Misc Levodopa

[plumbus-nine]

I wonder whether levodopa might have uses beyond Parkinson's, like to lower prolactin and re-fill dopamine after ceasing drug use. Yeah I know that stuff is more complicated than just depletion and that levodopa has the same reputation as dopamine agonists, as being non-recreational but I wonder if somebody here has actually tried it. At least they sell mucuna pruriens even on eBay and it must have some uses then. I've tried pramipexole out of curiosity and high prolactin and found it useless, the first dosage sedated me a bit and then it did nothing besides inducing headaches. Maybe I'll try cabergoline next if I manage to get that (again, against prolactin) but wonder whether mucuna/levodopa would have different, possibly nice effects like aiding with ADHD (which I am badly in need for). Local pharmacy sells them so it would be a low effort to give them a try.

As a side note, I know that they say that levodopa should only be used as a med of last resort because it induces stuff like so called end of dose dyskinesia and possibly other stuff related to long term downregulation of dopamine but also is this in people with Parkinson's, which involves degradation of the production of dopamine so I'm unsure what to make off this for otherwise healthy humans.

 

[negrogesic]

Tricky business fooling around with l-dopa, can be toxic in a variety of ways, oxidative stress, toxic dopamine metabolites (like DOPAL), excess homocysteine, etc. And without using a DDCI like carbidopa to inhibit DOPA decarboxylase you might start to experience some peripheral side-effects

I have heard that a DDCI isn't necessary when taking mucana pruriens derived l-dopa, but i'm not sure if that is true or how that even makes sense, unless its simply a function of lower total exposure to l-dopa when consuming mucana pruriens relative to pharmaceutical preparations of l-dopa (ie, the quantity of l-dopa in mucana pruriens is comparatively low).

I actually did fool around with mucana pruriens extract to see if I could increase the effect of dextroamphetamine, but it didn't seem to work that well and I didn't want to push the dose out of caution. I think l-tyrosine is a much safer way of going about it.

 

[brokedownpalace10]

L-dopa was in the arsenal of the smart drug crowd some years back. You take just a small fraction of a pill every morning, increasing slowly if you desire. A little too much too soon will make you sick.

You get zippy and more efficient, you also get a manic euphoria. Very pleasant, but you get a bit crazy too. As previously mentioned, it's supposed to be pretty neurotoxic. I tried it once for a few weeks and never again.

 

[plumbus-nine]

L-dopa was in the arsenal of the smart drug crowd some years back. You take just a small fraction of a pill every morning, increasing slowly if you desire. A little too much too soon will make you sick.

You get zippy and more efficient, you also get a manic euphoria. Very pleasant, but you get a bit crazy too. As previously mentioned, it's supposed to be pretty neurotoxic. I tried it once for a few weeks and never again.

Oh fuck, this sounds amazing and kinda like what I've expected from the levodopa! Too bad it's neurotoxic wonder how bad this is, and if another drug on top like emoxypine or selegiline (both are neuroprotective) might be protective against.

As the pharmacies here sell carbi/levodopa without prescription, while amphetamines are controlled and hard to get unfortunately, I might get a box and try it myself in low dose. How much did you use?

 

[brokedownpalace10]

Oh fuck, this sounds amazing and kinda like what I've expected from the levodopa! Too bad it's neurotoxic wonder how bad this is, and if another drug on top like emoxypine or selegiline (both are neuroprotective) might be protective against.

As the pharmacies here sell carbi/levodopa without prescription, while amphetamines are controlled and hard to get unfortunately, I might get a box and try it myself in low dose. How much did you use?

Oh gosh, it's been literally decades since I did this. I don't want to recommend it at all. I remember that it was a tiny fraction of a pill.

There was a lot of literature from people into smart drugs around at the time and that's where I got my recommendation as to dose. I just did a quick search and didn't find anything, but you might go in that direction if you want to research.

As well as being neurotoxic (like, as in it can hasten or cause the Parkinson's it treats) it can really make you manic. That's what I meant when I said it can make you crazy too.
I didn't stop using it because I ran out. I stopped using it because I was getting so manic that I figured that I would lose my job if I continued.

I wouldn't recommend it as a substitute for amphetamines for sure. This was later in my life than my amphetamine days. I can't imagine what would have happened had I used it as a speed substitute.

If I'm not mistaken, Selegiline is used along with L-dopa for Parkinsons patients to reduce the dose of L-dopa.

 

[plumbus-nine]

Oh, okay - thanks for the warning! If I decide to try it, I'll titrate up very carefully but good to know that it's about fractions of pills.

Yeah, selegiline is used in Parkinson's, and it supposedly blocks the neurotoxicity of methamphetamine, this was why I thought it might be helpful together with levodopa but probably too risky and too potent. Also it's similarly controlled as amphetamine here probably because it metabolizes to traces of d-amphetamine. Stupid.

 

[plumbus-nine]

Anybody else having experiences with levodopa/combo or mucuna pruriens alone? I am still unsure whether I should give it a try. Read in another thread that people were using mucuna pruriens after a stim to replenish dopamine storage much like 5-htp can be used with/after serotonin releasers but maybe they were using too little mucuna to reach relevant brain levels and just got placebo effects.

Also wonder about how 5-htp would be when combined with something like carbidopa. 5-htp has proven effects but it's weird because it will instantly be converted to serotonin which then is either taken up into vesicles or degraded by MAO-A. So there should be no effects besides storage replenishment but there absolutely are, 5-htp helped me with withdrawing from venlafaxine. Read about some side effects when 5-htp is combined with carbidopa, if I remember it correctly it was about a skin rash or something alike.