How Does Herbal Tea Potentiate Oxycodone?

[Unlucky]

I am extremely sensitive to opiates (if ya need to know why just read my old topics), so anyways I easily notice when small changes make big differences and I have noticed lately that my special herbal tea concoction seems to poteniate the effects of the Oxycodone...

I wanted to run it past you guys to see if you know anything about it. So I use a blend of 4 herbs in this tea, for all I know its could be either just 1 or a mixture of all 4 of this blend causing the potentiation, the ingredients are..

- 5 leaves of fresh lemon balm from the garden
- 1/2 tablespoon of chamomile
- 2 teaspoons of dried peppermint
- Couple dried twigs of Greek mountain tea (Sideritis)

I do recall having an intense effect without the mountain tea (sideritis) included, but I may just have to retry that to confirm, so its likely that it could just only be the first 3 ingredients listed.

 

[Slapdragonx]

Flavones are in most plants, and most of them are potent enzyme inhibitors.

Quercetin is a possible CYP3A4 inhibitor/inducer. An inducer of CYP3A4 would increase the metabolism of oxycodone into oxymorphone yielding a more intense but shorter high.

Many flavones also inhibit CYP2C9, CYP1A2, CYP1A1 which may play a minor role in the metabolism of oxycodone. Blocking the non-active metabolism routes = longer, more intense high.

 

[Unlucky]

Thanks

 

[mgrady3]

those herbs on their own also give very mild sedation/anxiolytic effects. So that on top of enzyme inhibition leads to potentiation of certain drugs that are metabolized via those enzymes.

Lemon balm inhibits the enzyme that speeds up conversion of GABA which is probably linked to its mild sedation effects. Chamomile, at least german chamomile, definitely contains Quercetin which as stated above aids in converting oxycodone to oxymorphone.

 

[Unlucky]

Wow, looks like I asked the right guys. Thanks.

Ok here is another odd thing that happened, the intense effects of the Oxycodone (the plateau) are fairly short acting and I usually recover in about 30 minutes and start to comedown but when I drank some of my herbal blend about 20 minutes into the plateau instead of coming down soon after I experienced another second intense plateau, so can potentiating during the high give you a second rush ?

 

[Altered Perception]

I would like the answer to the above question, techically can potentiation be instigated halfway through the effects of the drug to achieve a second high (considering you have a fast enough metobolism) or must the potentiater be taken before the drugs effects ?

 

[GABAlover]

Placebo effect man. The teas you listed are a great example of the power of the human brain believing in nonsense. Often expensive nonsense.

These herbs have zero hepatic pharmacokinetic effects, and even less likely, any pharmacodynamic effects of their own. Rubbish.

 

[mgrady3]

^^ I'm not so sure about that. But take into account I am not trained in Pharmacology, just self studied:

Perhaps you mean in comparison to other known drugs, then the effects of these herbs are negligible.
That is true for instance in trying to compare lemon balm, valerian, or chamomile to a benzo like clonazepam.

But in their own right, the herbs exhibit mild sedation and axiolytic effects. And some of those herbs are known to contain Quercitin which is an inducer of CPY3A4, which effects the GABA system and metabolism of many common drugs

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19165747
This article describes the mechanism in which Lemon Balm inhibits GABA Transaminase

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Though, even taking the above into account, I do believe the effects from the tea the OP mentions preparing would be minimal. That's not to say potentiation will not occur, but this sure isn't the magic formula that opiate users are looking for. But Its a relatively healthy drink none the less and if if offers mild potentiation then all the better for ya.