A Question Regarding The Metabolism Of Phenibut

[soulslasher]

Hi Bluelight,

First off: Sorry for my bad english, its not my native language.
And I am not proficient in Pharmacology or Chemistry either

I have a question, which might seem a bit convoluted.

I am addicted to LYRICA(Pregabaline) and take it in very high dosage (4000mg to 8000mg per day, and rising.). I know this is very dangerous dosage, but thats not my point. now when I cant get my hands on enough Pregabaline, I do the following: I drink my urine, because it is excreted largely unmetabolized via the kidneys. I know it works because I am not getting w/d. I am currently doing it, until tomorrow I get a new prescription. However, today I have also ingested about 5g of Phenibut (didnt have any effect whatsoever). However, now that ive started drinking the urine, I feel a very weird kind of pain in my neck. like its on fire....weird to describe. Also I have a red face. But im not withdrawing, so the Pregabaline in the urine does its job. Now finally the question: How exactly does Phenibut metabolize, and what products will land in the urine? And if possible can you tell me if there are dangerous metabolites among them. because I do the urine method quite often to recycle pregabaline, but never do phenibut, except today. and now this pain, like my neck its on fire! I hope you could understand me, and hope you can help me.

PS What also concerns me, is that on Wiki I read that Phenibut is actually a Phenethylamine, and among them are many that cause hallucinations and such. thats the last thing i can need now -.-

 

[Solipsis]

Phenibut is a phenethylamine but doesn't have activity like psychedelic phenethylamines (nor stimulant/empathogen phenethylamines), the substitutions are quite different.

The pain, if related, might be just the interaction with pregabalin or a plain side-effect of the phenibut itself. With the pain I would have guessed allodynia - I do get seriously increased sensitivity to pain from phenibut and it seemed to be much worse when I recently tried a little phenibut for the first time since I am on pregabalin (had not had the stuff for years).
But, the red face (flushing) and feeling on fire appear to be some sort of histaminergic reaction.

I think a part of the phenibut is hydroxylated on the para position of the phenylring (with possible effects of itself) and another part deaminated (probably inactive) and the rest excreted unchanged, but not sure if it is really known.

I appreciate that you're addicted but I would definitely not take phenibut on top of pregabalin, maybe only to ward off withdrawals if you run out of pregabalin and even don't drink your urine. Stop drinking your urine after you have taken phenibut and see if the histaminergic reaction goes away. If it does, avoid that kind of thing like the plague.. if it doesn't it's something else and you could get it checked out, at your own discretion of course.

Do not get addicted to equipotent amounts of phenibut, seek help if your pregabalin source dries up. It only partially substitutes anyway.

I would be surprised if anyone could tell you about dangerous metabolites.

 

[soulslasher]

Hello and thank you for your reply

do you know how much phenibut is excreted and what the metabolite that you mentioned does and whether said metabolite is excreted renally as well??

I might add - i know it sounds disgusting, sorry if I offend you -that I can taste whether theres pregabalin in the urine, it then tastes bitter. but now it tastes different bitter, much like FAA Phenibut (I had ingested HCL however) I used to substitute phenibut for pregabalin but i needed in excess of 20grams a day which fucked up my stomach :/
The situation is unchanged, except that now i drank about 2 litres of urine, i am pretty high now, like on 8000mg. its definately a pregabaline high, but with those strange side effects. i wouldnt get these effects from phenibut alone.

I also strongly disliked the phenibut high, where I acted like a madman. in strong contrast to pregabalin, which simply makes me feel comfortable and at ease with the world

PS: Yes I know it sounds disgusting, but I am very poor, and on the black market the pregabalin are very expensive. hopefully i can get the prescription tomorrow :/

 

[Solipsis]

Drinking that much urine seems like quite a problem because you are accumulating all your salt, waste products and metabolites. Would be coincidental that your symptoms would start when you add the phenibut, but I doubt it is any metabolite. If it were, that would mean a significant part of phenibut is metabolized that way and people using high quantities would get side effects from that anyway I'd expect.

IMO despite seeing your actions as necessary for being addicted but poor, don't worry about phenibut metabolites when you ought to worry about ingesting that much pregabalin and urine and phenibut.

Like I said, I don't think the metabolism has really been studied (although I would expect the Russians to've done that at some point..?), at least not as far as I know. It was already speculation and that's all really.

From my limited personal experience of phenibut not feeling good at all with pregabalin still in my system, seems like you are just pushing it and are getting interactions. Try to taper, get someone to monitor you and dose you, or you may have to suffer the consequences since eventually this will either end badly or difficult.
Phenibut is not a proper substitute especially not when you're still also on pregabalin, but neither is it to fully try and substitute with it because of indeed those massive dosages even compared to the pregabalin dosages. That makes this unsustainable. Sorry to have to be blunt about that, but that really has to be pointed out as it is different from just maintaining a habit semi-sustainably. It's not like I'm judging you, just saying this is even less of an option than the pregab habit itself.

(Do not go cold turkey even if you'd opt for that)

Not sure how you will proceed, but keep an eye on those symptoms and check how they match with a histaminergic reaction a la allergic drug reaction - seems hard to say how/why your body would react that way and not necessarily as a result of actual toxicity. Learn to recognize early signs of anaphylaxis just to be sure but just do everything you can to find a solution so that you don't have to expose your body to this. Prescription for just the pregab? Alright, well temporarily at least, but realize you got to deal with this or you will get the same problem next time. At least taper enough to be able to stretch your script far enough.

 

[soulslasher]

luckily, the problems only persisted for one day and a half, now im fine!

well except im now still recycling my urine, after one day pause (i had gotten 6g pregab yesterday, last doctor gave me rx)...well when recycling but i always drink an equal amount of water. should i drink distilled water instead? how long could I go on doing this? the longest time ive been recycling without taking new pregab was one week, and i felt pretty sick at the end, although not withdrawal, but more like my kidneys hurt. also the taste of the urine became unbearable, so i cooked it outside on a public grilling place at night and put the dry powder that remains in capsules. would it be possible to seperate that pregab from the "waste"? sorry for the many questions, the thing is, im broke and i have judical condition, or how ever its called in english, that means here in Germany that I will get immediately jailed when i try something funny and then I will have to sit at least another year. so no easy money. and I have now gotten and taken prescriptions from virtually every doctor possible. on top of that im in subutex program and if i get jailed (in Bavaria, only state you wont get substitution in jail here in Germany). I have filed request for detox already but they have long waiting lists. so in other words, i have no other options than that, trying something funny which i rather wouldnt want, or going cold turkey, which might kill me because i do get seizures badly when doing that. yesterday i could get a prescription for 6g pregab and took it yesterday, no kick at all, im getting no kick anymore since im doing the recycling. not even from 9g on last tueday. im somehow high, but its so disgusting.... and now the recycling will continue. hopefully next week i can get a place in detox

 

[soulslasher]

just one more question: given my tolerance is such, that 9000mg pregab cause only a slight buzz. how dangerous (thinking of seizures) would the withdrawal (cold turkey) be? well, "nearly" cold turkey, i found 3x 225mg's capsules, but I guess such little wont help much. cant get a place in detox, and im very sick. my face totally swollen :/

 

[Solipsis]

IMO it's not really the question of acceptable at this point but of whether you could taper even if you tried it which needs to be like a conviction, not some reluctant decision or doubts about whether it's serious or dangerously serious. At least from my personal experience with both succumbing to addiction and overcoming it.
But in your case it seems you have little choice and continuing your use is not an option anymore. Yet, since about 98% is uncreted unchanged in urine you can still sort of choose how fast you are doing a forced taper. If you recycle everything then not accounting for losses due to various reasons I think approximately:

Blood concentration in % = 100 * 0.99^(t/6)

with t is time in hours...

If you keep recycling everything you would be down to your last 5% after about 74 days. No idea how long that is for a 9000 mg pregabalin dependency, but also no idea how long to keep recycling urine depending on how long you keep this up... possibly you can't afford to eat any salt in your food - that may be way worse than any minerals in regular water..., . To avoid shutting your kidneys down you should throw away some every time... not sure about the distilled water, it does make sense i guess. I also hope you flushed your piss at least before getting the 9000 mg to get rid of some waste etc.

Just check around a bit on drinking your own urine, not sure how long you've been doing this but your problems are signs of kidney failure.

Therefore IMO taper as fast as possible, if the kidney failure is impending which seems expected and inevitable.

I know that my psychiatrist said he knew of docs who let people even on say 600 mg a day relatively quickly, although I quite hated even coming off 225 mg a day. But I really don't know where it starts getting dangerous, if you say you get seizures badly that seems to say enough... Also I really do think that cold turkeying from ultra doses of any significant (depressant) drug is a terrible idea and you would risk various sorts of health problems afterwards..
I guess since you have nothing but the pregabalin in you to recycle, recycling as taper seems less unsafe than CTing. Don't know about keeping phenibut as emergency for when you get signs of seizure-like activity (definitely keep the 225 mg capsules for that despite them being weak for your habit - might be enough to add that little bit to your blood levels that hopefully drop steadily as you keep recycling), seems like an impossible medical decision to make - most of this really including regarding responsibility - .. really problematic HR question and something for a physician rather than us - yes i realize you can't afford any official help here.

Who could actually say as to whether phenibut could save you from seizures so that you can quit recycling urine immediately? You'd have to take very large doses with damaged kidneys.

They won't admit you as emergency to detox safely in hospital if you exhibit enough alarming symptoms you think, or is it a matter of money for the hospital bill you worry about? Check for symptoms of kidney failure and you will probably have justification to go for medical help.

Forget about separating pregabalin from the waste.

What do these doctors say that you're supposed to do to recover? Really sucks to hear that about germany, I'm in the NL and they do expedite the detox thing for serious cases... I assume you already explained everything to people admitting you for detox programs, but I'd put a rush on that and explain the medical emergency sort of nature if you haven't already.

Best of luck man, will have to be your decision-making but let us know how it goes...

At this point it may be about medical advice rather than advanced drug discussion...