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By how much percent do SSRIs blunt your trip?

W

wreckhead

Bluelighter
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Dec 22, 2008
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Looking to take a psychedelic for the first time in the near future, as I'll have freedom to trip and want to kickstart my new direction in life. I know SSRIs do blunt them, but how much have they affected psychedelics for you personally, people on SSRIs? I'm on 10mg Lexapro, an average dose. Are you able to simply increase the dose of psychedelic to compensate for the 5-HT2 receptor downregulation etc. caused by chronic SSRI use? If so, by how much percent do you have to increase the dose by to achieve what'd previously be an average trip? Double the dose? Triple? If you've tried this method, do the higher doses cause a terrible body load, or does the 5-HT receptor downregulation from antidepressant use diminish the response to that too (hoping it does)?

I've googled and searched BL, but there's a lot of conflicting info and people don't tend to be that specific with their SSRI and psychedelic doses.
 
when i was on them I would barely trip at all. They pretty much blunted it to nothing. i would get minor visuals but be absolutely bored with it.
 
I took LSD when I was on a very low dose 5-10mg of Prozac which is an SSRI and the trip was not diminished or blunted at all and I tripped VERY hard and had ego death during the peak and I saw lots of visuals, and I had spiritual revelations as well. I was on a high dose but I have no idea of the ug/mics.

I did not get any sort of body load on LSD unlike the body load you get on mushrooms or from smoking herb, I felt all sort of energy sort of electric in a way from the acid though. I've only gotten this sort of thing again from eating lots of herb in prepared food or when I take LSD.

A friend and I ate some mushrooms once and I was not on any sort of SSRI/SSNRI or medication but he was on Effexor and while I had a +++ trip from 1.5g of good mushrooms which got stronger with smoking herb while tripping, he barely got any effect from the mushrooms unlike I did.

I take 10mg of Lexapro now and I just sometimes at rare times vape herb on it which is very psychedelic since you get more THC with a vape than you do from just smoking herb.

I don't trip on LSD/mushrooms since I started on lexapro. I've never ever taken MDMA/MDA or any drugs like it while on an SSRI or not on one at all, and the same goes for research chems.

When I was not on any type of SSRI I tripped fine on LSD and mushrooms and I had been on them for a few years before that and LSD did work fine for me while on prozac but YMMV.
 
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As a counter experience, when i was on prozac and zyprexa (Cant remember the dose but it wasnt that high) I took 3 hits of LSD to no effect. Mushrooms did work fine tho.
 
SSRI's will blunt any trip that relies on serotonin release. MDA, 5-meo-(M|D)iPT, AMT, MDAI, MDMA will all def. be effected.

Long-term downregulation of the serotonin receptors (from long-term use) will also blunt your trip, but it will blunt all serotonergic psychedelics (LSD, psilocin, dmt)
 
Not sure but doesn't the answer to this question rely heavily on the person and the specific SSRI? I have heard too varying results to even discuss a ballpark %.
 
I recently gave my friend, who is on escitalopram, some 4-aco-det, and the effects were greatly diminished. He tripped on the same dose 4 months prior - before he started taking escitalopram, and full effects were achieved.

Incidentally - I spoke to another friend who has been on escitalopram for a good few years. He recently tried mdma for the first time and barely got any effects at all.
 
Well look at that, I should've known perhaps but if even the same person with the same drugs gets wildly variable results, it seems to me that anything concrete people will say about this based on some limited number of datapoints presents a skewed picture which can easily be misleading and get people into trouble.

I am all for regulating the discussion on this topic in the name of harm reduction. This seems to be something with which personal opinions can be harmful to others because they are not looking at the bigger picture, the picture that includes evidence to suggest great unpredictability.

Do you people agree?

This should be in the Beginner's FAQ but I am hesitant to present an answer all on my own. Would an emphasis on warning for this great unpredictability be a good core answer?
 
Soooo many variables here, I would have said that on 50 mg of Sertraline on the morning of the trip (tripping for me is usually conducted during the evening and overnight - lower risk of disturbance), there is perhaps a 30-50% reduction in the potency of LSD. I have experienced a similar, perhaps greater degree (maybe 40-60%) for MDMA.

Abstaining from taking the SSRI for 3 days, MDMA is perhaps blunted by 2-5%, though is hard to quantify.

Of course, two things apply here:

1 ) Sertraline has a relatively short half life for an SSRI (one half-life is approx. 24-36 hours)
2 ) It may not be safe or practical to miss doses to trip. In my case, i'm wondering if I really need the SSRI at the moment (its more a safety net), as my depression is very mild, so it is safe for me to do this.
 
Thanks for answers, keep 'em coming.

Yeah I've pretty much ruled out using empathogens like MDMA while on Lexapro, but psychedelics seem at least somewhat possible...
 
When I was on even Wellbutrin, which is only a mild SSRI (though it is a RI for other neurotansmitters) I pretty much had ZERO ability to trip.

Pissed me the hell off.

It REALLY motivated me to get over my Depression.

And I and getting SOOOO sick and tired of EVERY goddamned question in this forum containing a billion obsequious "Psychedelics are totally unpredictable and random in every possible way and we cant say anything for sure about anything." You do realize we are just playing right into the prohibitionist/criminalization crowd's propaganda when we keep saying that over and over and over, for Christs sake. Psychedelics are ALOT more regular and similar between different people and different trips that some reading here would lead one to conclude. Enough desperate obsessive overtime covering of our asses already... it looks pretty damned ridiculous, IMHO ;) Sorry... I a bit sleep deprived and just had to get that off my chest
 
Bupropion is only a DARI and NERI, so no it is not a mild SSRI


And I and getting SOOOO sick and tired of EVERY goddamned question in this forum containing a billion obsequious "Psychedelics are totally unpredictable and random in every possible way and we cant say anything for sure about anything." You do realize we are just playing right into the prohibitionist/criminalization crowd's propaganda when we keep saying that over and over and over, for Christs sake. Psychedelics are ALOT more regular and similar between different people and different trips that some reading here would lead one to conclude. Enough desperate obsessive overtime covering of our asses already... it looks pretty damned ridiculous, IMHO Sorry... I a bit sleep deprived and just had to get that off my chest
Click to expand...

guess you're always sleep deprived ;)
 
DwayneHoover said:
When I was on even Wellbutrin, which is only a mild SSRI (though it is a RI for other neurotansmitters) I pretty much had ZERO ability to trip.

Pissed me the hell off.

It REALLY motivated me to get over my Depression.

And I and getting SOOOO sick and tired of EVERY goddamned question in this forum containing a billion obsequious "Psychedelics are totally unpredictable and random in every possible way and we cant say anything for sure about anything." You do realize we are just playing right into the prohibitionist/criminalization crowd's propaganda when we keep saying that over and over and over, for Christs sake. Psychedelics are ALOT more regular and similar between different people and different trips that some reading here would lead one to conclude. Enough desperate obsessive overtime covering of our asses already... it looks pretty damned ridiculous, IMHO ;) Sorry... I a bit sleep deprived and just had to get that off my chest
Click to expand...

Brain chemistry can indeed vary from person to person, and the issue here is that if it doesn't weaken the effects for someone but they decided to take a lot more to compensate because they are on an SSRI, then it could result in an unexpectedly strong trip. All they are saying here is that it can't be confirmed that it will indeed weaken your trip because there is not enough data on the combination of SSRIs and psychedelics. You can't base it off of a couple of people's experiences.

People should be careful either way, but there are some who may not be that smart about it.
 
DwayneHoover said:
Pretty much, haha.

So then I wonder what OTHER effects bupropion is causing that resulted in it blocking 95% of my trip effects while I was on it... that went back to normal after I quit?
Click to expand...

That's interesting, I was able to get normal effects from LSD and MDMA when I was on wellbutrin.
 
Another anecdote; I used to be on SSRI's (zoloft, paxil, prozac, mirtazepine, effexor- not all at the same time...) and I didn't notice any major difference in psychedelic effects. That said, I've always really only taken high doses of any psychedelic so I can't judge for sure.
 
I'm on Zoloft (sertraline) and I've never had any problem with tripping on it. I've taken mushrooms, 2C-E, LSD, and I think LSA while being on Zoloft.... I've had very very intense trips. Oh yeah, DMT as well while on zoloft.

If the trips were being blunted to any degree as a result of the zoloft, the difference was certainly negligible and not really anything to be worried about. In no way did the SSRI prevent me from having a good trip.
 
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