• Psychedelic Drugs Welcome Guest
    View threads about
    Posting RulesBluelight Rules
    PD's Best Threads Index
    Social ThreadSupport Bluelight
    Psychedelic Beginner's FAQ

Long term microdosing, could 5ht2b activation be damaging the heart?

Hexagon Sun

Bluelighter
Joined
Mar 29, 2010
Messages
737
Im following a microdose regimen at 2-5 doses per week and I love it. Im taking 2ce, DOC or DOI depending on the mood.

I have been reading about 5h2b activation and how it can be damaging for the heart valves. I would like to ask if you have a chart/table with the KI of the psychedelics so we can see what have leeser affinity for 2b, so it could be safer to take in long term.

Whatever speculation about the issue is welcome. Would be nice if we have a 5ht2b blocker, maybe that doesn?t pass the BB so it only works periferically or things in this vein
 
It's something I'm concerned with too. I don't microdose often, specifically because of worries about this risk.

I vaguely remember that DOI seems more dangerous for this than LSD or 2C-E. I think LSD is not too bad a choice in terms of the ratio of 5HT-2b agonism : the other 5ht receptors. Mushrooms I remember being worse than LSD, thus a riskier choice for microdosing.

Good idea if we had a 5ht2b blocker that doesn't pass the BBB.
 
Anecdotically, Shulgin spent like 1/3 of his life on psychs and he died old from an unrelated issue.

I know some other old hipppy that has spend like 3/4 of his life on psychs and at +70 looks healthy as a oak. So maybe is not that bad for the valves. Anyway some hard scientific data would be nice.

May I ask how often do you MD and what compounds do you use?
 
LSD may have a lower affinity but when it does bind to 5-HT2B i do believe it hangs on for a really long time, like crazy astronomically long for pharmacological standards. Question is whether this kind of activity actually promotes development of fibrotic tissue. Haven't they done experiments on it?

I remember something about looking into all this and blocking 5-HT2B not being something you really wanna do, but i forgot why that would be.

Microdosing LSD or other psychedelics may or may not put you under the threshold for it being a problem - it's just very hard to tell but I agree that it at least doesn't seem so bad that people regularly drop down from this at a quite young age. afaik
 
^^^Very interesting... This makes sense to me as I always get this lightly manic motivation and creativity afterglow from LSD that is reminiscent of how I'll feel while on and after 5-mapb (another one that likes 5-ht2b). Both LSD and 5-MAPB have this similar after effect on me, LSD just lasts way longer and stronger. It typically lasts about 1 and 1/2 to 2 weeks for me, there also seems to be a light rebound effect as well after it fades but hardly noticeable unless your someone who's very in tune with themselves.

It's light don't get me wrong but very noticeable and somewhat unique from the afterglow I get from other psychedelics like DMT.

I wouldn't want to fuck with 5-ht2b, it's likely one of the bigger contributors to euphoria/feel-good-effect despite its negative effect on the heart. Gotta pay a price somewhere I suppose..

-GC
 
I know what you mean about the LSD motivational afterglow, it's different from other psychedelics in that way. It would be interesting if it were related to that prolonged 5ht2b activation, seems plausible.
 
Actually, while I've not looked at the Ki value for LSD at 5HT2b just lately, I'd hazard an educated guess that it would be one of the worse psychedelics for 5HT2b agonist effect.

Ergoloids in general often have very strong 5HT2b agonist properties. Not just acid, but ergoloid derivatives such as the dopamine agonist bromocriptine, used for parkinson's disease. I take a DA agonist myself, although for RLS not parkinson's, pramipexole, I said at the time that I specifically, wanted it to be a non-ergot alkaloid derivative, because of this. And while it might have nootropic effects, hydergine is one I've always left off the list of ones I'm willing to try. Well, I'd be willing to try it on an acute basis to explore it, but I wouldn't take it regularly, or any other ergot alkaloid derivative. Or things like ergotamine for migraines, if I had migraines (I'd be stockpiling it until I had a gram or two of ergotamine tartrate though, so I could whip out the diethylamine, prepare some phosphorus oxychloride, or nab myself one of the latest in peptide coupling reagents. Hell, bugger the diethylamine, I think I'd go for something more unusual, split the supplies between say, the morpholide, the dimethylazetidide, and a few others, since acid is already out there, that logically means it makes more sense to make something far rarer that'll not be found on the street.)


But, as a rule, ergot alkaloids tend towards very often being potent and long lasting 5HT2b agonists.

As far as taking an antagonist with it, a peripherally selective one, who knows the risks of that. 5HT2b is quite plainly important in controlling proliferation of cardiac fibroblasts, so too little activity could well be as problematic as too much. it'd be highly experimental to say the least, and to get results worth a damn as a study, it would need people to volunteer to take potent, long lasting 5HT2b agonist drugs on a regular basis to put themselves at risk of cardiac fibrosis and mitral valvulopathy, and to take a 5HT2b antagonist first (assuming its a competitive antagonist of course, not sure if 5HT2b has allosteric regulatory sites that would allow for uncompetitive and noncompetitive antagonism), and undergo regular ultrasonography to see if they develop cardiac fibrosis and mitral valve issues. And to be thorough, both positive and negative controls would have to be done, dosing another group of volunteers with only the 5HT2b agonist regularly, one on an inactive placebo, and a third control group taking solely the antagonist.

It's certainly no study that'd ever get approved by any regulatory ethics committee.
 
It's certainly no study that'd ever get approved by any regulatory ethics committee.

No, but if we ever discover that chronic LSD usage is associated with valvular heart disease, then I'm sure there would be LSD users willing to volunteer for a 5-HT2B antagonist therapy trial.
 
Actually, while I've not looked at the Ki value for LSD at 5HT2b just lately, I'd hazard an educated guess that it would be one of the worse psychedelics for 5HT2b agonist effect.

Ergoloids in general often have very strong 5HT2b agonist properties. Not just acid, but ergoloid derivatives such as the dopamine agonist bromocriptine, used for parkinson's disease.

Exactly. The European Medicines Agency actually recommended restrictions on the prescription of ergot derivatives for most indications in 2013.

Already in 2007, pergolide was voluntarily withdrawn from the US market at the urging of the FDA; the only reason cabergoline (which was associated with similar issues at high doses) is still available is that it was only used for hyperprolactinemia in the US, which requires much lower doses than the treatment of Parkinson's disease (keep in mind though that LSD isn't all that selective for 5ht2a over 5ht2b, so even the tiny amounts used for microdosing might still result in a significant level of 5ht2b activation).
 
I think I am heart smart in other ways, and wont mind too much having a valve out of whack at Shulgin's age, not at all. Especially if I can locate some Lysergamides.
my cholesterol is super high so I watch calories, exercise, and eat sardines; cholesterol does not affect valves.
 
Yes, you definitely have to weigh the trade-offs. Having some slightly wonky heart valves might be a small price to pay for a rich and realized life.

In the spirit of harm reduction, what do you all hypothesize would be a good choice for a psychedelic microdosing substance?
 
The DO___ are all serious vacoconstrictors, if you take a reasonable dose not dangerous but I'd be adverse to daily use.
 
@perpetualdawn,
the best is the one you have
next is the one most available to you
If I had none I would order 20u microdose tabs of 1plsd which some places sell
or 1plsd pills that have 150u can be crushed and dosed volumetrically (8 pieces per pill) after mixing with water
 
shouldn't you just be able to extract a 150ug hit by placing it in water?
 
blotter yes, but pills have binder so crushing will release the evenly spread contents that may not dissolve through pockets of undissolved aggregated solids.
 
Don't forget to use water that has been boiled, or preferably, distilled/deionized water to make up the solution, because the trace residual chlorine, chloramines etc. that make it into tap water are enough to completely obliterate this sensitive, touchy, stereochemically complex special snowflake of a drug family. The lysergamides are extremely sensitive, to oxidizing agents, to UV light, even the likes of adjusting the PH or even dissolving in certain solvents can be enough to cause stereochemical problems like isomerization to l-LSD. Light-induced chiral inversion at another site to form lumi-lysergic acid, or lumi-LSD.

l-lysergic acid can be rescued and reisomerized in the lab, but lumi-LSD or isolysergic acid/iso-LSD represent a lost cause. Also, being in solution promotes degradation compared to it's being deposited on a blotter, made into microdots or windowpanes etc. It's why you don't see acid being marketed in little bottles much, it's less stable in solution,
 
@perpetualdawn,
the best is the one you have
next is the one most available to you
If I had none I would order 20u microdose tabs of 1plsd which some places sell
or 1plsd pills that have 150u can be crushed and dosed volumetrically (8 pieces per pill) after mixing with water

Yes, but more from a theoretical perspective, in light of the possible risk of 5ht2b activation being damaging to the heart in chronic microdosing - which psychedelics would be the least risky to use for microdosing? Which psychedelics have low 5ht2b activation relative to their stimulation of other serotonin receptor subtypes?
 
When you microdose 2C-E, how much are you taking?
 
Top