St. John's Wort greatly reduces cocaine comedown!

[Ektor]

The other day i found out a really interesting property of St. John's Wort.
I know that opioids can help a lot with the stimulant's crash and i've experimented this effect multiple times.
I am on a daily regimen of 0.6mg buprenorphine for opiate addiction, but in this these last days, (for general anxiety and psychological issues) i found myself in "need" of (not so much) occasional extra doses of opioids or other pleasure drugs for antidepressant and emotionally analgesic effects.
I have really intense mood changes bipolar like style so i am currently and happily having some psychotherapy to feel better, accomplish more and manage my addictive behaviors, i can say it's helping me a lot. Anyway i still have much road to walk on so i sometimes "self-medicate" with dopaminergic drugs.

I recently started taking St. John's Wort for antidepressant and mood stabilizing purpose.
I take it in drops, mother tincture with 65% alcohol in. This is the only form of SJW that i found really effective, the effect is still mild but hey it's supposed to be just it!

Some days ago i had some cocaine for a few days in a row. Opioids should help for the coke comedown but i realized that if you have some tolerance and youre just on your mantenance dose is like youre actually not taking them. If you take an opioid dose slightly bigger than your usual it starts helping for the comedown but the tolerance still playing makes this contribution minor.

The second day of coke use i also took some drops of SJW and i accidentally found out that the comedown was almost completely vanished!!! WHAT A SURPRISE!!!!
Instead of the rollercoaster effect of the come down there was only a gradual and soft diminution of the effect back to baseline. There is even a really slight reduction of the positive effects but its nothing compared to the reduction of the negative ones and i would better describe it as a change instead of a reduction of cocaine's peak effects.

Summary of the effect of St. John's Wort on the cocaine experience:

-It greatly reduces coke's negative effects like anxiety, irritability, etc.
-It makes much better the comedown phase of the experience with a gradual return to baseline. Reduced depression, sadness, cravings.
-It slightly reduces the stimulant properties, even if in a good way because you still have all the energy but with less hyperactivity and manias.
-It almost completely eliminates jaw clenching, teeth grinding and muscle tension.
-It somehow changes the overall aspect of the experience, making it like an energetic, relaxed, pain-free and active hedonistic bliss.

It is all in all a really good discover, i theoretically find this principle applicable even to other stimulants and i read some web experiences with amphetamines that confirm my hypothesis.

So this makes St. John's Wort a really good natural meliorator of stimulants and reductor of their side effects.

I wonder if this even reduces amphetamines/stimulant toxicity, like SSRI do with MDMA, maybe it even works with extasy itself.


This is for you brothers and sisters, ENJOY STAY SAFE BE YOURSELF!!!

 

[atrollappears]

Interesting. However, DO NOT mix St. John's Wort with MDMA or any serotonin releasing agents for that matter. Very dangerous and nothing good comes of it. There are plentiful accounts of that combo going wrong, like this one: http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=81309

 

[Ektor]

Thanks for the advice, we have to be cautious!!!

I was wandering if anyone has some experience with the effects of this or similar combo, i'm interested in drawing patterns of amelioration of stimulants or new unusual therapeutic solutions for mania, bipolar, depression associated with addiction and things like that.

We, in our society, need a lot more good psychotherapy that solves problems and works long term and we need also much better symptomatic drugs that work fast and make you feel good and balanced.

I'm going to study psychology and become a therapist cause therapy is the most important thing for the sanity of a person or the society as a whole and obviously cause i like it but i'd like also to experiment with various psychodrugs to find what really works cause psychiatry today with all its prejudices seems just like a mix of medieval superstition and futurism.

 

[atrollappears]

Thanks for the advice, we have to be cautious!!!

I was wandering if anyone has some experience with the effects of this or similar combo, i'm interested in drawing patterns of amelioration of stimulants or new unusual therapeutic solutions for mania, bipolar, depression associated with addiction and things like that.

We, in our society, need a lot more good psychotherapy that solves problems and works long term and we need also much better symptomatic drugs that work fast and make you feel good and balanced.

I'm going to study psychology and become a therapist cause therapy is the most important thing for the sanity of a person or the society as a whole and obviously cause i like it but i'd like also to experiment with various psychodrugs to find what really works cause psychiatry today with all its prejudices seems just like a mix of medieval superstition and futurism.

I tried out SJW late last year, while occasionally using amph. Similarly to a certain trip report on erowid, and to your account of SJW's effect on cocaine, the pure mood effects of amph were not diminished, but it felt more "smooth." Unfortunately, the tweaky edge is what I want both recreationally and therapeutically (for severe executive function disorder). I need something to make me get up and go I have taken 135 mg of dexamphetamine sulfate and been sedated.

I agree with you on psychotherapy. I was just thinking about how glad I am that I have resources to help me if I become psychologically troubled; it's hard for a broken machine to fix itself. However I harbor some degree of anger toward psychiatry in that some of the most effective tools often lay unused either due to profit-seeking or a prohibition-warped mentality.

 

[eeklekins]

interesting stuff. Glad it worked, I know people that swear by SJW for depression and/or anxiety. But you really have to be careful of drug interactions with it...it's a pretty strong SSRI and CYP inhibitor, and trust me you do not want serotonin syndrome. Definitely wouldn't mix it with MDMA, or any of the serotonergic hallucinogens (LSD, shrooms, etc).

 

[Ektor]

I can agree that it's probably a bad idea to mix SJW with MDMA cause one is a SRI, the other is a serotonin releaser, so there could be the possibility of serotonin syndrome.
I don't see where is the big danger in mixing it with serotonergic psychedelics like LSD or shrooms, they work on serotonin receptors but as far as i know they don't release it in the synapsis. I don't think there could happen a dangerous increase in serotonin levels with SJW and psychs, if it was the case i think it would be far more dangerous to mix LSD with MDMA which is way more potent in increasing serotonin levels, but for what i know this is not more physically dangerous than MDMA alone.

I can't see major interaction between SJW and psychedelics, if so maybe just a slight decrease in psychedelic intensity when SJW is taken daily.

 

[atrollappears]

Mixing an SRI with an SRA is not likely to cause serotonin syndrome, as SRIs abolish the effects of SRAs.

Edit: To clarify, St. John's Wort is NOT safe with a serotonin releasing agent. SJW (hyperforin) does all sorts of stuff by binding to TRPC6, it doesn't even have direct effects on SERT or any other transporters AFAIK. As I mentioned above, only bad things come from this combination.

 

[Lopez]

of course it'd reduce the comedown, it basically shares some of the cocaine properties, of course in a much more selective/weak manner. just like cocaine it inhibits the reuptake of serotonin, NE, and dopamine. basically it tapers off the effects of cocaine (kind of like taking methylphenidate to combat the meth crash, just at a much lower ratio). interestingly, it also inhibits GABA, therefore allowing more neurotransmission in the short term. i've also heard that it is a good combination with psychedelics but only if dosed on the spot, because long term use prior to a psychedelic dries out serotonin for a psychedelic to interact with (just like an SSRI would).

lastly, i hate to bitch, but i never understood why people use cocaine, i used a few times, but to be honest, the only thing coke did was make me fiend for more coke, and it's also too expensive and can be dangerously adulterated. why not just take adderall? lol

 

[atrollappears]

of course it'd reduce the comedown, it basically shares some of the cocaine properties, of course in a much more selective/weak manner. just like cocaine it inhibits the reuptake of serotonin, NE, and dopamine. basically it tapers off the effects of cocaine (kind of like taking methylphenidate to combat the meth crash, just at a much lower ratio). interestingly, it also inhibits GABA, therefore allowing more neurotransmission in the short term. i've also heard that it is a good combination with psychedelics but only if dosed on the spot, because long term use prior to a psychedelic dries out serotonin for a psychedelic to interact with (just like an SSRI would).

It's actually less selective, meaning it has plenty of dangerous pharmacological interactions. Tread with care. Also, it inhibits GABA reuptake, decreasing neurotransmission.