MDMA: do your experiences fit the hypothesis of neurotoxicity?

[Pallyress]

When comparing drug use people often just say how much they took, if it was tested, and time between use.

MDMA hangover/prolonged hangover may have more to do with your body temperature, and your dopamine system, than dose comparisons.

Two theories have been suggested by science for MDMA neurotoxicity.
A) toxicity occours when body temperature is elevated (or lowered). If body temperature goes up or down from normal, toxicity occurs and increases with temperature.
B) after roll, dopamine gets where serotonin should have been, due to 'serotonin depletion'.

For simplicity, let us call it 'degree of hangover'. Some have serious after effects for months and years, whilst others are fine 2 days later.

Can we all compare rolls and aftereffects in the view of hypothesis A or B?
Please include :
BODY TEMP/SWEATH WHEN ROLLING
TESTED/UNTESTED MDMA/EXCTACY
DOSE
TIME BETWEEN ROLLS
EXPERIENCE OF HANGOVERS
OTHER CONDITIONS/MEDICAL FACTS
SETTING OF USE (was it friendly and nice, did you feel regret of opening up too much to others as a part of the hangover)

******
I'll be a good sport and start:

Like, time x when I rolled, I took 130 mg, but in a calm setting, and I didn't get warm/sweath. I was fine the next day.

Once I did the same, and fell asleep under a blanket, I noticed I had beem sweating next morning. That was my worst hangover. Normally I just feel relaxed and tired, not like an actual hangover.

Also, I get a hangover if I redose. If I redose + sweath, I feel drained and anxious more.

I use adhd meds, and in my experience my meds remove any hangover (not the time I got too warm). After using MDMA some 8 times, I had perhaps a mild downregulation in serotonin sensitivity (signs of a mild depression), but it is impossible for me to say for certain that it was due to MDMA. I had several other very difficult things happening, life took a turn for the worse, and it is likely that these other factors contributed much more than the MDMA.

 

[Scevola]

Hey Pallyress,

In my experience, I only had a bad hangover if I have drunk alcohol the same day. Normally I'm just tired. To be honest, alcohol gives me worse hangovers, I even have panic attacks if I drink too much, and I can't sleep.
With a good night on MDMA, I feel tired the next day, but less than with LSD.

I used to roll every month before when I was 19, with dosis from 60 mg at home to 200 mg my first time at a rave. I'm a girl, 50 kg. Everytime my temperature was fine, maybe 39 degrees at most. I sweat more with energy drinks or speed because pure stimulants make me dance more!

I'm very sensitive to MDMA (in a good way) but I never had a hangover from MDMA alone, only a nice afterglow. The first time, the afterglow lasted 1 month because I had realised my dream to try MDMA.
If I redose, my mood still goes up, my tolerance is pretty low now I'm 21.

That said, my cognitive abilities decrease the next days following "pure" MDMA. One Monday I had to simply multiply 2 vectors at the university, and I was soooo slow. I had to do it in front of the class, and I really couldn't think very far.

My temperature seems to be fine as long as I don't dance too much. But with MDMA I usually want to chill and roll under a bed's blanket, or sit on a chair, smile and enjoy the music with my neck to the back. I also like hugging my water bottle more than dancing like crazy. I also feel if my body is lacking energy or nutrients, so I never go too hard.

Now I prefer the combo Caffeine + St John's Wort, that works wonders to replace MDMA and is legal !

I don't have a medical condition, and don't take any medicines. I also don't test my pills all the time, but I was lucky everytime (only once my friends had a pill that didn't do anything, so I threw mine away).

 

[Black]

what makes you think that the hangover has anything to do with neurotoxicity? neurotoxicity cannot be "repaired" by the time a hangover takes to fade away.

i've experienced different kinds of "hangover" stemming from different situations.
1. feeling extra-drained and generally pretty bad the next day along with kidney pains after not drinking anything for the whole night. the mdma dose was normal.
afterwards i've always made sure to keep myself hydrated and never felt a hangover like that again.
2. feeling a strange/out of it in the following days plus anxiety/panic attacks. i've had this multiple times, every time when i did mdma at a particularly stressful time and/or did it two days in a row.
again, this is not dependant on the dose. i have panic attacks every now and then without any drugs, so i have benzos on hand and they are very effective here. i don't see this kind of "hangover" as directly related to mdma. doing mdma just seems to lower the threshold of stress needed to trigger anxiety issues for a few days. i have not have had issues since i make sure that i'm not taking it at stressful times.
3. brain zaps. i've had them once after taking a stupidly high dose of 7 average pills in one night. i felt drained the next day, there was no depression or any other negative symptoms and the brain zaps stopped after two nights.

i always take breaks of many months and only do mdma outdoors at night at festivals as to minimise the risk of overheating.


btw: i thought the dopamine thing has long been disproven.

 

[Xzbtya]

Tried MDMA once at 120mg. Tested and verified. I was 22 years old at the time.

Medical Issues:
At the time Generalized Anxiety Disorder but I didn't need any medication and had not experienced symptoms for roughly a year.

Experience:
-Dosed at about 11PM orally
-Come up took about 45 mins
-Had no elevation in body temp, no sweating. I'm not really the dancing type though I was hosting a dance party. Also I made sure to stay hydrated.
-Everything was sunshine and rainbows
-Loved everybody, no visuals
-Effects die down at about 5AM
-Try to sleep at around 6AM, jerkoff for shits and giggles to see if the experience was improved. Wasn't really.
-7AM still no sleep. I had one 0.5mg clonazepam in case of emergencies and took it and finally fell asleep. God do I wish I had more.

(Next/same day)

11AM - Wake up and I'm still in good spirits. At the time I was still in college so my roommates and I decided to go to the Indian buffet for lunch in the heart of Providence, RI.
12PM - Some food hits my stomach and things go bad FAST. I start to feel nauseous and need to get fresh air. Got hit by anxiety super hard. On the way back to the car I stop at the pharmacy and grab melatonin and 5-htp
For the rest of the day I take melatonin, sleep, wake up, take melatonin and repeat.

(Day 3)
I feel okay again and begin the walk to class. The trees are glowing and the world looks beautiful. At some point that day things went south again and for the next week I would have crippling bouts of anxiety and depression that would come in waves, sometimes in the middle of class. My sleep is terrible. At this point my sleep is terrible and am desperately seeking out benzos to no avail. Ironically now after switching careers and in graduate school the campus I'm at is flooded with xanax :-/

Once things seemingly got back in order it somehow felt like I was happier than I had been prior to the experience and it was probably this experience which began my interest in medicine. However, I would never repeat the experience again. No drug I've tried since has produced such a terrible aftermath other than MDAI which offered none of the good and all of the same after effects. Suffice to say I have avoided any serotonin releasing agents since. As a side note no SSRIs, SNRIs or TCAs have ever helped with my anxiety or depression which I've recently developed. (I never felt real depression until I suffered Nefazodone withdrawals). They all make my anxiety worse. It may be that I'm sensitive to increased levels of serotonin and MDMA is not neurotoxic but the week after was hellish for me.

Also the biochemist in me wants to point out that simply removing the carbon from the methylenedioxy group in MDA produces alpha-methyldopamine, a known neurotoxin. Direct injection into the brain of MDMA does not produce this metabolite.

 

[HPPDOFF]

Yeah I got extremely hot so I put off dancing for most of the night. Woke up with the worst hangover of my life. Now fast forward, my eyes hurt, terrible headaches all day everyday, can't perceive motion very well, visual problems. So yeah fucked me up pretty good.

 

[THE_REAL_OBLIVION]

Nope, other than being bummed out like crazy when it stopped working, feeling blue for a few days after, but that wasn't permanent, and I ate alot of pure molly pills, they were yellow butterflies down from Toronto my friend managed to bring up here, had some a few other times....never do MDMA if there's no women around, it has to be at a party with a lot of very friendly people once you bring the stuff in, lol. But yeah, me and my 2 closest friends felt kinda depressed a bit for a week in one's friend case after taking a single dose. I would eat 4-5 in 2 days and only be depressed if I had legit reasons to be upset, but I was more easily upset I guess, but it didn't last long like I said.

 

[ADubbs]

I definitely suffered a neurotoxic event. It might be glutamate toxicity, although I used Adderall before the MDMA so that may be why I was so screwed up... Dopamine issue? I'm not sure, but my brain was frying that night.

Xzbtya, I'm wondering if you felt sick after the Indian food due to the turmeric? I know taking a curcumin supplement gave me a bad bad reaction... Same thing with garlic.

 

[Xzbtya]

I definitely suffered a neurotoxic event. It might be glutamate toxicity, although I used Adderall before the MDMA so that may be why I was so screwed up... Dopamine issue? I'm not sure, but my brain was frying that night.

Xzbtya, I'm wondering if you felt sick after the Indian food due to the turmeric? I know taking a curcumin supplement gave me a bad bad reaction... Same thing with garlic.

It could be but it was nearly instantly upon the food hitting my stomach. When I was prescribed adderall I would become similarly nauseous if I tried to force myself to eat. I'm guessing its some sort of noradrenaline based response.

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

Unfortunately using elevated body temperature as a proxy for likelihood that someone experienced neurotoxicity isn't very controlled - elevated body temperature -> increased oxidative stress is also going to alter neurotransmission and neurophysiology in non-neurotoxic manners and we wouldn't be able to separate this from enhanced neurotoxicity.