MDMA and SSRIs

[SpaceCookies]

Hi all,
Last weekend I thought I'd try MDMA for the first time. I ordered some off the darkweb, had it tested, measured it out in milligrams and dosed.
I'm 6' 1" and 104 Kilos, so I followed the standard advice of taking your weight in Kilograms plus 50 (equals 160 mg). I parachuted it and waited for an hour. Nothing, maybe a slight uptick in mood. About 90 minutes after the first dose I dropped another 200 mg and still nothing.

Here's the thing. I stopped taking an SSRI (citalopram) 7 days earlier, I would have thought that 7 days would be long enough to flush the SSRI from my system but it wasn't. Some people commented that the dosage was quite high and 7 days was quite awhile and that maybe the molly itself wasn't very good but the lab tests show that it was (no comment on the purity though).
I've done some anecdotal research on-line and found that 2 weeks weaning off SSRIs seem to be what's recommended.

So fellow bluelighters, does anyone have any advise, comments, or personal experience with this sort of thing?

 

[plumbus-nine]

I felt a low dose of 6-APB (a research chemical with similar empathogenic activity like MDMA) and high dose alpha-methyltryptamine (a serotonin derivate also having empathogenic and stimulant activity but a bit trippy) even while still on venlafaxine. Which is weird because when the venla attached to and disabled most of the serotonin transporters then I shouldn't have felt much difference. Maybe there are relevant differences in pharmacology between MDMA and 6-APB but they should both be triple releasers. You should feel stimmed from the norepinephrine dopamine release but without much of empathogenic activity.

In theory I'd say that 7 days should be enough for most of citalopram to leave your system as it has a half life of around 1 day but possibly did you still have a serious tolerance to serotonin (I think SSRIs will cause such as a secondary mechanism from all the serotonin which is stopped to be reuptaken and thus hangs around and downregulates receptors), so a longer abstinence might well bring the effects from MDMA you desire.

 

[SpaceCookies]

Wow plumbus, you sound like you know your chemistry. I did in fact feel stimulated, and only a little increase in empathy.
How much more of an abstinence do you think, another week?

 

[FauxReal]

Stay on your meds until your doctor says you can come off. Then wait a year for down-regulation and try again with an experienced guide. You won't need a 200mg re-up, just an 80mg.

 

[plumbus-nine]

Honestly I don't know, if it is related to receptor downregulation then possibly more than just one more week. But a year? No way that it should take this long. Then again I still have sexual discontinuation side effects two months later.

 

[SpaceCookies]

Stay on your meds until your doctor says you can come off. Then wait a year for down-regulation and try again with an experienced guide. You won't need a 200mg re-up, just an 80mg.

Thanks for your concern Faux.
I don't have a real relationship with my Dr. He asks how I am and I respond. It doesn't matter if I say I'm fine or suicidal (I'm not), he prescribes the same thing every time.
But honestly I'm just sick of the SSRI. The side-effects suck - weight gain, difficulty sleeping, loss of libido .. and sometimes it just feels like a piece of me is gone. I'm not saying that everyone should discontinue, but for me right now I'm willing to wean-off, which I have by lowering the dosage over the last year until 2 weeks ago by stopping. Which brings me to this thread.

Honestly I don't know, if it is related to receptor downregulation then possibly more than just one more week. But a year? No way that it should take this long. Then again I still have sexual discontinuation side effects two months later.

I'm thinking I'll try again next week. That will be a full 3 weeks off the SSRI.
It would be really good to hear from anyone that has been down this road and would like to share their experience.

 

[hotgirls.jpg.exe]

I'm thinking I'll try again next week. That will be a full 3 weeks off the SSRI.
It would be really good to hear from anyone that has been down this road and would like to share their experience.

If you took 360mg of mdma last week and it didn't work, I humbly suggest blasting another half a bag (as you'd obviously be thinking of taking more to 'make sure it works') a week later probably won't do much either. And in the interests of harm reduction for anyone else reading, that is an absolutely insane dose to take in the space of 90 minutes for your first time - sometimes it takes that long for the first dose to kick in. Add to that being on antidepressants and deciding to take a hero dose to overcome the effects of an SSRI...the risk of serotonin syndrome wrt to other medication honestly is a bit overplayed BUT it's also a roll of the dice and can happen randomly. Depending on how pure the MD was (max purity possible is 84% iirc), 160 as a starting dose for someone that's never taken it before is a bit ridiculous imo. I'm half your size with a pretty decent tolerance and 80mg of high purity gear was enough for an extremely rocky ride for the first hour after it took effect. Couldn't even talk, quite dissociated, all I could do was lay on the couch and close my eyes and wait it out - it was a new batch, i overestimated my tolerance and didn't start low. Learned a lesson there, now I always start with two thirds of a dose and wait til i feel it before taking the rest.

With that out of the way, it IS odd that you didn't feel anything from such a large dose. I don't think you need to wait a year but I would give it at least a month, if only to let your brain recover from having so much MD thrown at it. Taking daily NAC (n-acetyl-cysteine) in the interim might be something you want to look into doing

 

[SpaceCookies]

Hi Hotgirl, thanks for your input. Yeah, I'm being told by many that it was a very high dose. I guess it was fortunate that the SSRIs were still in my system to balance it out.

I got the dosage information from RollSafe.org where they reference your weight in Kilos plus 50mg but then go on to say that if its a first time then you should go lower, like 80mg
I'm going to revise the dosage to 80mg this weekend, which will be 3 weeks since cutting out SSRI. For anyone interested (or anyone in the same status as me regarding weaning off of SSRIs) I'll report back after that, or maybe even while I'm rolling.

I know you're not supposed to ask a girl her weight ('specially not a hot one) but you say 80mg is more than enough for you, are you in the 120 lb range? And how often do you dose?

 

[cosmosmariner]

You probably cannot safely stop your SSRI long enough for an undiminshed roll. Many people report a break of three weeks is not enough.

And just because you didn’t feel anything doesn’t mean you had no risk of neuro toxicity from taking too high a dose. Please be safe.

For the long term, if you stop your SSRI, you could try St. John’s Wort, which upregulates serotonin receptors that are likely down regulated from your SSRI. Two months of SJW, stop for two weeks, then roll.

 

[hotgirls.jpg.exe]

i'm 110lbs give or take, but I'm 5'7 so obviously rather underweight, very little body fat, naturally fast metabolism - all this will factor into how my body processes the drug. The time with 80mg was for some extremely high purity stuff a couple years ago, i used it as an example of why caution with a new batch is always a good idea. ~100mg is more usual if it's regular quality from a batch i'm familiar with (i'll start with 70 if it's new to me), with a redose between 60-100mg at T+2.5/3hr. Dose frequency is usually 3-6 weeks but I try to take breaks of a few months every now and then when I feel the tolerance creeping up. I kinda hit it a bit too much during the crazy long hard lockdowns we had periodically in Melbourne during 2020-21 bc there was nothing to do, we literally couldn't leave home more than once a day and only for up to an hour, and for various periods my mobility was seriously impaired. Not exactly a healthy coping mechanism but at least I don't drink. I know soooo many people who developed full blown dependence on alcohol in that time, and others whose substance use of harder stuff got really out of control.

Given how high you dosed previously I would say only two weeks between doses probably won't be enough to get the full experience but as you've no long term tolerance to MD it shouldn't affect it *too* much, in my experience - although over the years since i first used it in 2008 I've realised my brain is a bit different. I can do it two days in a row and almost have a better time the second day and I don't get comedowns, i get an afterglow, and long term depression like others report doesn't seem to affect me (it should have really ruined me in the last couple of years but mentally I feel pretty great actually). In retrospect all this isn't a good thing for not taking the piss with the drug sometimes but ah well. At least it's a pretty forgiving substance compared to some others. I know you didn't ask for my life story but my autism demands me giving long winded responses using personal experience lmao. I try to give advice based on best practice rather than my own experience; I definitely wouldn't go around telling people to do what I do!

Just a heads up, live trip reports aren't allowed on here - you can post about how you're feeling in the megathreads/social threads but don't do like a running commentary. Definitely write it up in notepad or w/e to post in the trip reports forum afterwards though

 

[hotgirls.jpg.exe]

If I may ask: it has been 2.5 weeks since you stopped the citalopram are you suffering any withdrawal effects? (fuck that noise of big pharma getting it labelled 'ssri discontinuation syndrome', it's withdrawal due to physical dependence!) What dose were you on and was it actually helpful for what you were taking it for?

 

[SpaceCookies]

You probably cannot safely stop your SSRI long enough for an undiminshed roll. Many people report a break of three weeks is not enough.

And just because you didn’t feel anything doesn’t mean you had no risk of neuro toxicity from taking too high a dose. Please be safe.

For the long term, if you stop your SSRI, you could try St. John’s Wort, which upregulates serotonin receptors that are likely down regulated from your SSRI. Two months of SJW, stop for two weeks, then roll.

Hi Cosmos,
Where did you hear that many people report a 3 week break is not enough? This is exactly the source of information I'm looking for.

 

[SpaceCookies]

Hotgirl, Yeah I did have some withdrawal symptoms, nothing really serious though, just a bit of dizziness and feeling a bit spacey at times. It still lingers now even after 3 weeks.
I was on 20 mg of the SSRI citalopram daily for years, I can't even remember how many. Recently I had a life experience that made me question why I was still on the SSRI. I started tapering off by halving the dosage to 10 mg, then 5 and as of 3 weeks ago, nothing. This was done over the course of a year.

In the last 2 weeks I've have old feelings/emotions resurface. I can get very emotional over something as silly as a television commercial or a Marvel Comic movie (all they want to do is save the world god dammit !!). It can be intense but I let it wash over me and then let it go and I know why it's present. What I really notice is that it feels like a missing part of me is back and I'm cherishing that (more on that below). I was originally prescribed them because I told my Dr. I that it felt like my life was in grey-tone and there was no enjoyment or purpose to anything. They did actually help for awhile, not that joy and purpose was restored, more like joy and purpose didn't matter and they let me get through the day. The bills still had to be paid and getting out of bed was not optional. So for that time and place they did their job but at the cost of taking a part of myself away.

I know big Pharma has profit at the core of what they do and an interest in selling their drugs. Not everything they do is evil, but I think they need to reign in their marketing people and shareholders occasionally . And for me I think there may be another way ..

What got me interested in MDMA was the growing noise about it being used to offer legitimate treatments for some psychological issues. For me, I wanted to feel closer to people I love and care for but on SSRIs it *seemed* that I had lost a certain ability to bond with others. I know that MDMA isn't something that one can take with regularity, but I have also heard testimony that it can 'reset' something in ones outlook, something that may have been lost. This is a long post so I'll end it now and write another about your advice/experiences and my reactions.

 

[SpaceCookies]

Honestly I don't know, if it is related to receptor downregulation then possibly more than just one more week. But a year? No way that it should take this long. Then again I still have sexual discontinuation side effects two months later.

Plumbus (love the Rick and Morty name reference), are you saying that you also were on SSRIs and the stoppage of them have left you with loss of sexual desire even after 2 months? Funny, because in my experience my libido came back strongly after only 3 or 4 days. Can I ask how long you were on SSRI for?

 

[plumbus-nine]

Plumbus (love the Rick and Morty name reference), are you saying that you also were on SSRIs and the stoppage of them have left you with loss of sexual desire even after 2 months? Funny, because in my experience my libido came back strongly after only 3 or 4 days. Can I ask how long you were on SSRI for?

Well, first I have to say that it was probably the morphine which finally fucked my sexuality up by depressing testosterone production BUT when I withdrew from morphine while still on SNRI (venlafaxine) I got very horny after 1-2 days while since I kicked the antidep I feel sexually dead. It was better even while on it. I also suffer of premature ejaculation now, so even if I would get aroused, no fun available.

I was on venlafaxine for a total of 10+ years and just recently finally managed to kick it with the aid of fluoxetine and kratom (because my favorite, kanna extract, a herbal SSRI wasn't available). It's now been a good two months since and no improvement, also feel very nervous/jittery on a daily basis so I'm going back to kratom for now, just wait for it to arrive.

 

[hotgirls.jpg.exe]

@SpaceCookies I reckon you might get a lot out of the book 'Lost Connections', if you care to look it up. It helped me a lot when I was going through a dark period some time ago. It's by the same author of Chasing The Scream (another excellent book, about the war on drugs)

 

[hotgirls.jpg.exe]

Hotgirl, Yeah I did have some withdrawal symptoms, nothing really serious though, just a bit of dizziness and feeling a bit spacey at times. It still lingers now even after 3 weeks.
I was on 20 mg of the SSRI citalopram daily for years, I can't even remember how many. Recently I had a life experience that made me question why I was still on the SSRI. I started tapering off by halving the dosage to 10 mg, then 5 and as of 3 weeks ago, nothing. This was done over the course of a year.

In the last 2 weeks I've have old feelings/emotions resurface. I can get very emotional over something as silly as a television commercial or a Marvel Comic movie (all they want to do is save the world god dammit !!). It can be intense but I let it wash over me and then let it go and I know why it's present. What I really notice is that it feels like a missing part of me is back and I'm cherishing that (more on that below). I was originally prescribed them because I told my Dr. I that it felt like my life was in grey-tone and there was no enjoyment or purpose to anything. They did actually help for awhile, not that joy and purpose was restored, more like joy and purpose didn't matter and they let me get through the day. The bills still had to be paid and getting out of bed was not optional. So for that time and place they did their job but at the cost of taking a part of myself away.

I know big Pharma has profit at the core of what they do and an interest in selling their drugs. Not everything they do is evil, but I think they need to reign in their marketing people and shareholders occasionally . And for me I think there may be another way ..

What got me interested in MDMA was the growing noise about it being used to offer legitimate treatments for some psychological issues. For me, I wanted to feel closer to people I love and care for but on SSRIs it *seemed* that I had lost a certain ability to bond with others. I know that MDMA isn't something that one can take with regularity, but I have also heard testimony that it can 'reset' something in ones outlook, something that may have been lost. This is a long post so I'll end it now and write another about your advice/experiences and my reactions.

That's a good taper regime actually, I'm surprised you would still get WDs but everyone's different I guess. I tapered off 10 years of nortriptyline in the space of a couple of months because the side effects were ruining me and it was a bit crappy but nothing too bad. And it sounds like you're dealing with the emotions in a healthy way. If you do find the bad stuff resurfacing DBT as therapy might be helpful (as opposed to CBT which is basically the 'look over there!' form of therapy lol)

 

[SpaceCookies]

I reckon you might get a lot out of the book 'Lost Connections', if you care to look it up. It helped me a lot when I was going through a dark period some time ago. It's by the same author of Chasing The Scream (another excellent book, about the war on drugs)

Just ordered the book - 5 to 10 business days. Although I think my dark period had ended, it may be a good read. Thanks for the reco.

 

[SpaceCookies]

Hotgirl -What's DBT vs. CBT therapy? Or what do the acronyms stand for?
Thanks for sharing your experiences with MDMA, dosing and nortriptyline struggles. I envy your mental health. Your support is genuine and means a lot. Thanks man.

As mentioned I've revised my dosage amount for next time which I'll post-pone for another week. Although a good thing happened since the last time. I've been much more open to bonding with, and knowing people in the last 2 weeks since the mega-non-responsive dosage. I even started dating again which hasn't been done for awhile. So maybe there was some unseen beneficial effects after-all. .. Ooor that the discontinuation of the SSRI combined with some kind of placebo effect is in order! Either way, I'll take it.

I hear ya about lock-downs and boredom. I live in Canada and the winters can be looong enough without having a lock-down in effect. Its like a kind of cabin fever where alcohol gets you through the days. Fortunatly I was able to keep a lid on it. Sorry to hear about some if your buds that became dependant, I hope they get a grip on it. (Side note - I lived in Sydney for a year some time ago, even made it to Melbourne twice - good times!)

Also, I have a video recommendation for you, or anyone really. "How to Change Your Mind" on Netflix. It's a 4 part series on how psychedelics (including MDMA which is a sub-class) affect your mind for the treatment of many mental disorders. Its about micro-dosing LSD or shooms for the longer term, but also straight-up high dosage trips on the rare occasion. Its an interesting watch.

Thanks for the heads up about live-posting while tripping. I was going to go on the Discord forum and post there while in-the-moment. Not sure if that's a good idea though as I don't want to be the crazy child who banters on and on. We'll see.

 

[cosmosmariner]

Hi Cosmos,
Where did you hear that many people report a 3 week break is not enough? This is exactly the source of information I'm looking for.

Hi, Space:

You can find many reports here on Bluelight. I also have seen the same type from Reddit.

I have seen one or two from folks who discontinued for three months and found their roll was still significantly attenuated, presumably from serotonin receptor down regulation.

The most extreme report I saw was three years.

Some people seem to have had success using St. John’s Wort, which up regulates serotonin receptors.