Buspirone

[asecin]

i cant figure out how this one works. what wikipedia says is one thing, but the effects on me have nothing to do with what is said it affects. i started taking it for anxiety and depression, and it has ZERO efficiency for this but rather makes me extremely tired and dizzy. if anything, it made me more anxious. i just cant figure out why. from what i read in relation to it, it should the way it works actually do make you less anxious and perhaps even help ease some depression symptoms. not sure why, it just makes me sedated in a bad way, dizziness, fatigue. what do you think mechanism can truly be behind this ? i really wanna know if anyone else ever took that one and PLEASE REPORTS.

 

[dingophone]

Buspirone is a weak 5HT-1a partial agonist. IIRC, its potency is ~30%, which means it isn't particularly effective at activating the receptor. It doesn't work "as needed" like benzos and takes about as much time to kick in as SSRIs, which makes me think that it might work by causing upregulation of 5HT-1a receptors, known to play a role in depression and anxiety.

 

[sekio]

How long have you been taking buspirone? How much are you taking? You may need to increase your dosage, or keep taking it for a while... it does take time to kick in.

The more commonly observed untoward events associated with the use of Buspirone not seen at an equivalent incidence among placebo-treated patients include dizziness, nausea, headache, nervousness, lightheadedness, and excitement.

The monograph also says that in a study of ~450 people taking buspirone, and ~450 taking placebo, the incidence of sleepiness and depression are the same. So that bit is just in your head.

The wierd dizziness and such can probably be explained by its activity as a 5ht1a (partial) agonist... like, for instance, CBD.

http://www.drugs.com/pro/buspirone.html

If you try and keep a positive attitude eventually things will start to get better.

 

[dopamimetic]

Are you are on antidepressant medication (or were in the past)?

 

[asecin]

i dont take any antidepressants but i have days of extreme suicidal thoughts and hence i thought since i have buspirone from a long time ago that i have never used, perhaps it might help in episodes of mania.
sekio, i actually took 4 pills (10mg each) just yesterday first time and i got results in about 1 hour which was shocking since doctor told me takes 1 week to work. it wasnt placebo because i have been doing drugs for 14 years or so and i know when a drug hits me ok. it was like a wave of effects. all of which NEGATIVE. i dont think this drug is really desirable long term. tho, to play around with, it can be interesting. like, i have urge to decipher it. i see drugs as codes, your brain deciphers. once a drug is deciphered, you have its memory in you, its useless to take again.

 

[sekio]

Just because you feel an immediate effect when you take the drug does not mean you are feeling the intended effect. For instance, SSRI therapy usually takes a week or so to "take effect", but the patient surely feels the effects of the SSRI only hours after they take it.

(BTW, I'm not saying that the response was placebo. Just that you'd be no more likely to be sleepy or depressed from the buspirone than if you had taken a sugar pill. That is, you were already sleepy or depressed when you took it, probably.)

 

[ebola?]

I dunno. Buspirone's efficacy as an anxiolytic appears modest, and the side-effects that you experienced seem pretty typical. I don't see anything mysterious going on here.

i actually took 4 pills (10mg each) just yesterday first time and i got results in about 1 hour which was shocking since doctor told me takes 1 week to work.

What this means is that its clinical efficacy (in this case as an anxiolytic) takes some time to develop, while it will cause biological changes (partial agonism at 5ht1a here) and subjective effects in minutes to hours. This is even moreso the case with SSRIs.

Ummm...were you prescribed 40 mg / day? If not....well, I'm less than surprised that the medication made you feel funny.

IIRC, its potency is ~30%

er...30 percent of what? Not sure what measure you're referring to. . .

ebola

 

[dingophone]

er...30 percent of what? Not sure what measure you're referring to. . .

ebola

Sorry, 30% activation of 5HT-1a compared to endogenous 5HT. Seeing as how eptapirone (an analog with 100-110% 5HT-1a activation) seems to be extremely efficacious in animal models of anxiety/depression, I would guess that the low potency is likely why it is known to only be modestly effective.

Also ding dong dingo phone?

 

[ebola?]

Okay, that was pretty close to my guess of what you meant (drawn from, I assume, interpretations of in vitro EC50 assays). This is quite a good point: buspirone's lack of clinical efficacy doesn't do much to rule out 5ht1a agonists as anxiolytics.

Also ding dong dingo phone?

I like how your name sounds, and I was in a funny mood. Heh, sorry. . .

ebola