I'll try to keep this short and sweet:

So, basically, I used to do a shit ton of drugs.

Ok. I've been relatively clean for 9 or so months now.

Now that that's out of the way, an old friend and I were hanging out this summer(June), and we took some E. They were extremely strong, and we each took 2.5 pills. In addition, I had taken extended release St. Johns wort when I woke up because i had been feeling a little out of it lately.

I rolled face for about an hour. Than, out of nowhere, it just stopped, and I experienced the worst come down it's ever been my misfortune to be a part of. (My buddy was still rolling HARD for another 3 hours or so)

I got home, smoked some bud. Felt even WORSE. Kept on doing this weird heavy deep breathing thing, it was almost like a compulsion. I eventually just went to bed, so I took my Singulair I was prescribed at the time and 3mg Melatonin.

I feel weird for the next 3 days or so, just not right. I'm opiate defendant, although at the time I had been clean for about 2 months. I began to feel extremely depressed and anxious on the third day, and one of my boys hit me up telling me he was trying to get rid of some dilaudids, and I was feeling so shitty I gave in.

I railed 7 Dillies(56mg), but didn't get high. I just felt really drunk. I smoked a cigar, the first time I had touched tobacco in months, which made me really fucking nauseas.

I went to bed, and woke up the next morning, depressed as fuck and unbelievably anxious.

For the first few weeks it was unbearable, and I was having regular panic attacks. (2 of which I was actually hospitalized and sedated for)

I took a vacation, and it's gotten better, but it's still pretty bad at times. It's been like 5 months now. It's seriously interfering with my work (kind of hard to take people's order when you feel like you're going to pass out) and concentrating in my classes is unbelievably hard.

I'm usually ok by myself, but in social or stressful situations I'm a complete basket case.

In addition, it's caused me to relapse to OC alot. >_<

I'm going to a psychiatrist next week.


So, sorry for dragging that out, I'm basically asking totse:

What antidepressants have you guys had good effects from? I'm currently looking at Lexapro...good choice?

I don't want benzos, because at this point, I'm really trying to get away from everything except occasional weed and alcohol. I'm not sure if I'd be able to not abuse them if I had a script...they tend to make me more depressed, anyway. Great for anxiety though.

TLDR: I fucked my head up w\ E and St Johns wort. Fed up with my symptoms, what's a good anti-depressant\anxiety agent?

5-htp

5-htp

5-HTP calms me down but makes me feel...weird. Like, not me. I don't like it.

Plus, it's bad for your heart with chronic use, apparently.

I've been taking 1g of DLPA for a but a month now, and it helps with depression, but doesn't do shit for anxiety...

There's been a depletion of chemicals in your brain, likely serotonin. I would take it easy for a few months to a year, stick to a routine and get back in the feeling of being normally sober.

Get on wellbutrin.

Get on wellbutrin.

When I was young and stupid I took wellbutrin to try and get high on it...it made me anxious, and anxiety was definitely not an issue then. So it would probably make me extra anxious now.

I rolled face for about an hour. Than, out of nowhere, it just stopped

That's probably where the St John's wort kicked in, though it's just a guess, without enough information avaliable to try to confirm... Reuptake inhibitors competing and all that.

I'm opiate defendant

Epic.

I've been taking 1g of DLPA for a but a month now, and it helps with depression, but doesn't do shit for anxiety...

Mild exacerbation which can be prevented with a low-dose NMDA antagonist, actually. Has to do with norepinephrine.

More to the point, though... PA and Tryp compete for uptake into the brain. When you're blockading Tryp for dopamine, eventually, you're going to have to supplement in your off-time.

Running out of serotonin with a fuckload of dopamine in the middle of a roll can't be good, either.

- time.

- tryptophan.

- magnesium.

- laying off the E for a little while.

Don't worry. You took a bit of a gouge, but it's just a temporary imbalance... fix your diet (and lay off abusing E for a while), and you should come back...

In the meantime, hops or valerian, and perhaps a little lavendar, might gently help the temporary crisis symptoms.

...Mild exacerbation which can be prevented with a low-dose NMDA antagonist, actually. Has to do with norepinephrine...

Believe it or not, I take 400mg chelated magnesium daily, with calcium and vitamin D for max absorption. That should fit the bill for the low dose NMDA antagonist...I've been doing that daily since that day and it helps out w\ anxiety a bit...but much less than I'd like.

As for the rest, this was around 5 months ago. I haven't used any drugs since, except for the occasional weed. or oxy.


I eat very well, I get plenty of exercise (daily bike riding, weight lifting, etc.)

I'm going to do more than lay off the E for a while. I have an amazing girlfriend, a loving family who's starting to trust me again, I'm going away to school next semester when I get my 2 year in liberal arts...

I really feel like drugs are doing alot more harm than good in my life at the moment. I'll still have a few beers and smoke a bowl here and there, but I think I'll limit it to that. and probably oxy, but with a little luck I'll eventually get off that crap.

Sucks that it took something like this to get to that conclusion though.

I thought I would just need a little time, too, but it's been fucking 5 months, and some days are really unbearable...

Sorry for rambling, I'm happily mellowed out from some nice herb, so forgive me for turning this post into something you might see on a blog...:P

Oh, and joe: I've tried 5-HTP sublingually a few times, because the brand I has packages it with B6, which basically renders the 5-HTP useless unless you sneak it in past hepatic first pass...I didn't really like it. Gave me headaches, and just made me feel 'funny'. Do you think L-tryptophan would work better?

And any SSRI\MAOI\Tricyclic experience is still appreciated guys...;)

For the first few weeks it was unbearable, and I was having regular panic attacks. (2 of which I was actually hospitalized and sedated for)

I took a vacation, and it's gotten better, but it's still pretty bad at times. It's been like 5 months now. It's seriously interfering with my work (kind of hard to take people's order when you feel like you're going to pass out) and concentrating in my classes is unbelievably hard.

I'm usually ok by myself, but in social or stressful situations I'm a complete basket case.



Sounds like classic anxiety symptoms to me brother, and I know its not the first time. I know you are trying to avoid benzos, but in this case a low dose regimen may be your best bet just to stop the anxiety. From what you've said, you have the worst time at work or at a 'social situation', sounds alot like SAD. And that 'passing out' feeling usually is a result from panic or extreme levels of stress. Low dose benzo therapy, combined with a low dose of lexapro(or X other SSRI) should help you get back to where you were prior to the trip. IMO, out of all the SSRI's that I have tried, lexapro worked the best and had the least side effects. Seems to me that whatever happend seriously fucked with your serotonin levels.

And for god's sake man, lay off the OC's!! :(

-NHP

Bet you're kind of wishing you didn't fuck around with this stuff now huh?

Believe it or not, I take 400mg chelated magnesium daily, with calcium and vitamin D for max absorption. That should fit the bill for the low dose NMDA antagonist...I've been doing that daily since that day and it helps out w\ anxiety a bit...but much less than I'd like.

Epic. :)

But, yeah... a minor antagonist in one path will only take you so far...

As for the rest, this was around 5 months ago. I haven't used any drugs since, except for the occasional weed. or oxy.

Hoshaite.

...well, there's natural low levels of peroxides soberly. You could try to add a little ascorbate/ALA to drop the natural level lower to (hopefully) speed recovery...

...guess it could take a while. The brain rebuilds 100% of itself given enough time - excellent neuroplasticity - and there's some basic cognitive and behavioralist psych that can help retrain the neurons in their growth patterns, too... (apparently, if you just tell yourself that you have to go through any panic attack which comes up once one starts, and that it'll all be okay, your brain gets practice not overresponding to it. go figure)

I eat very well, I get plenty of exercise (daily bike riding, weight lifting, etc.)

Sweet; interestingly enough, exercise has been noted to increase normative neuroplasticity, so... that's probably good.

Sucks that it took something like this to get to that conclusion though.

Sucks that you kicked your own self off E by this experience, which is normally in the 'good drugs' category...

I thought I would just need a little time, too, but it's been fucking 5 months, and some days are really unbearable...

Well... enough time will fix everything, eventually. You've... just got a bit longer journey than most, so far.

Sorry for rambling, I'm happily mellowed out from some nice herb, so forgive me for turning this post into something you might see on a blog...:P

psh. You should see my rants from the middle of multiweek structured drug binges... it's a better life, but I sometimes feel I'm raeping &totse's bandwidth with a single touch of the "post" button.

Oh, and joe: I've tried 5-HTP sublingually a few times, because the brand I has packages it with B6, which basically renders the 5-HTP useless unless you sneak it in past hepatic first pass...I didn't really like it. Gave me headaches, and just made me feel 'funny'. Do you think L-tryptophan would work better?

It might, especially in the context of a whole protien with a few other nutrients, if you're eating enriched food sources... but...

...don't forget that the b6 is also potentially psychoactive. 'n frankly, a lot of the time, when it comes to combinations and dosages, I don't know WHAT the fuck these people in the supplement companies are thinking. Seriously. A lot of the time they just grabbed names of substances off a VERY short google search to throw in there without reading up on it. 's why I almost only buy single-substance supplements. A single-substance fucktardation can be divided up and corrected for; my bottle 'o b6 is hundred-milligram tabs, and I average one pill about every two years in tiny-ass pieces...

If that was cut with another reagent, I might not be able to do that. 'n one of the purpouses of b6 is to rip amino acids to shreds. It (or rather, pyridoxal-5-phosphate) is the active agent which aromatic-amino-acid-decarboxylase catalyzes. There's probably some other shit that it does, but that one's really big on its own.

If your tyrosine is backed up and wating to hydroxylate, you get headaches and heart problems. If you've got a reserve of phenylalanine unprocessed, you get spun out and then some bitchin' amp rage. It can turn ALL your glutamate into GABA... nothing like trying to function in a k-hole while stupid on benzos as your day-to-day living, no? And so on...

tl;dr b6 can be a semitoxic heavy psychoactive in its own right, taking them seperately might help. But... yeah.. if you want to grab your tryp from a whole protien high in it, instead... sunflower, pumpkin seed, shrimp, halibut, 'n beef. But mostly the first three...'n the hops & lavendar tea can help acute symptoms... slightly, but hey.

Best o' luck, 'n hope you recover...

Avanza. It's a NaSSA, worked wonders for me.

Im on Citalopram at the moment, started it 4 days ago. Im not too hopeful for it but its a low dose at the moment to help with panic attacks and because of my bad experiance with fluxotine (prozac) in the past. It helps with anxiety a tad but not much. I also take 300mgs of codiene daily though so i cant really give a true picture of the sole effects.
Good luck with the search though mate :)

I got put on Paxil for anxiety. Hasn't had enough time to kick in yet. I'm sick of taking benzos :(

Paxil is terrible. Worst script of my life. I don't mean in any recreational sense, I mean that you loose your emotions and become just a tad dissociated(alot). It sucks. I have a friend who just got put on it and was going nuts basically because of how it was messing with his __seritonin or dopamine?__ (I really forget which one it messes with now, wow 6 months without drugs and I forget) Either way he was just not getting good reactions.

Paxil is terrible. Worst script of my life. I don't mean in any recreational sense, I mean that you loose your emotions and become just a tad dissociated(alot). It sucks. I have a friend who just got put on it and was going nuts basically because of how it was messing with his __seritonin or dopamine?__ (I really forget which one it messes with now, wow 6 months without drugs and I forget) Either way he was just not getting good reactions.

Thanks for the warning. It works specifically on serotonin receptors from my understanding.

Epic. :)

...well, there's natural low levels of peroxides soberly. You could try to add a little ascorbate/ALA to drop the natural level lower to (hopefully) speed recovery...

I take an emergen-C every day, that should cover the ascorbate requirement (read: kill it dead)

I'm not too familiar with ALA. Wouldn't DHA\EPA be better? And I've heard some controversial things about flax...is fish oil better?


...guess it could take a while. The brain rebuilds 100% of itself given enough time - excellent neuroplasticity - and there's some basic cognitive and behavioralist psych that can help retrain the neurons in their growth patterns, too... (apparently, if you just tell yourself that you have to go through any panic attack which comes up once one starts, and that it'll all be okay, your brain gets practice not overresponding to it. go figure)

Now THAT is some good info!


...don't forget that the b6 is also potentially psychoactive. 'n frankly, a lot of the time, when it comes to combinations and dosages, I don't know WHAT the fuck these people in the supplement companies are thinking. Seriously. A lot of the time they just grabbed names of substances off a VERY short google search to throw in there without reading up on it. 's why I almost only buy single-substance supplements. A single-substance fucktardation can be divided up and corrected for; my bottle 'o b6 is hundred-milligram tabs, and I average one pill about every two years in tiny-ass pieces...


First off, what company in their right mind would make 100mgB6 tabs?!

And I though my 10mg tabs were outrageous...

And yeah, the google list thing is dead on. Why the FUCK would you package B6 with 5HTP? You're basically nulling your product by making sure the vast majority of 5HTP gets turned into serotonin in the liver, way before it has a chance to pass the BBB...


... It can turn ALL your glutamate into GABA...

And yet, there are days I wish this might happen...:P


tl;dr b6 can be a semitoxic heavy psychoactive in its own right, taking them seperately might help. But... yeah.. if you want to grab your tryp from a whole protien high in it, instead... sunflower, pumpkin seed, shrimp, halibut, 'n beef. But mostly the first three...'n the hops & lavendar tea can help acute symptoms... slightly, but hey.

Best o' luck, 'n hope you recover...

Thanks! I love sunflower\pumpkin seeds, I'll start munching on those babies. I know what you mean about the tea...I've been pounding back the triple-bagged chamomile teas lately...

And lavendar's a no go, bad experience with propylhexadrine tampons a few years back... *vomits*


Avanza. It's a NaSSA, worked wonders for me.

I've looked at that, but since I have a naturally low energy level anyway, I'm thinking it's probably not the best bet for me. Did you experience any weight gain\drowsiness?


Lexapro is basically the 'working' part of Celexa(citalopram), so the info on that is especially appreciated. Although, you should definitely not judge it's effects after only 4 days...and out of curiousity, what do you mean by 'low dose'?

And my I've known people on paxil to quit their jobs and sit on the couch vegging out all day. Obviously, that's not gonna happen to everybody, butI think that kind of turned me off to it...

Don't know if this helps but Zoloft (a generic brand) helped me alot. It didn't help either enormously or anything, but it helped both moderately.

You should give that a try if you haven't. It took a long time to really help me, but it did the job.

..............


I'm not too familiar with ALA. Wouldn't DHA\EPA be better? And I've heard some controversial things about flax...is fish oil better?

You need all 3 of those fatty acids at some level.



...

And lavendar's a no go, bad experience with propylhexadrine tampons a few years back... *vomits*
...

Lol.

You need all 3 of those fatty acids at some level.



Lol.

I realize, but I was under the (possibly incorrect) impression that DHA\EPA were more likely to result in mood boosts.

And what the fuck is up another LI BLTCr. Hell yeah. :D

I realize, but I was under the (possibly incorrect) impression that DHA\EPA were more likely to result in mood boosts.

Yea that's what I've pretty much heard too :D

And what the fuck is up another LI BLTCr. Hell yeah. :D
Word :) What city are you in?

Yea that's what I've pretty much heard too :D

Word :) What city are you in?

I pretty much drift between Freeport and my girlfriend's place in long beach.

I've looked at that, but since I have a naturally low energy level anyway, I'm thinking it's probably not the best bet for me. Did you experience any weight gain\drowsiness?

Yes to both. I had insomnia and was underweight, which is why it was a miracle drug for me. I took it just before going to bed (as opposed to taking it in the morning like the doc said) for like 1 year then slowly weened my self off it. Since then I have experienced nothing that could be, even in my wildest dreams, be called depression.

Lexapro is basically the 'working' part of Celexa(citalopram), so the info on that is especially appreciated. Although, you should definitely not judge it's effects after only 4 days...and out of curiousity, what do you mean by 'low dose'?

I took this before Avanza. Made my dick broken. Couldn't get it up like 25% of the time, then if I got it up it might take me 2 hours to come another 25% of the time and the last 50% I just wouldn't climax at all. Sexual dysfunction made me even more depressed.

Word :) What city are you in?

Ain't enough room on this board for all of us...somebodys got to go

I pretty much drift between Freeport and my girlfriend's place in long beach.
Ah that's cool, I'm up here on the north shore, with all the yuppies and hippes :o but at least the hippies are chill. ;)


Ain't enough room on this board for all of us...somebodys got to go
And who would that be?? First come, first served, bud. :P

Ah that's cool, I'm up here on the north shore, with all the yuppies and hippes :o but at least the hippies are chill. ;)

Ah, richboy eh?

Nassau or Suffolk?

I bet he appreciates you stating the obvious.

without going into too much detail, i'm more or less in the same position as you... "clean" more or less for the past 14 months but with a pretty fucked up brain. in my case it didn't result from something i did, but just genetic tendency to have really low serotonin levels.. but i digress.

anyway i second the hops and valerian.. i take a hop & valerian tincture or just straight valerian and hops before i go to bed most nights and the valerian really helps get me to sleep as well as calm me down.

during the day i take a scullcap tincture if i'm really anxious (i'm not sure if you're familiar with scullcap, it's a plant used in chinese herbal medicine, i don't know very much chemically about it but i know it really works for me) and it helps out a LOT.

i have a benzo script but it's currently unfilled as i really, really want to stay away from them, benzos used to be pretty much my drug of choice, and that was without having legal access to them, don't want to find out what i'll do with them now.

i've also experimented with taking 5-htp, but i've had really mixed results. it definitely moderates my moods and anxiety a little bit, but it makes me feel pretty strange also, and mine didn't contain any B vitamins.

i've found what really just helps me more than anything else is keeping myself healthy in general, exercise and eating wise, and trying not to get fucked up too often.. after a night of heavy drinking i definitely feel the aftermath for a few days.