22 replies to this topic

[PDW]

Alright, this post mainly revolves around glutamate sensitivity. I believe I have a sensitivity to glutamate. I've tried Noopept on several occasions for up to 2 weeks at a time and I've noticed there were some times I've gotten some pretty intense headaches when using it and occasionally would wake up feeling like complete trash. The initial effects of noopept were always the same and generally a positive experience until it wore off, occasionally when I'd wake up in the morning, or when I would take my second dose in the day which made me feel strange.  Upon doing some research I've found that noopept really stimulates the glutamate receptor in the brain. If your already sensitive to glutamate wouldn't this be a bad thing? I took a break from noopept for awhile and tried l-theanine a few times and believe it or not but I got the same headache and woke up feeling like trash in the same way as with noopept. I did some research and found that l-theanine mess's with the glutamate receptors as well and it was even mentioned that headaches can be a side effect for people who are sensitive to glutamate. Has anyone else had any experiences like this or know of any other information on the topic?

[Dmonix]

I am feeling the same headache with noopept, but not with theanine. What dosage are u taking of them? I am on 10mg noopept with alpha gpc 300mg and 100mg of theanine.

[PDW]

I do 5mg of noopept in the morning and another 5mg around 3pm. I was doing 100 mg of theanine once a day for a few days. I also tried 200 mg of theanine once which was a mistake because it made my blood pressure drop and I felt ill. I have not tried theanine and noopept together though, but I might just to see what it does. I will probably regret that decision lol. Have you taken theanine at the same time as noopept? I tried alpha gpc 300mg caps with noopept daily and got more headaches then using noopept alone. To much choline in the system. I feel like Alpha GPC and other choline sources only need to be taken off and on with noopept since noopet doesn't target the acetycholine receptor nearly as much as it does the glutamate receptor.

Edited by Phrench Williams, 04 August 2014 - 04:49 AM.

[Dmonix]

I do 5mg of noopept in the morning and another 5mg around 3pm. I was doing 100 mg of theanine once a day for a few days. I also tried 200 mg of theanine once which was a mistake because it made my blood pressure drop and I felt ill. I have not tried theanine and noopept together though, but I might just to see what it does. I will probably regret that decision lol. Have you taken theanine at the same time as noopept? I tried alpha gpc 300mg caps with noopept daily and got more headaches then using noopept alone. To much choline in the system. I feel like Alpha GPC and other choline sources only need to be taken off and on with noopept since noopet doesn't target the acetycholine receptor nearly as much as it does the glutamate receptor.

First time i use yes. Used in the afternoon to sleep because of the strong headache i had. Woke up fine.
Today i put the powder of both(alpha gpc and noopept) and let them sublingual for some time, 30 minutes after i took a glass of coffee mixed with theanine. I feel fine (no headache and maybe a crazy dopamine release)

[PDW]

Hmm that sounds enticing. If I could be headache and anxious free by taking theanine with noopept that would be great. I'm thinking about dosing 5mg of noopept with a 100 mg cap of theanine tomorrow. See how that goes. Do you take noopet once per day with theanine or twice a day with theanine? Does theanine ever make you tired in the morning when combined with noopept?

Edited by Phrench Williams, 04 August 2014 - 05:36 AM.

[Dmonix]

Twice. Normally on the second dose that i use theanine or when the headache gets crazy! I'll try today both dosages without theanine today, only coffee. Coffee strangely reduces a little the headache or maybe mask the headache. I take the first dose, 10:30am and thr second 15:30.

Edited by Dmonix, 04 August 2014 - 11:35 AM.

[PDW]

I've been reading that theanine works best if taken on an empty stomach 30-60 minutes before a meal. I think I will do that before my noopept dose. I found noopept works best for me when I take it after a meal with some protein and fat in it. Hopefully this will maximize the effects.

[PDW]

Alright, well I took the l-theanine with the noopept. There was no anxiety or weird feeling this time which is kind of nice. However, I'm having a hard time breathing in the same sense as with anxiety, like short breaths and its difficult to get a full breath, I'm also pretty irritable, low grade headache in the front of my head, barely noticeable, and a little tired. I dunno, maybe I'll try one 300mg alpha gpc tomorrow with my first dose of noopept and then theanine with my second and see what happens. Or maybe theanine is useful but not when its taken along side noopept, perhaps at a separate time like before bed. I know that I don't need alpha gpc every day though that’s for sure. I'm getting pretty irritated with noopept to be honest and may just move on to other nootropics if this hassle continues.

[Dmonix]

Alright, well I took the l-theanine with the noopept. There was no anxiety or weird feeling this time which is kind of nice. However, I'm having a hard time breathing in the same sense as with anxiety, like short breaths and its difficult to get a full breath, I'm also pretty irritable, low grade headache in the front of my head, barely noticeable, and a little tired. I dunno, maybe I'll try one 300mg alpha gpc tomorrow with my first dose of noopept and then theanine with my second and see what happens. Or maybe theanine is useful but not when its taken along side noopept, perhaps at a separate time like before bed. I know that I don't need alpha gpc every day though that’s for sure. I'm getting pretty irritated with noopept to be honest and may just move on to other nootropics if this hassle continues.

The same happen to me, headaches, difficulty to breath, getting irritared easily. Today the shortness of breath got worse, went to the hospital to check. Only pressure was a little high, i am not sleeping adequate so i guess that this is the problem.
But this shortness of breath scared me, i'll wait some days and stop the stimulants i am taking and will use noopept again.

[Duchykins]

It's not so much a sensitivity to glutamate as your ability to clear glutamate and your own excitable system. People having these 'insane headaches' which are either very migraine-like or actual migraines with substances like noopept or sunifiram should stop taking them until they figure out what it is they need to do to keep glutamate under control. Basically what is going on is that something is out of balance in your brain and it's making you more vulnerable to glutamate excitotoxicity when taking noopept or sunifiram. Or that the noopept is making you more vulnerable. Now this is the tricky part because there are lots of different factors in glutamate excitotoxicity; dopamine, GABA, cell energy, electrolytes, sleep, etc.

The guy who said coffee helped a little bit with the headache almost certainly had a modest migraine or at least a glutamate-related vasodilatory headache. Caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, that's why it can sometimes help with vasodilatory headaches and that's why it's a key ingredient in OTC headache meds like Excedrin. This doesn't mean people getting headaches with noopept can just take caffeine with it daily and be fine since they'll just end up getting rebound headaches later that are worse.

Choline has nothing to do with it.

The fact is that for some people, their systems are simply more overexcitable than average due to whatever reason (inadequate dopamine, inadequate GABA, inadequate serotonin, lowered cellular energy or problems in transport, poor sleep, lowered magnesium or potassium, lowered coQ10, dehydration, elevated amines or amine sensitivity, on and on) and should not use noopept or sunifiram. Unless they want to experiment with different things to see what it is that they need to do or take with noopept to avoid crossing the threshold, and that could be a long road for many. I personally think they're better off trying other noots.

[PDW]

Yea this is becoming more of pain then its worth. I was under the impression that l-theanine helped balance out glutamate levels, but that didn't seem to work. After tomorrow I may just give up on noopept for the time being and try aniracetam.

[Duchykins]

Theanine is a glutamate analog and could theoretically prevent or inhibit glutamate excitotoxicity, perhaps just by being an analog, or perhaps by increasing dopamine and GABA, likely a combo of all three things.

Good luck

[PDW]

Hmmm. I just realised I'm using a protein powder that has like 3,000mg of glutamic acid in it per serving and is about 18 grams of protein per serving. I wonder if all that glutamic acid mixed with the noopept firing off the glutamate receptors more could cause me the problems I've been having? I will have to test this.

Edited by PDW, 05 August 2014 - 04:30 PM.

[Duchykins]

I had to stop using protein powder because of the glutamic and aspartic acid content, it could give me headaches all by itself. If you're having trouble with glutamate then aspartic acid will probably gice you trouble too. Of course they are both plentiful in any protein source but it seems that things like whey protein, protein bars and shakes aren't quite the same as a fresh slab of steak or salmon.

[PDW]

Allright, well I just dropped 5mg of noopept with a tablespoon of hemp oil for a fat source instead of my usual protein shake with hemp oil added. Will see what happens. I'm going to test this one more time and I will also take l-theanine with my second dose because it did help slightly. My theory as of now is that perhaps the protein powder was giving me way to much glutamate in my brain on top of the noopept already firing off the glutamate receptor to much to begin with. So that first dose probably had me flying super high and then I crashed and upon the second dose experienced something like excitotoxicity. Since I'm probably glutamate sensitive my second dose of noopept with l-theaine should prevent any possible glutamate excitooxicity, thats just my theory though that I'm currently testing as I type this. Hopefully since it's an analog it won't effect the noopept to much, like cancel it out, since I have no glutamate from other outside sources in my body currently. If it does, perhaps l-theanine at night before bed would be a better choice.

[PDW]

Well this is interesting. I took 5mg almost an hour ago and really didn't feel anything from it. Usually I will feel the effects always in 15-20 minutes. Infact, I actually got really tired and cloudy like brain fog after taking the noopept. I took another 5mg with a tablespoon of hemp oil just now. I'm starting to wonder if a little glutamic acid needs to be present for this stuff to work effectively. Or if glutamic acid isn't present maybe you need to take more? I have read several places that protein and fat should be present when taking noopept. Thats what I started doing and on my first dose in hhe day I was having really good effects. So this is a pretty big change. I took 300mg of alpha gpc and 250 mg of cdp choline last night a few hours before bed, but I don't think that would have any kind of interference with this because noopept works on the acetycholine receptors some,  which was the main reason I took the choline last night.

Side note, my typing and spelling have declined at the moment. I'm making more spelling errors and typing errors and having trouble with my words and train of thought. Usually the opposite is true when I took noopept with the hemp oil and protein powder. My typing would actually become very fast (good eye to hand coordination), and almost no spelling or typing errors. I'll keep everyone updated with this second dose.

[Duchykins]

Good, I'm interested in knowing what happens.

[PDW]

It's been about 45 minutes since the second dose. I feel a little better, not as tired but still kind of a spaced feeling, I definitely don't have that get up and go motivation and intense focus like when I take the noopept with the protein powder. Typinfg has mprved a little, but still not near what it can be, and this is at 10mg total in less then 2 hours. Had I taken my daily protein shake with this anything over 10 mg's probably would have been a pretty bad thing. So currently I'm thinking that protein intake with noopept is just as important as fat and glutamate seems to play a pretty strong role in all of this. Glutamate is present in varying forms in different foods and meat. The question however is how much, especially if you are sensitive? perhaps I should just eat some chicken or something in the morning and not do a protein shake. What I can say though is that my first 5mg dose with the hemp oil and protein shake made me feel pretty awesome everytime until I presumably burned out 4-6 hours later. Then upon my second 5mg dose things just weren't as awesome and I got the negative side effects which was probably excitotoxicity. My experimenting with noopept is done for today as I do not want to exceed 10mg and possibly have unpleasant results. Maybe later today I'll take one aniracetam capsule and see how that feels, however maybe not as the noopept might still be in my system will see. As for the noopept, the next logical step at this point I suppose would be to take it tomorrow and use half the protein powder I usually use in my shake and see what happens. I'll keep the updates coming.

[PDW]

One other side note, I didn't experience any irritability, anger, anxiety, or a hot sweaty feeling. Feel pretty calm actually, decent mood but I'm a bit tired. That says alot at 10mg in less then 2 hours atleast for me personally. So I'm really thinking this might be a glutamate thing. Some articles I have read have said that high levels of glutamate can lead to varying symptoms including headache/migraine, anxiety, brain fog, flushing, and mood swings. Sounds familiar. This could explain a lot for many people using noopept with varying results if this is infact the case. If this turns out to be true then finding the right ratio with food or protein powder sources of glutamate may lead onto something. It does seem to be quite a bit more effective with the presence of glutamate, but too much seems to be the issue here.

[Duchykins]

I forgot to mention that glutamate and histamine have an interesting relationship. It's not well understood at this time but I've read some odd study here and there with findings of increases in glutamate leading to increases in histamine, and of histamine upregulating glutamate transport (which ironically can theoretically help prevent glutmate excitotoxicity by keeping extracellular glutamate down) -- and my general impression that people that issues with glutamate tend to also have probs with histamine (going back to my original speculation that these people's systems are overexcitable for yet unestablished reasons).

But in any case, glutamate definitely has a relatively potent vasodilatory effect. This is one of the reasons it can be beneficial to brain function, but it's also one of the reasons people who don't get migraines can still get vasodilatory headaches after eating high glutamate foods or dabbling in 'strong' ampakines, noopept, and vasodilation is typically the hardest to treat, most resistant to common headache remedies and even opiate/narcotic painkillers, and more painful than vasoconstriction headaches.

Both glutamate and histamine together can account for inflammatory-like symptoms.

Edited by Duchykins, 05 August 2014 - 09:01 PM.

[PDW]

Hmm, I hope I'm not having histamine issues too. This puzzle has enough pieces as is haha. On this note of pieces, I'm reading that aniracetam is good at preventing excitotoxicty from glutamate. I took one 750mg aniracetam cap today and it was pretty chill, didn't really motivate me though and I was a little tired, this is my first day however so I may need a few days. I was also reading that people combine aniracetam with noopept and have pretty awesome effects, the aniracetam negates a lot of the negative effects of noopept to my understanding. So I may consider doing this later this week along side less protein powder.

[Dmonix]

Hmm, I hope I'm not having histamine issues too. This puzzle has enough pieces as is haha. On this note of pieces, I'm reading that aniracetam is good at preventing excitotoxicty from glutamate. I took one 750mg aniracetam cap today and it was pretty chill, didn't really motivate me though and I was a little tired, this is my first day however so I may need a few days. I was also reading that people combine aniracetam with noopept and have pretty awesome effects, the aniracetam negates a lot of the negative effects of noopept to my understanding. So I may consider doing this later this week along side less protein powder.

what kind of negative effects?
Since monday i stopped with noopept with alpha gpc, because the problem. of. breathing. I workout really hard, and don't stop with my stims, but i lower the dose of many of them. On tuesdays i take 7.5mg of. ephedrine splitted 2 times in the day, i stopped with them until i realize i am breathing better. The headaches after noopept use continue and i am very irritated with anything, but today i experience something different. I workout with the pre workout(bullnox + niacin) and workout fasted, when i arrive at home i eat carrot with olive oil and my headache was gone! Read about luteolin and don't know too much about the effects of luteolin on brain, but worked for me.

Edited by Dmonix, 06 August 2014 - 04:34 PM.

[Duchykins]

It could just as easily been the potassium in the carrots rather than luteolin.