nootropics DRUGS (gasp!)

[anarchosyn]

Since this shite is legal on your side of the pond (euro), anybody have any first (or even second) hand experience with either:

piracetam (nootropil)
hydergin
centrophenoxine (lucidril)

or

vasopressin (diapid)

for those that don't know, these are cognative enhancers (aka smart drugs) which are legal in euro-land, but not my fascist drug czar touting country. no, these are not the "wacked out on smacky crack" drugs which we all know and love.

piracetam is of particular interest as it is said to increase hemispheric exchanges in the brain (plus restore memory/recall).

I don't expect these to be miracle drugs, but I'm curious how they really effect people. All info on the web seems to be for the medical professional (i.e. wordy, clinical, detached from human usage) which I can understand to a decent degree, but doesn't help a "healthy" person like me looking solely for the "smart increase factor".

how long do the effects last AND how long should I have to take these before noticing any changes? Some sources say the effects are instantanious.. others imply the effect takes awhile to become apparent . This comes into play with how I might choose to use these expensive substances (i.e. do I want to take attack dosages, or do I want to take minimal dosages for a longer period of time).

any help would be very well recieved.

[roberta_hood]

i know that substances like piracetam, hydergin and the other both, in germany you can get it only with a recipe from the doctor.

i have none experience with it, but i know that there are similar substances which you can get without a recipe.
one or two friends of me, they are students, take some of it to upgrade their concentration befor an exam.
one of them told me, he had to begin with the "therapy" early because it needs time befor there is an effect.
and to keep this effect you must take it for the period you need or want to have this effect. when you stop the taking the effect will end soon.

when i can get some other/more information i will post it here for you

[stu pitaus]

recipe = prescription

archosyn you druggy. just say NO to drugs. now regarding robertas statement about her friend taking some type of drug to make concentration higher, well there are quite a few pilly pills that have this effect, and the fact they have to take the substance far enough in advance to have the desired effect has everything to do with working it into your system... they have straight ones and time released ones... but more or less this type of drug that makes synapsis' communicate faster in the brain, the chemicals are slow to going in the charging stage... and if you arent careful with what your up to, the come down can be very bad. there are many reported suicidal cases of depression on this. after the substance has worked itself out that is....

oh and arch these drugs are high maintenance on your part... you have to regulate and have a tight schedule. x amount of x drug x times a day, every day. you must find the correct dosage.... there is lots more, but keeping it in your system has alot to do with the come down factor.

remember, knowledge of controlled/uncontrolled substances in the past 100 years can be summed up with this bit of knowledge: heroine was invented to get the people off of opium. czar touting? people are still that dumb and thats why you want smart pills. dumb people make them.

*thanks hoodie i fixed my spelling error. a german corrected my english... sheesh, where them smart pills at again?

[roberta_hood]

Originally posted by stu pitaus
recipe = perscription

yes, you're right, that's the same. but you mean prescription, i'm right?!

[roberta_hood]

@anarchosyn:
this substances you named, yes they will used medical by old persons, they have dementia, their brain is not working like in their younger years.
but there are some side-effects like insomnia and it's possible when you stop taking you can get depressions.

it's right what stu pitaus is writing.

[roberta_hood]

Originally posted by stu pitaus


*thanks hoodie i fixed my spelling error. a german corrected my english... sheesh, where them smart pills at again? [/B]

oooh it's o.k. *blush*

it would be very good when my own english would always so accurate when i'm posting here :D

[stu pitaus]

:D you blusher

but i think you mean:
"it will be very good when my own english is always so accurate when i'm posting here.

hehe lol

[roberta_hood]

@ stu pitaus:

o.k., i see have still a lot to learn :!

[dick head]

i am highly sceptical of all claims made for these so called smart drugs. nobody has ever presented me any evidence of their efficacy other than very vague blanket statements about neurochemistry. is there any actual evidence?

[maudular]

hello

Piracetam is a kind of "new generation drug" i.e a drug which barely gives any secondary effects... it is given to dislexic people, and as well to people suffering from Alzheimer, for its main uses...

It's a really powerfull and efficient drug which significantly increase memory (or decrease memory troubles), help to concentrate and stay concentrate, nightmares, and some others brain troubles.

But, despite the fact that it is said to have no secondary effects, as every kind of chemical, it depends on the person who takes it...

I think it's a very good thing, but its use has to be very controlled, caus it can be very dangerous and provoke some long term troubles if it's not taken "seriously" (yes, you have to take it very regularly, every day at the same hour)

it's not the kind of drug you take in high dose and gives you a rush of intelligence... no way ! it's a long treatment, sometimes it's given for all your life...

[lucid rinehead]

there's a REAL drug called lucidril?

maybe i should be lucid rilhead

...nah

[stu pitaus]

yes maudular... correct. no dick head... incorrect. you dont get 'smart'. neurophycologists will also tell you certain people get freakin geekin off of 10 pints of caffeinated coffee... tell me caffeine dont help certain individuals alertness? these drugs more or less are that times 1000. and maudular is right, diagnosis and what/where your mental troubles lie play the equalizing role in these substances having any effect on you.... if you dont need them, i serously doubt they would have any worthwhile effects for you. so your stuck with the side effects...

just go take some good ol speed if you wanna stay alert for a grip.

[dick head]

psychiatry is something i am very wary of. having done a quick scan of literature on the net about piracetam, i still remain unconvinced. as with many psychiatric drugs there is no known cause for these 'effects' - such as helping with amnesia caused by electric shock therapy (!!!) - surely a demonstration in itself of how wacky psychiatry is. "well we zapped him with 200 volts and uh, it cured his disease symptoms, except now he can't remember his, uh name, and stuff, but hey look! we just fed him this drug and he remembers. how does it work? uh, dunno...probably does something to the , uh , neurotransmitters? they usually do that."

maudular, do you have some insider knowledge of this type of stuff?

[stu pitaus]

so you are skeptical of neuropsychiatry or psychiatry dick head... go study it. now tell me chiropractors dont do shit either. people like you walk up to retarded kids and smack them on the back and tell them to knock it off. there are different forms of both psychaitries. and then there are counselors.

people get disease, people have severe mental disabilities, people get MS, people get depression. or are you gonna say that your skeptical of that too?

[dick head]

well one problem is i know what sort of people become psychiatrists. i was at medical school with some of them.

psychiatry possibly more than any other branch of medicine is sponsored by evil drug companies. that's another major reason for healthy scepticism.

i don't know what makes you think i don't believe in mental illness. i just find the psychiatric approach to 'cure' is a little scary. i wouldn't like them to get their electrodes on me. have you read one flew over the cuckoos nest?

i am aware that they have an extremely difficult task trying to cure an organ they don't really understand.

[maudular]

i agree with you Stu.

The problem is, concerning psychiatry, that it's a science which is quite "new".
for instance, the Piracetam molecula has been discovered in the 60's, but it's only now that it's been given to people. Brain is so complex... the new approach of psychanalysis now tends to erase all the precedents conceptions.. like Freud and Co... I mean, some scientists theory explain that the nervous breakdown by a lack of serotonine in your brain; but how the brain gets suddenly to produce less serotonine one day ? that's still a mystery... (though drugs are well known to provoke that phenomena)... so of course, as psychiatry try to help people, but knowing finally very few about how the brain works, psychiatry do a lot of mistakes, like for exemple, giving people heavy treatments such as Prozac, or electric shock therapy, to name but a few... things are changing now though... with a new generation of anti-depression medicines, like Depakote for exemple. Depakote is originally given to people suffering from epilepsia but it's also given now, more and more to cyclothymic people (= nervous breakdown periods alternating with euphoric periods, in more or less regular cycles)... but few years ago, those people were generally given some "classic" anti-depression medicines, which at the end make them feel worse ! So I think psychiatry is not to being blame, but doctors who give pills and heavy stuff very easily, without taking the time to spot what their patient really suffer from... and of course, there's still a lot of taboo around psychological problems and diseases, caus it's simply not well known, and generally people are afraid of what they don't know...

[JE:5]

There are ethics now though. And I don't think that ECT is necessary in psychiatry anymore.

[JE:5]

Beaten to it! :!

[karitek]

agreed...psychology has made a lot of important andvances over the past couple decades. still has a long way to go, tho...most of all to shake of the taboo nature of mental illness. if people felt more comfortable about talking about their mental problems, i think a lot more people would get helped and more research/advances made.

there is loads of info (including scientific research, first hand experiences, etc) on these drugs at:

http://www.erowid.org/smarts/smarts.shtml

[stu pitaus]

yes maudular, that is well put.

evil drug companies? you know the "sort" of people that are psychiatrists? these are your reasons for having negativity towards psychiatry dick head? those are pretty juvanile and shallow reasons to support such a strong opinion. i can understand going to school with some jokers... why dont you tell us what school and what year these people graduated so we can be sure to look out for them. what makes the drug companies evil? money? control? cause if that is the case, then someone that gets a quadruple bybass surgery done went through a skeptical procedure cause the surgery is so damn expensive. money is the devil, but its doesnt legitimatetly determine whether something works or not.

a good neuropsychiatrist should not only alleviate the symptoms of the mental illness, but also help that individual learn how to define themselves by issues other than thier emotional difficulties.

you say: "i am aware that they have an extremely difficult task trying to cure an organ they don't really understand."

um... ok. the severe complexity and knowledge of the brain is astronomical. so comparing what we could know about the brain with what we do know about the brain, it may appear that in the difference of the two, we understand barely anything of it at all. but you fail to see that we know mountains of information about it.... dont denounce the knowledge of the brain based on what we still dont know about it. or, what you do not know about it.

i think you are rushing into this heavy opinion and skepticism without any knowledge or experience in the matter, considering the reasons youve stated. so i urge you to study up on it. because the last thing i would want to see you go through, is you yourself or a loved one desperately needing the assistance of a neuropsychiatrist in the future, and still having your mind frame as it is now.

[anarchosyn]

my Dick once said:

presented me any evidence of their efficacy other than very vague blanket statements about neurochemistry

Well, the thing is-- we know so little about the neurological working of the brain that a lot of what works as FACT in this instance comes
from observational research, not through disections of working models. This really isn't that unusual when regarding substances that effect one's cognative facilities. Take, for instance Hydergine, which is an erogot derivitive ... or, better yet.. take it's more famous cousin LSD-25. They knew of its effects LONG before any theory could be formulated for why it worked the way it did.

Now, i appreciate your skepticism cause that is the vantage point I am standing from at the moment. Basically, I just got sick of reading conflicting and subject approximations of how these DRUGS work and have decided, primarily based on the toxicity reports, to use myself as a guinea pig. Better to get first hand experience now than to waste years wondering.

To everybody else

I would really like to know more info if anybody has it .. particularly regarding these negative psychological effects (btw- where they using piracetam, or something else)? I've read of people using these at ATTACK dosages to gain immediate effect, and it seems roberta had some friends getting immediate effects from some of these.. but I guess I'll just wait the 15 days for my packages to arrive (but please hip me to anything y'all know in the mean time).

[roberta_hood]

Originally posted by anarchosyn




...and it seems roberta had some friends getting immediate effects from some of these..

no, there is no immediate effect (read me first post here).
my friend told me, that he had to begin at a certain time, to take advantage of this substances. when you want to get an immediate effect you can take speed or something else, but with this medical substances you must have patience and it's better to be under controlled by a doctor.

to take drugs is everybodys own...
...but maybe to think one sort of drugs are not so innocuous then the other one is not the right way. all drugs are not "healthy"...

[stu pitaus]

arch isnt a doctor, he plays one at home tho :p

[dick head]

stu

ah you got me, i should've used one of these rather annoying :-) symbols after my first (frivolous) statement.

but i think you are quite understandably talking about private medicine in the us yes? whereas i am talkin about the state of things in the uk, where our health service is very run down and underfunded. one of my best friends is senior policy officer to a large mental health charity here, so i am reasonably well versed in issues surrounding psychiatric care and mental illness, which are obviously particular to the uk, i should have stressed that. i am thinking of things like the enormous overprescription of drugs that goes on. for example, there often isn't the money to look after mental patients or old people properly, so it's easier to sedate them, using lithium, or morphine in the case of old folks, which also has the added advantage of removing their appetite and will to live, thus hastening their demise and freeing the bed for a younger less troublesome patient. i have personally witnessed these sort of things being done. it's why i got out of medicine.

anyway, this is all gettin a bit heavy for the old erutufon msg brd no?

[Lady E]

we eat heavy for breakfast on this board

[MUX]

leave the beacon and eggs on da farm... oink oink

[stu pitaus]

man, dick head, i totally thought you were american dude, like wow scooby. so yah, i dont know your system over there on this stuff. this doesnt really have nuthin to do with english meds, but actually, knid esquire and me were talkin just the other day about some brit show called johns not mad about the boy a tourettes syndrome documentary. i have been sluething my BBC american station to see if its gonna be on sometime soon but no luck.. wanna see this shit pretty bad. sounds dope... seen the cartelcommunique cut up of the original Johns not mad off of a good finger pointin from the knid.

so you quit medicine to study film. am i getting this right? sedate them with paralyzing audio/visuals rather than with presciption drugs. yah i fought the smilies as long as i could... you should not resist either, it starts to hurt.

[Lady E]

johns not mad, one of the finest moments of television in our UK history

poor sod, he was so sweet. it was unintentionally hilarious, but very heartwarming

missed the follow up...shame

[anarchosyn]

What I ment by an immediate effect was within a day of taking it, which is what your post implied to me (and others of the "taking it to cram for a test" ilk). To stu, No.. I'm not a doctor, I'm a social psychologist.The simple fact I'm here in a questioning manner should solidify this fact. You speak as if I'm pretending to be one.

[stu pitaus]

actually i thought you were jobless, i was kidding about the doctor thing. thats fookin wierd man. ok, im kidding about the jobless thing too... i had no idea what your profession was dude. my playing doctor was a kinky comment. i like you arch always have *dramatic snap* *dramatic point* always will.

[anarchosyn]

Well, actually stu, I am jobless.. but I sit on my couch, naked, all day psychoanalyzing my neighbors lawn furniture, so this counts for something--no?

[stu pitaus]

depends.... diagnosis?