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Puppeteer

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Everything posted by Puppeteer

  1. Thought I'd pop in to let you guys know that my NSI has arrived! Today's my second day on it and something's definitely happening in my head... It's hard to describe, it's not an especially pleasant sensation, just different. I'm feeling a little more anxious than usual but I think that's due to having taken NAC, which I think I might stop for the moment. I've only taken about 20mg each day so far, but I'm gonna cap some up for convenience and see how I go moving up to 20mg TID. Wish me luck! I'll keep you guys posted.
  2. Erm, I've finished the 5 grams I bought in December, so that's approximately 3 months at ~20mg TID. I wish I were able to describe my experience with it in depth, but my sensitivity to mild perceptual/cognitive changes is considerably lacking - I really ought to put more effort toward maintaining a diary, but the ebb and flow of motivation tends to restrict such pursuits. As mentioned above, I can attest to a subtle increase in happiness, a pleasant sensation of warmth, and reduction of anxiety immediately after dosing. Being off it I haven't noticed any lasting, noticeable improvement, unfortunately, but maybe a couple more months would've done it, who knows. I'm definitely not ruling out revisiting it in the future, once I've trialled NSI-189 and 7,8-DHF, but for now it's out of my stack. I'd be really interested in hearing your take on it though! The negatives are very minimal and a more thorough and technical evaluation than mine would be very useful.
  3. Hey man, if you're under 25 you should look into Headspace. They focus primarily on psychological services but will be able to point you in the direction of good, affordable psychiatrists/neurologists. Living near the BMRI I've been lucky enough to have gotten an MRI, EEG, sleep analysis, and extensive psychiatric consultion without paying a thing. None of it's really gotten me anywhere, but that's my brain's fault. If you're older they can probably still point you in the right direction, so they're probably still a better first resort than just asking your GP for a random referral. Good luck!
  4. Uhh, any reason you wouldn't just go for a B-Complex? There's no reason to just take one, your body needs all the B-group vitamins. Mega-dosing of individual B's tends to be reserved for particular conditions, illnesses, to supplement deficiencies from certain medications or diets, etc. AFAIK. B12 is a very common deficiency and it's very difficult to get too much so get that at minimum. Make sure you get methylcobalamin though - most supplements contain cyanocobalamin which has very poor bioavailability.
  5. I've always tended towards the more disheveled and disarrayed, and HPPD certainly hasn't done many any favours in that regard! Impaired organisational skills, lack of connection to the external world, general apathy/amotivation... Not sure exactly what the main factor is - probably a little of all of the above - but I really struggle to be as organised and fastidious as I'd like to be/used to be. I'll tend to let things get bad to the point that I can't stand them any longer, then do one big clean; lather, rinse, repeat. Crashing on some fairly dysfunctional relatives' couch at the moment - long story - so I don't really have my own space to keep in order.
  6. Hey. Thanks so much for the thorough response! I love reading your posts but I feel very poorly equipped to respond to them effectively, haha. Tianeptine definitely feels quite nice - distinct feelings of cosiness, warmth, being at-ease... Nothing groundbreaking, comedown kinda sucks but is easily avoidable... Really wish the worsening of aphasia symptoms weren't a thing, but it's subtle to the point that it's not a huge deal/possibly even just nocebo. I'm just afraid it might be contraindicated against uridine/CDP-choline, and I don't feel quite savvy enough to draw any conclusions from the reading I've been doing... Any insights? Ideally I'd like to experience the touted benefits of both - reversal of stress-induced hippocampal damage from tianeptine sounds pretty awesome, modulation and proliferation of dopamine receptors from uridine equally so - but I'm wary of the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to this stuff. Lions Mane I really can't say much about... It's been a few months now and it's certainly not doing me any harm, but my inability to accurately perceive subtle changes in state of mind coupled with memory impairment makes it hard to say if it's doing much good. Someone on Longecity suggested that blending it with hot water dramatically increased its effects for him and a few others so I'm thinking of giving that a shot... I'd like to have ALCAR in there as well to maximise NGF production/sensitivity, but I'm probably going to be using CDP-choline for the uridine stack and I'm afraid that might be a little too much cholinergic activity. I bought bulk powder from here: http://www.mushroomharvest.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=39&products_id=154 . And yeah, it's stuff like that that makes me incredibly skeptical about herbal supplements - so much ambiguity in endeavouring to attain relatively subtle benefits. I'm thinking once I've run out of Lion's Mane - still a few months off - I'll just ditch it completely. NSI-189, 7,8-DHF, etc. seem far more promising in providing the improvements I was hoping for from Lion's Mane. I'm hugely intrigued by the growing popularity of laser/infrared light treatments! Really does sound like the stuff of science fiction. Haven't really looked into it much though, but the results sound incredibly promising! I just don't know that i can trust myself with properly assembling and administering it. Certainly can't provide much input because your grasp of this stuff goes way beyond mine, but please do keep me posted!
  7. Well I'm very excited for you! Got my fingers crossed. Incidentally, can I ask how your uridine trial went down exactly? Dosage, how long, did you use all the co-factors, etc. Mine just arrived today so I'll be starting with it tomorrow.
  8. Sounds like a good plan! Do you mean 10mg a day? Will you stop at 40mg for a single dose?
  9. I'm right there with you completely man. I'm such a songbird... Now the habit of singing aloud combined with having the snippets on repeat will have me around the house just singing out loud the one or two lines over and over... Pretty abnormal. Pretty embarrassing. It was the theme to "A Goofy Movie" earlier tonight after hearing it for the first time, ffs. "One way or another, together's where we both belong!" I'm always caught between instrumental music and vocal music... Vocals are distracting and get stuck, but at the same time make it easier to focus on and remember the music, so I tend to gravitate more towards them, I suppose.
  10. Keep us posted! Assuming you saw the post in the Longecity thread about adjusting the dose for the freebase form?
  11. One of the most upsetting things about HPPD for me is how difficult I find it to enjoy music. The combination of anhedonia and fucked up memory make it incredibly tough to have a good time of listening to music. It just doesn't prompt the same intense emotional response it used to... it's just kind of there, and I can't think about it properly, can't remember the song that came before, can't properly juxtapose it with other music or the artist's other works, etc. It used to be one of my biggest hobbies; I'd have something playing whenever I was able to, was always looking for new stuff, etc. Now I rarely do because it's the most painful reminder of how much I've changed. Artists I love are releasing new stuff and I don't even wanna go anywhere near it
  12. Yeah, I'm familiar with that study. A sample size of 1 doesn't doesn't really give me much faith in it. Also, presumably at the 4 month point she'd seen at least gradual remission of symptoms, rather than none at all... Pretty damn confident I'm just not a lamictal responder, unfortunately.
  13. Congrats dude! I'm sure you don't need to be told this, but it's more important now than ever that you don't falter in abstaining from all drugs... Nothing like the feeling of "wow, I'm finally pulling out of this, I'm getting my life back" to put one in the mood to celebrate, haha.
  14. Thought it might be interesting to share all the things we're taking currently in one place. Multi B Complex 5ml concentrated fish oil (~2g EPA, 1g DHA) Vitamin D3, 1000IU Zinc Creatine, ~5g Lions Mane, ~1g BID Tianeptine ~20mg TID Not too sure how well tianeptine's going; I've felt a little odd of late, possibly a little more lost for words. I think I'll probably give it a break and see if it changes. Probably a good idea in light of my upcoming uridine trial anyhow. Still waiting on NSI-189!
  15. Well a susceptibility to HPPD certainly could be hereditary, but there's no solid proof of that being the case. There are a few anecdotal reports around from people who have one or more relatives who've also developed it, but correlation doesn't imply causation, as they say.
  16. Stumbled upon this study on the administration of NAC and d-cycloserine ameliorating the effects of amphetamine (meth/MDMA) neurotoxicity. http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/dissertations/2379/
  17. I'm yet to try CDP Choline, though I have purchased some. Should've been more thorough in my research before doing so though as I believe the primary reason it modulates dopamine and increases neuroreceptor densities is because it breaks down into uridine, which I have also ordered. I guess I can just use it as a somewhat-pricey choline source when I try the uridine stack though, so no harm done. Thank you for sharing your quite-extensive experience! It's quite reassuring (for me at least) to hear of individuals whose drug use was as vast - or more so - than my own. It seems like the majority of cases here were due to a single LSD trip, after which the person immediately stopped using any drugs. Presumably those cases are a little more cut and dry than for those of us who tasted every colour of the rainbow, so to speak. That you're responding quite well to different things is also quite reassuring Uhh... This is my rather lengthy, melodramatic introductory forum post, if you're interested.
  18. It seems like it could be a beneficial thing to supplement all around, with few if any downsides (save being quite pricey). Feeling much less with it today than usual so I'll just let these extracts do the talking: NYU Langone Medical Center: "Phosphatidylserine, or PS for short, is a member of a class of chemical compounds known as phospholipids. PS is an essential component in all our cells; specifically, it is a major component of the cell membrane. The cell membrane is a kind of "skin" that surrounds living cells. Besides keeping cells intact, this membrane performs vital functions such as moving nutrients into cells and pumping waste products out of them. PS plays an important role in many of these functions. Good evidence suggests that PS can help declining mental function and depression in the elderly, and it is widely used for this purpose in Italy, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe. PS has also been marketed as a "brain booster" for people of all ages, said to sharpen memory and increase thinking ability. However, the evidence to support this use is incomplete and inconsistent." http://www.med.nyu.edu/content?ChunkIID=21843 Examine.com In otherwise healthy young adults given 400mg PS for 2 weeks, a significant improvement in processing speed (20%) and accuracy (13% more correct responses, 39% less wrong responses) is noted relative to placebo and independent of mood state.[22] Phosphatidylserine appears to promote attention and reduce symptoms of ADHD, and when the phosphatidylserine molecule contains the Fish Oil fatty acids then it may promote attention to an even greater degree Stress has been noted to be reduced with doses as low as 60mg in otherwise healthy men, although this study is confounded with the inclusion of Fish Oil (and stress was only significantly reduced at rest in high stressed persons);[1] it has been replicated elsewhere with phosphatidylserine in isolation with 42 days supplementation of 200mg phosphatidylserine (as protein bar) where induced stresses were less than control (and associated with less beta-1 wave function in the right hemisphere).[28] This same dose and supplementation vessel has been used in young golfers given 200mg phosphatidylserine for 42 days, where a 21.6% increase in drive accuracy (percentage of straight shots) was thought to be secondary to a stress reducing effect.[29] In other cognitive disease states, persons with Parkinson's disease given bovine cerebral phosphatidylserine note some degree of improvement on EEG parameters[41] and in general dementia 300mg of bovine cortex phosphatidylserine has noted some degree of benefit within 3 weeks of a 6 week trial[42] and has improved memory and depressive symptoms in persons suffering from geriatric depression.[43] PS supplementation has been implicated in increased spatial memory in aged rats at 50mg/kg (human equivalent of 8mg/kg or 550mg for a 150lb person)[44] and has been noted at lower concentrations (5-20mg/kg) when injected into aged rats, where improvements in grooming and behaviour retention are noted.[45] Studies in non-aged rats (to establish a Nootropic effect rather than cognitive rehabilitative effect) using 50mg/kg bodyweight for 27 days was able to significantly enhance brightness discrimination (indicative of memory formation) without significantly affecting anxiety or depressive symptoms.[46] http://examine.com/supplements/Phosphatidylserine/ Wikipedia.org First pilot studies indicate that PS supplementation might be beneficial for children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.[17][18] A follow-up study backed up previous findings. The study found children supplementing with 200 mg PS per day for two months saw a significant improvement in ADHD symptoms.[19] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphatidylserine Make sure to research and suss it out for yourself of course, as with anything there are some lukewarm opinions and studies around. I'll definitely be looking into this further though.
  19. Can I ask what you differences you expect to see from d-cycloserine from your experience with sarcosine? Feeling exhausted and trying to work out why d-cycloserine is a better bet given their similar MOAs...
  20. I bought an extract off eBay once and it didn't really do much for me. Since Cymbalta I don't really have the constant, painful anxiety anymore; now it's the anhedonia and generally feeling fucked up that really get to me. I don't know that Kava actively makes one feel good rather than just removing anxiety, so perhaps that's why it wasn't for me, if that makes sense. I tend to get even more anxious if something makes me feel even more disoriented/trippy than I do normally, so the intoxication side of it isn't something I'm too keen on either. Then again, who knows. People say Kava's effects vary dramatically with different sources, so I might try to find a different supplier at some point. I was just looking into whether or not it interacts with Lamictal (which I should be off within a fortnight anyhow) and found this study likening its effects to those of anticonvulsant mood stabilisers, specifically Lamictal. Interesting! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11642654
  21. I've experienced these things to varying extents my whole life, but I'm pretty certain they've gotten worse since developing HPPD. Without going into much detail, nail biting, picking at scabs and pimples, urges to tense certain parts of my body, knuckle cracking, music playing constantly in my head, etc. It doesn't bother me a huge amount given that they're not new behaviours, just increased, but I'm doing my best to suppress them for fear of looking odd to others. Just figured I'd throw it out there to see if anyone else has experienced anything similar.
  22. Way more than a year by now... That seems so surreal (but so does everything, I suppose)

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