lobotomy.

Yeah, I tried it the other day and was very disappointed by the results. It made me sleepy and spacey. Gave me a headache and made my neck very tense. It also made me more anxious in social occasions than usual. Not to mention the gastrointestinal issues that it created. I don't think I'll be giving this medication another chance. I was sincerely worried about acute neurotoxicity at some point as I was sleepy, had a headache and was having anxiety.

Again, it is silly to give up after one dose when, like many antidepressants, the drug is known to take weeks to kick in and is also known to have side effects like you describe that are transient. Really silly.

I agree but the side effects were so terrible that I just couldn't stand it and gave up on the medication. Honestly, I would have stuck with it if it was some sort of miracle medication but it is not. It still has a very disturbing side effect profile.

Just kinda curious, If you're disappointed with tianeptine, what sort of effect do you get from alcohol, smoking, etc?

I get the commonly known effects from alcohol. Mainly social disinhibition and stupor. I have gotten legitimate euphoria from drinking once but as a college student, I drink twice a week.

Smoking tobacco does little to no effect for me. It makes me slightly lightheaded and that's it. Even chain smoking doesn't bring anything desirable.

Smoking cannabis is a great experience for me overall. I vaporize every night, before going to sleep. It provides me with some introspection and increases my overall appreciation of life.

Why do you ask? Is there a correlation?

[rwac]

Just kinda curious, If you're disappointed with tianeptine, what sort of effect do you get from alcohol, smoking, etc?

I get the commonly known effects from alcohol. Mainly social disinhibition and stupor. I have gotten legitimate euphoria from drinking once but as a college student, I drink twice a week.

Smoking tobacco does little to no effect for me. It makes me slightly lightheaded and that's it. Even chain smoking doesn't bring anything desirable.

Smoking cannabis is a great experience for me overall. I vaporize every night, before going to sleep. It provides me with some introspection and increases my overall appreciation of life.

Why do you ask? Is there a correlation?

I'm wondering how you feel from a increase in dopamine from alcohol, or a decrease of serotonin from smoking tobacco. Seems like you don't like the serotonin decrease from tobacco.
What's your diet like?
You aren't low-carbing by any chance are you?

[brainslugged]

Tianeptine has an effect for me that is somewhere between ritalin and amphetamine, but with a very lucid feel.

It also kinda makes me tired, like ritalin. Maybe you should take it with caffeine or [pseudo]ephedrine.

[therein]

Just kinda curious, If you're disappointed with tianeptine, what sort of effect do you get from alcohol, smoking, etc?

I get the commonly known effects from alcohol. Mainly social disinhibition and stupor. I have gotten legitimate euphoria from drinking once but as a college student, I drink twice a week.

Smoking tobacco does little to no effect for me. It makes me slightly lightheaded and that's it. Even chain smoking doesn't bring anything desirable.

Smoking cannabis is a great experience for me overall. I vaporize every night, before going to sleep. It provides me with some introspection and increases my overall appreciation of life.

Why do you ask? Is there a correlation?

I'm wondering how you feel from a increase in dopamine from alcohol, or a decrease of serotonin from smoking tobacco. Seems like you don't like the serotonin decrease from tobacco.
What's your diet like?
You aren't low-carbing by any chance are you?

Nope, if anything my diet is very high in carbs. I really wanted tianeptine to work but it was a huge letdown. I don't see why lower serotonin levels would be beneficial anyway.

Tianeptine has an effect for me that is somewhere between ritalin and amphetamine, but with a very lucid feel.

It also kinda makes me tired, like ritalin. Maybe you should take it with caffeine or [pseudo]ephedrine.

This is extremely unlike my experience. I didn't get much stimulation. It was just unpleasant.

[normalizing]

i agree with the guy who compared tianeptine to a stimulant. i mean, its not really a stimulant at all but it gives you such a feeling that it is. kind of subtle. spacey is the word most people mention relating it, i can agree. for me it feels like opiate-stimulant type of shit. it gives me the best feeling at 60mg or so. most people do only what, 20mg average and whine ? 60mg is where its at.

[therein]

I guess my neurochemistry just doesn't get along well with tianeptine. I took 20mg and the side effects were so unpleasant that I don't know what would have happened with 60mg. Maybe I should try an SSRI instead since lowering the intercellular serotonin caused symptoms to get stronger?

[normalizing]

tianeptine is different from SSRI, it doesnt just reuptake inhibit serotonin, it actually releases it. who knows how well controlled that method is. your brain should be able to control the action of how much is released and inhibited for best result but most likely in some cases it just doesnt do a good job. the thing with tianeptine is tho, it also has much more indirect influence on dopamine too which is not well understood. ill assume people who dont get along with this pill are people who are not really comfy having no control and indirect involvement with several of their neurochemicals working same time. sadly enough for me though, the short half life of tieneptine makes it invaliable. you can quickly crave more hence why there are many reports of abuse. i just wished Servier made a better, longer half life perhaps extended version of it but they didnt. *sigh*

Edited by normalizing, 20 August 2013 - 04:09 AM.

[xks201]

Not everyone that is depressed has a serotonin deficiency. That should be reason enough for you guys to just accept that this drug will make some people miserable. It was so unbearable that there is no way I could keep taking it or even function on it.

[therein]

tianeptine is different from SSRI, it doesnt just reuptake inhibit serotonin, it actually releases it. who knows how well controlled that method is. your brain should be able to control the action of how much is released and inhibited for best result but most likely in some cases it just doesnt do a good job. the thing with tianeptine is tho, it also has much more indirect influence on dopamine too which is not well understood. ill assume people who dont get along with this pill are people who are not really comfy having no control and indirect involvement with several of their neurochemicals working same time. sadly enough for me though, the short half life of tieneptine makes it invaliable. you can quickly crave more hence why there are many reports of abuse. i just wished Servier made a better, longer half life perhaps extended version of it but they didnt. *sigh*

It doesn't release serotonin, it is a reuptake enhancer. It enhances the collection of serotonin from the synaptic cleft. It is not a releasing agent.

I've had good experience with dopaminergic stimulants, mostly reuptake inhibitors.

I am a daily user of 10-20mg of Amphetamine, which is a reuptake inhibitor and releasing agent for dopamine and serotonin.

[nowayout]

Not everyone that is depressed has a serotonin deficiency. That should be reason enough for you guys to just accept that this drug will make some people miserable. It was so unbearable that there is no way I could keep taking it or even function on it.

It may not be the drug for you. However, unpleasant initial side effects happen for almost all antidepressants. Many people have to start at very low doses of whatever antidepressant (low enough to tolerate sides, whatever dose that might be) and only slowly up the dose over weeks or months. If 20 mg was unbearable for you, maybe you should have started at 2.5 mg instead.

It is too simplistic to assume that "tianeptine lowers serotonin" - that may happen initially but all kinds of compensatory adaptations will happen in the brain over the course of a couple of months.

To give just one example, initial lowering of serotonin at receptor sites should downregulate 5HT-2C receptors over the course of a few weeks, which is anxiolytic and indirectly causes increases in dopamine and norepinephrine in certain parts of the brain, which should improve mood but takes weeks. Still, tianeptine is not a very smart drug - it affects too many systems simultaneously. If you would like an antidepressant that is more targeted and does just the latter and has few side effects, I would suggest trying agomelatine.

[rwac]

Nope, if anything my diet is very high in carbs. I really wanted tianeptine to work but it was a huge letdown. I don't see why lower serotonin levels would be beneficial anyway.

It's a misnomer that serotonin is the "happy hormone", it's more of a hibernation hormone in animals that hibernate. Serotonin antagonizes dopamine, people with high serum serotonin tend to be anhedonic,

Perhaps excess serotonin isn't your biggest problem right now ...

[Charmion]

 

 

Just kinda curious, If you're disappointed with tianeptine, what sort of effect do you get from alcohol, smoking, etc?

I get the commonly known effects from alcohol. Mainly social disinhibition and stupor. I have gotten legitimate euphoria from drinking once but as a college student, I drink twice a week.

Smoking tobacco does little to no effect for me. It makes me slightly lightheaded and that's it. Even chain smoking doesn't bring anything desirable.

Smoking cannabis is a great experience for me overall. I vaporize every night, before going to sleep. It provides me with some introspection and increases my overall appreciation of life.

Why do you ask? Is there a correlation?

 

I'm wondering how you feel from a increase in dopamine from alcohol, or a decrease of serotonin from smoking tobacco. Seems like you don't like the serotonin decrease from tobacco.
What's your diet like?
You aren't low-carbing by any chance are you?

 

 

I know this thread is old...HOWEVER:

rwac, you say here that tobacco decreases serotonin. This is very curious, because I thought it raised serotonin due to containing several different MAO-inhibiting chemicals. Can you please explain how it does this, and how you know this?

[rwac]

I know this thread is old...HOWEVER:

rwac, you say here that tobacco decreases serotonin. This is very curious, because I thought it raised serotonin due to containing several different MAO-inhibiting chemicals. Can you please explain how it does this, and how you know this?

 

 

"Smoking was associated with significant decreases in the concentrations of 5-HIAA in the hippocampal neocortex (P less than 0.001), hippocampal formation (P less than 0.05) and the median raphe nuclei (P less than 0.05). The 5-HT level of the hippocampal formation was also significantly reduced in smokers (P less than 0.05)."

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/1697418

 

"Hippocampal 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) was reduced in nicotine-treated rats, significantly so in those treated for more than 20 days. The 5-hydroxyindole acetic acid (5-HIAA) concentration in the hippocampus was also reduced by nicotine although this was not a consistent observation. Hypothalamic 5-hydroxyindoles were not affected by nicotine administration itself, but, if the drug was withdrawn, the concentration of 5-HT was increased after 5 days treatment."

 

http://link.springer...00426913#page-1

 

Thats all I can find right now.

[dwizard2315]

I don't mean to change the subject, but I have been looking into trying tianeptine. I was wondering if it requires a prescription from a doctor? Or where can I buy it??

[Charmion]

 

I know this thread is old...HOWEVER:

rwac, you say here that tobacco decreases serotonin. This is very curious, because I thought it raised serotonin due to containing several different MAO-inhibiting chemicals. Can you please explain how it does this, and how you know this?

 

 

"Smoking was associated with significant decreases in the concentrations of 5-HIAA in the hippocampal neocortex (P less than 0.001), hippocampal formation (P less than 0.05) and the median raphe nuclei (P less than 0.05). The 5-HT level of the hippocampal formation was also significantly reduced in smokers (P less than 0.05)."

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/1697418

 

"Hippocampal 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) was reduced in nicotine-treated rats, significantly so in those treated for more than 20 days. The 5-hydroxyindole acetic acid (5-HIAA) concentration in the hippocampus was also reduced by nicotine although this was not a consistent observation. Hypothalamic 5-hydroxyindoles were not affected by nicotine administration itself, but, if the drug was withdrawn, the concentration of 5-HT was increased after 5 days treatment."

 

http://link.springer...00426913#page-1

 

Thats all I can find right now.

 

 

That is very curious. Can you please tell me what you think about these?

http://www.pnas.org/...3/24/14065.full

http://www.jneurosci...25/38/8593.full

 

Briefly: they show that levels MAO-A (as well as -B) are lower in subjects treated with tobacco. This puzzles me...

[normalizing]

www.brandmedicines.com

I don't mean to change the subject, but I have been looking into trying tianeptine. I was wondering if it requires a prescription from a doctor? Or where can I buy it??

 

 

[rwac]

 

That is very curious. Can you please tell me what you think about these?

http://www.pnas.org/...3/24/14065.full

http://www.jneurosci...25/38/8593.full

 

Briefly: they show that levels MAO-A (as well as -B) are lower in subjects treated with tobacco. This puzzles me...

 

 

MAO (A and B) deactivates the catecholamines like serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine etc. So if MAO is inhibited and serotonergic activity decreases, the other catecholamines will be increased, relative to serotonin.

 

And indeed that is what we see, nicotine treatment increases dopamine and norepinephrine.

http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC3188825/

http://chronicle.uch.../nicotine.shtml

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/12170059

 

Its not clear to me whether serotonin itself decreases overall (it might) but the other catecholamines increase for sure.

Edited by rwac, 15 February 2015 - 03:50 PM.

[Charmion]

What you are saying is that although serotonin may increase overall, serotonin signaling becomes lower in comparison to other catecholamines due to their concurrent increase?