Misc Anti-Depressants that have worked for you?

[Juicewrldfan]

Honestly and I'm not being tongue-in-cheek. I'm being dead serious:

MDMA

Yes, if you read some of my posts, you'll know that I was a prolific consumer of MDMA and other research chemicals well over 500 pills, however, would I frequently do not talk about is how I never suffered from any of the suicide Mondays or Tuesdays. In fact, i always had an afterglow.

During the periods of my life when I used MDMA regularly, I did not drink alcohol or use any other drugs except for complementary party drugs and sometimes some psychedelics.
(That means no cocaine, no meth unless some was in a pressed pill, no marijuana, no opiates, no benzodiazepines, no inhalants, no Dissociatives, no deliriants)

When I was regularly using MDMA, I felt the most well adjusted probably of my entire lifetime.

To be honest, I believe that not using alcohol was probably a major contributor to my feeling of well-being and lack of depression while taking MDMA, although the afterglow really really helped.

And for full disclosure, I can't tolerate marijuana or THC it is stimulating and I don't like it at all, I very sparingly use any stimulants, benzodiazepine use was for alcohol withdrawal and when I was prescribed SSRIs because the doctors were afraid the benzos would make me depressed. They sucked.

MDMA is in no way a good antidepressant. Were you taking it daily? I guess maybe I just don’t understand completely what you are saying. Maybe you mean sporadic use? MDMA would be terrible for your mental health taken daily

 

[Juicewrldfan]

honestly, I think Paxil helped ages ago but pooped out on me and nothing else worked and actually made it worse.

However since getting my T corrected I do not have depression unless I relapse on stims which I refuse to do at this point

 

[snmfmy]

MDMA is in no way a good antidepressant. Were you taking it daily? I guess maybe I just don’t understand completely what you are saying. Maybe you mean sporadic use? MDMA would be terrible for your mental health taken daily

I beg to differ.

When taken in non-recreational doses, in the range of 10 to 20 mg daily, it works as an amazing antidepressant. Which I did for several months as an experiment.
I also did the same with MDA as an experiment and it was just as effective.

TO BE CLEAR, I WAS NOT USING DRUGS RECREATIONALLY AT THE SAME TIME, I WAS EXPERIMENTING FOR SCIENCE.

Of course I wouldn't take recreational doses of MDMA daily, I took them Thursday through Sunday and had 3 days off a week when I was in the heyday of my
use. AND YES I AM ABSOLUTELY 100% SERIOUS DURING ONE STRETCH FROM 1999 TO ABOUT 2002 I USED ON AVERAGE 6 TO 10 MDMA PILLS WEEKLY AND THEY WERE VERY FEW WEEKS THAT I DIDN'T USE.

 

[Juicewrldfan]

I beg to differ.

When taken in non-recreational doses, in the range of 10 to 20 mg daily, it works as an amazing antidepressant. Which I did for several months as an experiment.
I also did the same with MDA as an experiment and it was just as effective.

TO BE CLEAR, I WAS NOT USING DRUGS RECREATIONALLY AT THE SAME TIME, I WAS EXPERIMENTING FOR SCIENCE.

Of course I wouldn't take recreational doses of MDMA daily, I took them Thursday through Sunday and had 3 days off a week when I was in the heyday of my
use. AND YES I AM ABSOLUTELY 100% SERIOUS DURING ONE STRETCH FROM 1999 TO ABOUT 2002 I USED ON AVERAGE 6 TO 10 MDMA PILLS WEEKLY AND THEY WERE VERY FEW WEEKS THAT I DIDN'T USE.

Ahh okay. So you are speaking of microdosing. Maybe in micro doses it’s not damaging to your brain?

 

[snmfmy]

Ahh okay. So you are speaking of microdosing. Maybe in micro doses it’s not damaging to your brain?

I don't know that normal recreational use is damaging to the brain.

In humans they have shown some differences in receptor densities and transporter densities and binding infinity. However, the population of people (age, Sex, weight, prescription, and non-prescription medication, etc) used as controls versus the MDMA users is not comparable, poly drug use other than MDMA was not controlled for, and there are significant differences in the identified metrics across age groups and individual humans.

There is not one study that I'm aware of that can prove axonal damage from recreational doses of MDMA. In fact, this study says that there's no difference between people that aren't using now, but have in the past and naive users. Of course, in active users there will be differences in the serotonergic system of the brain.

"There was no significant difference of serotonin transporter availability among former MDMA users and the drug-naive and polydrug comparison subjects."

A Voxel-Based PET Investigation of the Long-Term Effects of “Ecstasy” Consumption on Brain Serotonin Transporters

OBJECTIVE: Recent functional imaging studies have reported evidence of alterations in the serotonergic system induced by 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), or “Ecstasy.” However, these studies have often been limited by small sample size, lack of tracer selectivity, unreliable assessment...

ajp.psychiatryonline.org

Finally some real science.

 

[Juicewrldfan]

I don't know that normal recreational use is damaging to the brain.

In humans they have shown some differences in receptor densities and transporter densities and binding infinity. However, the population of people (age, Sex, weight, prescription, and non-prescription medication, etc) used as controls versus the MDMA users is not comparable, poly drug use other than MDMA was not controlled for, and there are significant differences in the identified metrics across age groups and individual humans.

There is not one study that I'm aware of that can prove axonal damage from recreational doses of MDMA. In fact, this study says that there's no difference between people that aren't using now, but have in the past and naive users. Of course, in active users there will be differences in the serotonergic system of the brain.

"There was no significant difference of serotonin transporter availability among former MDMA users and the drug-naive and polydrug comparison subjects."

A Voxel-Based PET Investigation of the Long-Term Effects of “Ecstasy” Consumption on Brain Serotonin Transporters

OBJECTIVE: Recent functional imaging studies have reported evidence of alterations in the serotonergic system induced by 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), or “Ecstasy.” However, these studies have often been limited by small sample size, lack of tracer selectivity, unreliable assessment...

ajp.psychiatryonline.org

Finally some real science.

Yeah I think a lot of it came from the false research where someone switched mdma with meth.

 

[snmfmy]

Yeah I think a lot of it came from the false research where someone switched mdma with meth.

George Ricaurte, Johns Hopkins University.

It wasn't a mistake. It was intentional fraud.

Newsbrief: Ecstasy Scandal Grows as Second Study Retracted

 

[Neuroprotection]

really interesting discussion here about MDMA neurotoxicity and I definitely believe that fears of permanent brain damage are overblown. however, in my years of reading about drugs, I’ve come to some conclusions that I think we need to be really careful of.
1 mental illnesses, including those triggered or exacerbated by drugs don’t necessarily reflect general neuronal health/structure. instead, defects in synaptic signalling including presynaptic proteins and postsynaptic receptor expression play the main role. these things can be sustained by long-term epigenetic changes caused by substances or the environment. this could be why studies of brain structural abnormalities in mental illness and drug use often produce conflicting and unclear results.
2 whilst certain drugs may certainly cause neuron damage with extreme dosing, it is more likely that the epigenetic changes mentioned above, combined with long-term neurotransmitter depletion leads to long-term imbalances in brain signalling networks that involve other brain chemicals and go far beyond the neurotransmitter in Question.
3 in line with what I have said above, it seems to be that the brain is quite resilient in protecting its neurons. What it may do less well is restore disturbances of synaptic signalling caused by environmental or substance related factors. this means that your neurons could be perfectly healthy, but the way they behave and interact with each other may not be in line with the realities of your environment. good example of this would be anxiety disorders.
This is just my personal opinion and understanding of the research, please feel free to disagree.

 

[Neuroprotection]

following on from my above post, I feel it is possible for one to inadvertently harm their mental health and brain function with drugs, despite not actually suffering any neuronal damage. though I can’t be certain, I would imagine ketamine induced disassociation disorder or post psychedelic depression are examples of this.

 

[chicken hoagie]

Psychedelics, particularly LSD for me is practically the only foolproof cure to my depression. Albeit my depression is never permanently cured, it goes away for the longest periods of time, from the most infrequent amount of dosing, with LSD. I have tried every pill and drug you can damn near think of, and have held a habit to an extent with most. The only antidepressant FOR ME besides LSD, was ketamine, GHB, and most of the time any opioid will work. These are all more like antidotes rather than a solution to the problem through behavioral mechanisms, whereas LSD is 100% both, and I can confidently say is a TRUE solution to the core issues causing the depression. I wish i could say that it holds true for everyone as well, although I would say a vast majority would find a psychedelic that works the same way for them.

 

[chicken hoagie]

following on from my above post, I feel it is possible for one to inadvertently harm their mental health and brain function with drugs, despite not actually suffering any neuronal damage. though I can’t be certain, I would imagine ketamine induced disassociation disorder or post psychedelic depression are examples of this.

I believe we consider it to be 'brain alterations' rather than true neuronal cell damage/death. The brain is always altering itself, although damaging it is technically altering it as well. *Shrugs shoulders*.

The saying goes, we are what we eat. I imagine humans and their personalities would match up a lot closer if we ate and shit the same exact thing as one another day in and day out. *Now everyone insert your favorite party drug and watch the end results after many months*

 

[snmfmy]

I believe we consider it to be 'brain alterations' rather than true neuronal cell damage/death. The brain is always altering itself, although damaging it is technically altering it as well. *Shrugs shoulders*.

The saying goes, we are what we eat. I imagine humans and their personalities would match up a lot closer if we ate and shit the same exact thing as one another day in and day out. *Now everyone insert your favorite party drug and watch the end results after many months*

Except I, and a lot of people that I know, inserted our favorite party drug in our mouth, in a bottle of water and drank it, and sometimes shoved up our ass, multiple times a week for months or even years at a time without any negative side effects.

CBD, THC, NaC, ascorbate (vitamin C), alpha and beta blockers, and several other compounds abolish or significantly attenuate neurotoxicity in laboratory animals that have MDMA injected directly into their brain multiple times in a day.

One of the biggest things that people don't want to talk about is that in the animal studies of neurotoxicity, an elevated body temperature is necessary for neurotoxicity to occur. If the animals do not have a higher than normal body temperature because they were given a prophylactic alpha beta blocker, or they were kept in a cold room versus a hot room, there's no identified neurotoxicity or very mild.

Go look it up.

 

[Neuroprotection]

any thoughts on the non-selective MAOIs. I know they are rarely used because of severe drug and dietary interactions, but apparently, they were incredibly effective, especially in atypical depression which, despite its name is actually very common. of these, tranylcypromine is the best choice, when fatigue is a major component.
Anyone have experience with these antidepressants, if so, please share

 

[happyone]

NOT YET, BUT

 

[Neuroprotection]

I’ve heard bupropion is quite good, it has an 8 out of 10 approval rating by patients, despite producing no significant euphoria or abuse potential when taking orally as directed. what I find exciting is that this has begun to get at least a few people in the depression, research community to study the role of dopamine and its pathways in depression. i’ve talked about this in other posts, so won’t go into too much detail. however, I do think depression research and therapies have focused for too long on serotonin and to a lesser extent, norepinephrine. is quite strange that we’re even now looking at glutamate and even opioid receptors, growth factors, sex hormones, metabolism, and everything else under the Sun as targets/avenues for depression treatments. how is it then that we simply skip over dopamine, one of the most important Catacholamine neurotransmitters and the only one able to truly reverse, depressive behaviours, including anhedonia with immediate effect.

 

[emkee_reinvented]

honestly, I think Paxil helped ages ago but pooped out on me and nothing else worked and actually made it worse.

However since getting my T corrected I do not have depression unless I relapse on stims which I refuse to do at this point

SSRI's are supposed to be bogus.

 

[happyone]

after 40 years of treatment resistant depression, i have finally found some success in treating it with iv ket. at an 80mg dosage over one hr. however, my dr. is closing end of march. so im stuck. very few providers will bill m'care for this med/service. many places here in usa to get legally at 2k to 3k a dose. unaffordable to me for once a week boosters.. Now, ive been on so soo many ssri's. my dr. wants to put me on all maoi's. ssri's are easier to use but at this point i just desperately want to find some joy, happiness. i'm on ssdi because of my depression. its ruined my life pretty much. any thoughts pls advise.

 

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

Are one of the producers of MANCHESTER by the Sea?

HUhhhh??

 

[ChemicallyEnhanced]

SSRI's are supposed to be bogus.

They definitely aren't! But they do have 3/3/3 ratio where about a third of people will benefit from them, about a third will see little difference either way and about a third will feel worse (usually due to side-effects rather than worsening depression.

I quoted this by mistake, though (too lazy to go back and fix it), I meant to quote your post about Testosterone.
I'm *supposed* to be on it, but am not. Does it really make a noticeable difference to depression??

 

[Jen X]

Mirtazapine is the only one that worked for me.
Ssri's made me to anxious.
I put on 40lbs but got it off quickly