Desperate Can't think straight after quitting meth and anti-psychotics

[Jabberwocky]

As many people probably know I was a pretty hardcore IV meth user for about 8 months and had been on anti-psychotics for many years due to bipolar. Almost 2 months ago I quit meth and antipsychotics (Abilify) together pretty much cold turkey although I kept up taking about 30-50 mg Rx dexamfetamine daily for ADHD. The actual quitting was not that hard and so far I have had basically no cravings and my mood has been pretty stable. Most days I feel pretty cheerful although I have uncharacteristically been getting irritated by a lot of posts on BL and other places online.

The problem is that most of the time I reel retarded. I cannot concentrate on anything complicated very much. Like cartoons are fine but a documentary would seriously tax me. I'm trying to work but after an hour or so I feel totally mentally exhausted and have to take a nap. I literally have five 30 min naps a day. Taking the dexamfetamine does not help at all, in fact if anything it just makes me want a nap more. I also seem to have thing weird thing going on with my eyes where my pupils dilate as the day goes on and my vision gets blurry. Overall, I feel a bit dizzy and confused most of the time. It's like my ADHD has gotten worse by a factor of 10.

Essentially I'm fully functional again in terms of mood and ability to interact with people but can't really do much besides calmly cruise through the day not really doing anything. This has been going on for maybe 3-4 weeks. Clearly my dopamine system is seriously fucked as is probably my norepinephrine system.

I'm not sure what I should do. Just give up trying to work and patiently wait for my brain to heal (not sure if that will happen at my age). Start taking the anti-psychotics again. Quit the dexamfetamine. Take some meth in an attempt to kick-start my brain. Spill the beans to my psychiatrist and see what he thinks.

I wish there was a way I could get my brain scanned and checked out by a neurologist to know what was really going on in there and if it is likely to get any better.

 

[Pinkbeam]

That Abilify is some wicked shit. I'm on it and the Dr. switched me to something else once and my body did not like it. Needless to say, I'm back on it.

Just out of curiosity, did you taper yourself off or just stop? How many mgs were you taking?

Are you comfortable with telling everything to your psychiatrist? I kept my drug use a secret the first year or so, then I came clean and that made things so much better. I could truly talk about anything and I felt like the advice I got and the meds I got made more sense. I felt free.

If you want my two cents, I would tell your psychiatrist what's going on. Of course, you will probably get lectured for stopping your meds. But they will be so happy you quit meth, they will overlook it.

Congrats on the sobriety. It isn't easy.

 

[Jabberwocky]

That Abilify is some wicked shit. I'm on it and the Dr. switched me to something else once and my body did not like it. Needless to say, I'm back on it.

Just out of curiosity, did you taper yourself off or just stop? How many mgs were you taking?

Are you comfortable with telling everything to your psychiatrist? I kept my drug use a secret the first year or so, then I came clean and that made things so much better. I could truly talk about anything and I felt like the advice I got and the meds I got made more sense. I felt free.

If you want my two cents, I would tell your psychiatrist what's going on. Of course, you will probably get lectured for stopping your meds. But they will be so happy you quit meth, they will overlook it.

Congrats on the sobriety. It isn't easy.

Thanks @Pinkbeam. I didn’t deliberately taper off the abilify, I just got more and more random about taking it when I was mething. I was on 20 mg and probably got down to 0 over a month. I did go cold turkey on the meth though.

I don’t know about telling my psychiatrist. I mainly see him just to meet my insurance requirements and get my dex. I don’t have a lot of faith in him.

 

[Pinkbeam]

I bet the combo of stopping the meth cold Turkey and being off the Abilify is why you feel so wacky.

How long were you on Abilify? 8 months on the meth, right?

You sound like you know more about the brain than I do, so I dont have any real good sound advice aside from what you already know.
I'm a meth user and take Abilify daily so I felt like I could relate, although I'm still on both lol.

I hope you get to feeling better. That's got to be exhausting. I wish you the best.

 

[Jabberwocky]

It's going to get better, it just takes time for your brain to get better. I know, because I did speed for 2 year and when I quit I was like 8 months mostly alone lying in bed and I had insane brain fog. It went away as the time went on. I think you using the dexamphetamine may be a problem.
Try getting 5-htp maybe? It might help with your depression.

 

[Deru]

I’ve always wondered if there is some correlation with the cranial nerves, specifically the oculomotor nerve, and chronic drug use that affects them. I used to experience something very, very similar to where my vision would turn blurry, and now recently I’m having white dots and electricity float around everywhere. Ophthalmologist ruled out physical causes, so I’m waiting on the appointment to see the neuro-opthalmologist.

As far as dopamine, I was able to fiinally completely stop using cocaine using L-Phenylalanine and N-Acetyl Cysteine. I have never felt more normal in my entire life. Exercise, too, that has been such an amazing tool lately. My new addiction seems to be exercise, which I’m fine with. I crave getting that runner’s high, once I get my time in at the gym in the morning my entire day just becomes so much more enjoyable.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I’ve always wondered if there is some correlation with the cranial nerves, specifically the oculomotor nerve, and chronic drug use that affects them. I used to experience something very, very similar to where my vision would turn blurry, and now recently I’m having white dots and electricity float around everywhere. Ophthalmologist ruled out physical causes, so I’m waiting on the appointment to see the neuro-opthalmologist.

As far as dopamine, I was able to fiinally completely stop using cocaine using L-Phenylalanine and N-Acetyl Cysteine. I have never felt more normal in my entire life.

I think there is something going on with my cranial nerves. The blurry feeling I get in my eyes when straight now is almost exactly what it felt like when I was totally overamped. I’d be interested to heard what your neuro-ophthalmologist says. I’ll look into those supplements.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I think there is something going on with my cranial nerves. The blurry feeling I get in my eyes when straight now is almost exactly what it felt like when I was totally overamped. I’d be interested to heard what your neuro-ophthalmologist says. I’ll look into those supplements.

I had lots of sleep paralyzes after quitting speed. It was terrible. I remember even once I woke up to a laughing like maniac and I thought who the fuck is that, until I realized it was me.
It takes time. Having benzos once in a while helps.
I understand the depression, the powerless feeling, not wanting to socialize, having lots of anxiety, can't fucking concentrate or anything.
Amphetamines rape your dopamine receptors.
To ADHD amphetamines are given, since once of the causes of ADHD is not enough dopamine, so these people can't consentrate on anything since they're looking for dopamine shot.
I believe amphetamine use can cause ADHD in long term, because it rapes your receptors.
But I believe that you taking the amphetamine stops your brain from turning back to normal, so maybe stop them and your recovery will be faster? LIke how is it going to be better if you keep raping your dopamine receptors by taking more amphetamines? They need to recorver.

 

[December Flower]

As many people probably know I was a pretty hardcore IV meth user for about 8 months and had been on anti-psychotics for many years due to bipolar. Almost 2 months ago I quit meth and antipsychotics (Abilify) together pretty much cold turkey although I kept up taking about 30-50 mg Rx dexamfetamine daily for ADHD. The actual quitting was not that hard and so far I have had basically no cravings and my mood has been pretty stable. Most days I feel pretty cheerful although I have uncharacteristically been getting irritated by a lot of posts on BL and other places online.

The problem is that most of the time I reel retarded. I cannot concentrate on anything complicated very much. Like cartoons are fine but a documentary would seriously tax me. I'm trying to work but after an hour or so I feel totally mentally exhausted and have to take a nap. I literally have five 30 min naps a day. Taking the dexamfetamine does not help at all, in fact if anything it just makes me want a nap more. I also seem to have thing weird thing going on with my eyes where my pupils dilate as the day goes on and my vision gets blurry. Overall, I feel a bit dizzy and confused most of the time. It's like my ADHD has gotten worse by a factor of 10.

Essentially I'm fully functional again in terms of mood and ability to interact with people but can't really do much besides calmly cruise through the day not really doing anything. This has been going on for maybe 3-4 weeks. Clearly my dopamine system is seriously fucked as is probably my norepinephrine system.

I'm not sure what I should do. Just give up trying to work and patiently wait for my brain to heal (not sure if that will happen at my age). Start taking the anti-psychotics again. Quit the dexamfetamine. Take some meth in an attempt to kick-start my brain. Spill the beans to my psychiatrist and see what he thinks.

I wish there was a way I could get my brain scanned and checked out by a neurologist to know what was really going on in there and if it is likely to get any better.

If you can, I advise you to do some sports in order to speed up the chemical processes in your body. If you can only go for a walk the first times, do that, but jogging/running would be optimal. 8 years of stimulants will have taken a heavy toll, but not something your body can't fix. As you said, you will have an enormous epinephrine problem right now, and you need to get your body producing it at normal levels again.

Your body will still not understand why no more Meth is coming, hence needs a bit of a push in the right direction to start producing the right chemicals at the right amount again. Don't worry, I don't think you're "screwed forever", or anything dramatic like that - but it might take some time still. However, as I said you can shorten that time - by no more drugging the receptors you want to have healed, by eating healthy (get as many vegetables in you as you can. Remember to go full rainbow, you need all colours of vegetables), by exercising & by stimulating your mind with what you can. You rly rly need to get your mind fit again. Try to do simple maths, or sudoko, or even word jumples, and do that every day.

It will be hard, but it will most certainly get better

 

[Jabberwocky]

I had lots of sleep paralyzes after quitting speed. It was terrible. I remember even once I woke up to a laughing like maniac and I thought who the fuck is that, until I realized it was me.
It takes time. Having benzos once in a while helps.
I understand the depression, the powerless feeling, not wanting to socialize, having lots of anxiety, can't fucking concentrate or anything.
Amphetamines rape your dopamine receptors.
To ADHD amphetamines are given, since once of the causes of ADHD is not enough dopamine, so these people can't consentrate on anything since they're looking for dopamine shot.
I believe amphetamine use can cause ADHD in long term, because it rapes your receptors.
But I believe that you taking the amphetamine stops your brain from turning back to normal, so maybe stop them and your recovery will be faster? LIke how is it going to be better if you keep raping your dopamine receptors by taking more amphetamines? They need to recorver.

Yes. I think you are right about that. I will try quitting the dex for a while.

 

[bongdong]

I'm not really qualified to comment on this i guess, but two aspects come to my mind you perhaps havn't thought about: B-vitamins do a lot in the body. One thing i learned the hard way is, without adequate B-vitamins, no brain function! I mean this literally, a severe deficit can make you mentally full-blown retarded. I feel most folks have the impression (with vitamins etc. in general) that one just needs enough of that stuff and thats that, but i think these compounds can be use therapeutically as well, because every-body or different conditions (think of an athlete, or a meth user or mental illness etc.) can result in sometimes vastly different requirements. Other thing is fat, healthy fats. It's vital for hormone production and many other things. More and more people have trouble handling the volumes of nutritionless carbohydrates, low energy to the point of sleepiness, non-stop brain fog and a host of other conditions can be the result of that alone, and it's more relevant with age. Guess what i'm saying is: Nutrition is important. Or lifestyle in general.

But i'm not suggesting that you take that all too lightly, what you described, blurry vision and stuff, that might be worth checking out medically i think.

Background: Once in a deep depressive hole, i really stopped caring to eat, and it went straight downhill (physically and mentally). As i was reading on this topic at the time, i gave supplementation a try. Took a B-complex (to cover the ground, b-vitamins work as a team and shouldn't be unbalanced) and then 500mg B3 (niacin), 100mg B6 (pyridoxine), 20mg B1 (thiamine HCL) on top of that. From one day to the next, i was basically a different person, mentally, and i had a daily meditation practice at the time so i knew exactly what was doing on 'upstairs'. As i cleared up my diet many years ago, i also noticed a difference in mental stability, but peak in that regard was the time i followed a ketogenic diet. This lifestyle can be a bit tricky and is surely not for every-body, but to this day i remember/dream of that mental clarity and power and laser-like focus 24/7, i had not known before. But i also have never taken stimulants, so what do i know? I really recommend doing research or getting a respective doctor before trying this stuff out.

 

[deficiT]

Time brother; brains are fickle and fragile; meditation; breathe; ssri's?; amino acids; eat right; supplements; read something anything

breathe deep, b-vitamins; many manner of supplements; music; move yourself somehow

 

[deficiT]

kratom; ginseng; coffee

 

[deficiT]

i need it all too and can't move; still using stimulants though; really want alcohol; been 4 months; benzos dont do the drink; lost my shit on dissos again last night; haldol or seroquel; sleep

 

[deficiT]

black seed oil + garlic + honey