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any heard of this and some questions...

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olivertwist

Bluelighter
Joined
Jun 21, 2005
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my mother in law sugessted i start taking this as a replacement for the 5-htp i've been taking: tension rx, active ingredient is 4-amino-3-phenylbutyric acid. i have been taking 5-htp for some time to keep the migraines at bay and help with sleep. i have had a reaction to immitrex so i can't take it. if i stop the 5-htp for more than a week, the migraines come back. i have searched the internet about this new stuff, but seem to find any info for if it will help with the migraines like the 5-htp does. thanks...
 
4-Amino-3-phenylbutyric acid is better known as phenibut, if you search for that you will get a lot more information. It's in no way similar to 5-HTP and not a suitable replacement. While 5-HTP is a safe nutritional supplement and serotonin precursor, I'm not so sure if phenibut is necessarily safe. It's a GABA agonist.
 
Yeah, I wouldn't recomend getting into phenibut, think of it like benzos or something, sure it makes you feel good, but its not a long term treatment.

Go talk to a doctor, there are lots of migraine treatments apart from imitrex.
 
olivertwist said:
my mother in law sugessted i start taking this as a replacement for the 5-htp i've been taking: tension rx, active ingredient is 4-amino-3-phenylbutyric acid.
Click to expand...

Is this a precription med?
Or a supplement?
Tension RX is the brand name?
You're in the US?
 
it's an otc supplement. yes, i'm in the us and like many people here i cannot afford to go to a doctor. that's why i've been trying otc stuff. the 5-htp does keep the migraines away. my mother in law is just worried about the long term effects of taking it. i take 100mg before bed every night. i have tried taking breaks from it, but after about a week of being off it the headaches come back something fierce.
 
I don't know which would be worse for you, long term 5-HTP or long term phenibut... either way, they're probably not good.
 
Well, I can't see anything wrong with taking 5-HTP, particularly not in these modest doses. It's after all just the essential amino acid tryptophan with an added hydroxy, and it's simply metabolized to serotonin, so where's the danger? It was only dangerous a long time ago when contaminated material came on the market that damaged the blood.
 
Because probably about 90-99% of oral 5-HTP is turned to serotonin in the blood... prolonged hyper-serotonergic tone in the cardiovascular system could be associated with all kinds of vascular incidents a la fen-phen.
 
Is this only in the prescence of higher concentrations of certain B vitamins (from, say, taking your 5-htp with a multivitamin, b supplement, or some silly energy drink)?

I knew it could fairly easily get metabolized to serotonin in the gut and causes issues that way. Is this the same thing?

Or have a I completely mixed this all up in my head? It was a while back I read anything about this.. may be thinking of something else.
 
^ I am wodering about this as well.

I once took Picamilon (Nicotinyl-GABA, I think? - a Vit. B12 donator in any case, and some say a MAOI but I could not find any reference to that) With only 50mg 5-HTP without much thought. Note that I do not take 5-HTP with any regularity, and take frequent breaks from Picamilon. A few hours later, I experienced something that had all the symptoms of a serotonin-syndrome type of reaction.

Perhaps I should start a new thread on this, so as not to hijack this one?
 
Without wanting to get too OT, I once took some 5-HTP about an hour before a 10mg dose of 2C-I and it did some very weird things to a dose of 2C-I I could normally take without any problems at all - the dose felt like it was double what I'd actually taken, but had a whole load of unpleasant physical symptoms.

5-HTP with anything that has a serotonogic action had chance to make the whole thing feel much more potent
 
Is this only in the prescence of higher concentrations of certain B vitamins (from, say, taking your 5-htp with a multivitamin, b supplement, or some silly energy drink)?

I knew it could fairly easily get metabolized to serotonin in the gut and causes issues that way. Is this the same thing?
Click to expand...
It's the same thing, except worse.... Ultimately, seeing as around 90% of 5-HTP is going to turn into serotonin in the blood, the combination of B vitamins probably isn't going to make that thing any worse (you know, whats the different between 95% and 99%)... but it certainly will reduce the amount of 5-HTP getting into the brain, (the difference betwen 5% and 1% is a lot).
 
why is it bad for the 5-htp to be metabolized in the blood rather than getting to the brain? Wouldn't it still get to the brain that way? Also, I gave my gf a OTC sleep aid with 5-htp, melatonin, vit B and a few other things. Would this combo be bad? and wha about occasional use? thanks
 
As I said "prolonged hyper-serotonergic tone in the cardiovascular system could be associated with all kinds of vascular incidents a la fen-phen." translation "lots of serotonin in your blood fucks your blood vessels".

And no, it wouldn't get into your your brain.

I wouldn't take 5-HTP and vitamin Bs, because it's going to mean an even smaller fraction of the 5-HTP is going to enter the brain.

Occasional use, it should be fine
 
thank you everyone for your input. i've decided to stick with only taking the 5-htp. i will also try to take a few days break from it every so often just in case. again, thanks and if anyone else has any input i will be reading.
 
how about nerv-aids... its a mixture of passionflower extract and hops. though passionflower is a mild MAOI
 
haha, dont worry im taking plenty of magnesium and zinc. but i was mainly referring to the sleep aid capacity of the passionflower.
 
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