How habit forming is diphenhydramine?

[g_dan1]

Hi everyone!
I got into kratom about 1-2 months ago, and ive been using it daily for about 4 weeks now. Yes i know that its addictive and i can definitely feel physical withdrawals. Unfortunately i have to finish my semester and exam before tapering and detoxing.

Alot of times i get nasuea from kratom and i use diphenhydramine and meclizine for that. 80% of the times its meclizine (less drowsy dramamine).

I was wondering whether those anti nausea meds are habit to some extent? (Apart from kratom).
Is it okay to take it every day with kratom?
Will i get any adverse effects, like nausea, insomnia, loss of appetite, when i stop?
Also do they build tolerance?

I know that diphenhydramine in sleeping aids is advertised as "non habit forming" but im still not sure.

Thank you!

 

[fermonos]

Tolerance. I do believe is built up.

Habit forming. I do think this can be a problem. I don't find myself ever feeling dependant on it but because it's so easy to get and the effects are so powerful. I usually abuse it a lot.

Taking it every day. Could be a problem, seen a lot of studies that it causes the brain to degrade much faster than normal and Alzheimers is more likely when older.

Give this thread a read. Many more like it. - http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/504319-Long-term-effects-of-Diphenhydramine

 

[g_dan1]

I dont think i abuse it tho. I usually just take 1 pill (25mg) of meclizine

 

[g_dan1]

Also i ve been thinking of taking like 100-125mg with kratom to actually feel the "nod". Idk if its possible with kratom but some people recommend this method. I want to any possibility of halucinations ot delirium tho

 

[fermonos]

Well. I don't abuse it. I like to take a strong dose 300mg+ every few months. Can be anywhere from 2-6 months in between.

The ones I take, called Nytol which is 50mg and the only active is DPH. It even says on the packet 'do not take more than 7 days in a row' but they are 50mg and used for sleeping. I don't know, honestly if you are using them to combat nausea I would find a different medication DPH is crazy.

EDIT: Also from a little search I can already find numerous threads about people being addicted to DPH and having severe (from how they describe it) withdrawal symptoms.

Give this thread a read. Many more like it. - http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/504319-Long-term-effects-of-Diphenhydramine

 

[BurritoJimmy]

You are fine at 25 mg. When you start messing with higher doses 100mg is pushing it IMO then you start risking having panic attacks. Once this occurs the drug will produce panic attacks even at normal doses so that you wont be able to use it again for insomnia or whatever. Don't get too greedy and stick to the 25 mg, 50 max.

 

[g_dan1]

Wow, panic attacks? I thought it would make me more sedated and give me a pleasant nod

 

[fermonos]

I can't speak for everyone but from myself and what I've seen people post. It's more calming and sedative than panic-y. Of course if you take a huge dose like 500+mg and have delirium you panic but you are usually too fucked up to even notice it much.

 

[d1nach]

I am addicted to it in a sense that i take 200-250 mg everyday. However, its more of a indirect effect the only reason i find it reinforcing is to magnify the intensity of other drugs.

For example if i dont have my amphetamine i will move heaven and hell to get it. If i dont have any dph i might go from a 9 to a 8.

 

[nancy145]

I know stopping diphenhydramine when taking it for sleep can cause insomnia, I've even met people who've experienced it. I'm assuming the same will happen when using it as a regular potentiater, but not as severe. It will probably make your kratom withdrawals worse though. Tolerance does build up with DPH, it does with literally every drug that has any effect on your brain in existance. It will also make your kratom tolerance build up faster as well. If you only take it to counter the nausea and don't care about potentiation, just take a regular OTC nausea med. I find nauzene and previcid very helpful

 

[d1nach]

True I take it as a Stimulant to combat the sedation from tobacco.

Anyway, id say it might be habit forming but i wouldnt call it addicting because there isnt a roughly linear increase in reinforcing effects as you take more.

50-300 mg per day might be reinforcing esp in polydrug user esp with nausea

250 mg at once is likely extremely unpleasent

Over 250 mg is likely terrifying

Also unlike amphetamine and opiates it tends to lack the ability to increase dopamine on reward centers in rats at sub acutely toxic doses.

However, similar to humans some rats will learn to administer a mixture of subreinforcing doses opiates or cocaine or amphetamine fast when coadmin with dph however at high doses of cocaine meth or opiates its less noticable and sometimes reduces consumption.

 

[Keif' Richards]

It depends upon your precise definition of the term "addiction". This is Bluelight after all, so when we throw the term "addiction" around, it typically carries a weight with it above and beyond your Aunt's severe chocolate addiction or your addiction to the new season of Game of Thrones. So, in my diatribe here, I'm operating within these bounds. Diphenhydramine (Benadryl), like many of its close relatives in the sedating-antihistamine class are typically not viewed as possessing the same "hooks" as say, Alcohol or Opioids.

You are far more likely to find yourself in a position where you are unable to initiate sleep effectively without having a sedating antihistamine on board. This even, is a transient effect that can be more or less, completely remedied by a series of days in which you simply bit the bullet and don't take any of the substance. In general, I would consider to the sedating antihistamines, when used within reason, to be far and away, much less prone to habituation than even something as benign as Cannabis.

My primary point is, don't work yourself up over concerns of addiction to the antihistamines. It just typically doesn't occur and the extent of withdrawal from chronic use of the drug should be no more severe than the aforementioned slight difficulty in initiating sleep. You should still be able to sleep totally fine without any meaninful disruption to your sleep architecture, but not having that mild sedation to carry you into sleep might delay the onset by an hour or so.

Don't sweat the small shit. Allow yourself to enjoy small victories on your path to sobriety and normalcy. Too often do I encounter folks who are unwilling to bend to their own high expectations. I for one was clean from Opioids for a year at one point, but was convinced by 12-Step folk that I was not a "half-failure", but a "complete failure". It was this degradation that pushed me away from the positives of my situation (life was great) into the negatives. If I had allowed myself these small victories, things might have been different.

Keep up the good work and don't sweat the small shit.

Nancy... I want references to back up your statement that co-occuring use of antihistamines and Opioids lead to a reinforcing of addictive behavior. I have no personal issue with you, but you spread way too much information as fact without the necessary research or even simple empiricism or anecdotal evidence to back these broad statements up. You are on your way to a stern talking to miss.

 

[g_dan1]

It depends upon your precise definition of the term "addiction". This is Bluelight after all, so when we throw the term "addiction" around, it typically carries a weight with it above and beyond your Aunt's severe chocolate addiction or your addiction to the new season of Game of Thrones. So, in my diatribe here, I'm operating within these bounds. Diphenhydramine (Benadryl), like many of its close relatives in the sedating-antihistamine class are typically not viewed as possessing the same "hooks" as say, Alcohol or Opioids.

You are far more likely to find yourself in a position where you are unable to initiate sleep effectively without having a sedating antihistamine on board. This even, is a transient effect that can be more or less, completely remedied by a series of days in which you simply bit the bullet and don't take any of the substance. In general, I would consider to the sedating antihistamines, when used within reason, to be far and away, much less prone to habituation than even something as benign as Cannabis.

My primary point is, don't work yourself up over concerns of addiction to the antihistamines. It just typically doesn't occur and the extent of withdrawal from chronic use of the drug should be no more severe than the aforementioned slight difficulty in initiating sleep. You should still be able to sleep totally fine without any meaninful disruption to your sleep architecture, but not having that mild sedation to carry you into sleep might delay the onset by an hour or so.

Don't sweat the small shit. Allow yourself to enjoy small victories on your path to sobriety and normalcy. Too often do I encounter folks who are unwilling to bend to their own high expectations. I for one was clean from Opioids for a year at one point, but was convinced by 12-Step folk that I was not a "half-failure", but a "complete failure". It was this degradation that pushed me away from the positives of my situation (life was great) into the negatives. If I had allowed myself these small victories, things might have been different.

Keep up the good work and don't sweat the small shit.

Nancy... I want references to back up your statement that co-occuring use of antihistamines and Opioids lead to a reinforcing of addictive behavior. I have no personal issue with you, but you spread way too much information as fact without the necessary research or even simple empiricism or anecdotal evidence to back these broad statements up. You are on your way to a stern talking to miss.

Thanks alot for your reply Keif! that was very helpful and I totally agree with you, I won't sweat shit like small doses of antihistamines anymore haha.
Also I don't really use them for sleep, I take them to prevent kratom nausea and wobbling effect. I take 2-3mg melatonin for sleep and I think it shouldn't be addictive

 

[d1nach]

I was bored here are some

"Pretreatment with a precursor of HA, L-histidine (750 mg/kg), significantly inhibited the METH (3 mg/kg)-induced stereotyped behavior, whereas pretreatment with an inhibitor of HA synthesis, α-fluoromethylhistidine (FMH) (100 mg/kg), an H1 antagonist pyrilamine (5 mg/kg) or an H2 antagonist zolantidine (5 mg/kg) enhanced it. The inhibitory effect of L-histidine on METH-induced stereotyped behavior was significantly blocked by coadministration of pyrilamine and zolantidine, indicating that the effect is mediated through H1 and H2 receptors. Moreover, chronic treatment with METH (3 mg/kg) significantly enhanced stereotyped behavior at the rechallenge with METH (1 mg/kg). " (1)

(1)https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s002130050251?LI=true


"These results suggest that the activation of histaminergic neurons may attenuate the rewarding effect of morphine, while the inhibition of histaminergic neurons may potentiate the rewarding effect of morphine. Furthermore, potentiation of the morphine-induced rewarding effect by inhibition of histaminergic neurons may be mediated by D1 receptors. We also demonstrated that the H2 receptor antagonist zolantidine may activate the mesolimbic DA system, and as a result, zolantidine itself produces a rewarding effect and potentiates the morphine-induced rewarding effect." (2)

(2)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/000689939500064W

"Cocaine, DPH and pyrilamine alone maintained self-administration and cocaine was the stronger reinforcer. When cocaine was combined with DPH or pyrilamine in a 1:1, 1:2 or 2:1 ratio of the ED50s, the combinations were super-additive as reinforcers. Reinforcing strength of the combinations was greater than that of the antihistamines alone but not greater than cocaine. The data support the prediction that the combination of cocaine and histamine H1 receptor antagonists could have enhanced potential for abuse relative to either drug alone." (3)

(3)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091305708003286

"These results support the hypothesis that histaminergic neurotransmission is involved in the inhibitory control of a central system subserving reward-related processes. The present data also further highlight the nucleus accumbens as functionally heterogenous along its rostrocaudal axis, with the caudal-shell subregion being more sensitive to antihistaminic induced reward than the rostral entity." (4)

(4)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452299003097

 

[g_dan1]

I was bored here are some

"Pretreatment with a precursor of HA, L-histidine (750 mg/kg), significantly inhibited the METH (3 mg/kg)-induced stereotyped behavior, whereas pretreatment with an inhibitor of HA synthesis, α-fluoromethylhistidine (FMH) (100 mg/kg), an H1 antagonist pyrilamine (5 mg/kg) or an H2 antagonist zolantidine (5 mg/kg) enhanced it. The inhibitory effect of L-histidine on METH-induced stereotyped behavior was significantly blocked by coadministration of pyrilamine and zolantidine, indicating that the effect is mediated through H1 and H2 receptors. Moreover, chronic treatment with METH (3 mg/kg) significantly enhanced stereotyped behavior at the rechallenge with METH (1 mg/kg). " (1)

(1)https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s002130050251?LI=true


"These results suggest that the activation of histaminergic neurons may attenuate the rewarding effect of morphine, while the inhibition of histaminergic neurons may potentiate the rewarding effect of morphine. Furthermore, potentiation of the morphine-induced rewarding effect by inhibition of histaminergic neurons may be mediated by D1 receptors. We also demonstrated that the H2 receptor antagonist zolantidine may activate the mesolimbic DA system, and as a result, zolantidine itself produces a rewarding effect and potentiates the morphine-induced rewarding effect." (2)

(2)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/000689939500064W

"Cocaine, DPH and pyrilamine alone maintained self-administration and cocaine was the stronger reinforcer. When cocaine was combined with DPH or pyrilamine in a 1:1, 1:2 or 2:1 ratio of the ED50s, the combinations were super-additive as reinforcers. Reinforcing strength of the combinations was greater than that of the antihistamines alone but not greater than cocaine. The data support the prediction that the combination of cocaine and histamine H1 receptor antagonists could have enhanced potential for abuse relative to either drug alone." (3)

(3)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091305708003286

"These results support the hypothesis that histaminergic neurotransmission is involved in the inhibitory control of a central system subserving reward-related processes. The present data also further highlight the nucleus accumbens as functionally heterogenous along its rostrocaudal axis, with the caudal-shell subregion being more sensitive to antihistaminic induced reward than the rostral entity." (4)

(4)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452299003097

WOW thanks for the research man! and hey, if you're still bored and dont mind reading a long post you should check out the new thread i posted about adderall I need some genuine advice on it :/

 

[falsifiedhypothesi]

I got "addicted" to it when I was young and had really bad insomnia. I was taking 150-200mg a day if I remember correctly. The withdrawals were pretty bad, I had even worse insomnia and pretty bad skin crawling effect (can't think of the medical term for it right now)

 

[d1nach]

Formication

 

[T. Calderone]

I used to take diphenhydramine frequently to help with sleep but never more than 50 mg. I imagine at higher doses you may experience some discontinuation symptoms from daily use. That happened to me from over-using Dimetapp when I was a kid. So you take it as a stimulant?

 

[g_dan1]

I used to take diphenhydramine frequently to help with sleep but never more than 50 mg. I imagine at higher doses you may experience some discontinuation symptoms from daily use. That happened to me from over-using Dimetapp when I was a kid. So you take it as a stimulant?

no i take it as anti nausea medication and only when i take kratom. 90% of the time i take Meclizine (less drowsy formula dramamine).

Btw if you don't mind reading a long story I'd really appreciate if you take a look at my recent post about my adderall dependance I really need some genuine advice cuz I can't really get help or support from anyone else

 

[d1nach]

Yes. See reference one to be vague .