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Memantine / Pregabalin and calcium influx

S

sirbishop

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Apr 25, 2008
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I have a few questions that I'm looking to get answered. I'd greatly appreciate it.

Both memantine and pregabalin inhibit influx of calcium ions, correct?

Being that pregabalin decreases the release of glutamate (and memantine is an ndma receptor antagonist) do you see these two potentiating each other?

Do you see any possibility for adverse drug reactions with these two?

Thanks in advance.
 
Memantine should most definitely potentiate Pregabalin.

I may even experiment with this ... I've got a bunch of sample Lyrica that I can use to play with it. I imagine the two would be very effective in combo.
 
thx for responding. yea, i found this:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19362430

^its regarding this combination.

I can use lyrica twice a week and it puts me in a great mood and gets me motivated. Lyrica is rather expensive and tolerance builds fast. I'm hoping that the addition of memantine would help avoid this. From what I hear memantine has a long (60-100 hr) half-life so I would def take that into account.
 
Memantine has a long half life and it dramatically reduces tolerance to things... I'm a bit nervous about experimenting with Lyrica because memantine dropped my alcohol tolerance to the point where a single beer gave me a buzz and 3 drank over the course of slightly over 4 hours got me trashed and I woke up with a traditional hangover (headache and upset stomach) which I haven't had since I was 17.

I may try out the pregabalin tomorrow though because I need some additional help with my benzo taper as I went down way too fast. I just hope that I don't suppress my breathing. That's my main concern.
 
MagickalKat777 said:
Memantine has a long half life and it dramatically reduces tolerance to things... I'm a bit nervous about experimenting with Lyrica because memantine dropped my alcohol tolerance to the point where a single beer gave me a buzz and 3 drank over the course of slightly over 4 hours got me trashed and I woke up with a traditional hangover (headache and upset stomach) which I haven't had since I was 17.

I may try out the pregabalin tomorrow though because I need some additional help with my benzo taper as I went down way too fast. I just hope that I don't suppress my breathing. That's my main concern.
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what was your memantine dose at the time you drank?
 
MagickalKat777 said:
I had just moved up to 40mg that day from 30mg.
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ah ok. for therapeutic use isn't the max ~20? what's your opinion on memantine? what did it help you with? what did/didn't you like?

btw, I hope you make it off the benzos as smoothly as possible.
 
I like the fact that with memantine, while I sometimes feel like I am on a dissociative, I don't have any psychoactive effects besides the "brain fog". I also like that the clean receptor profile of memantine means that I can partake of substances without worrying about ending up with serotonin syndrome or weird body effects. It DOES drastically reduce your tolerance to anything that you quit taking though (besides other NMDA antagonists) and as little as three beers after being on memantine less than a week got me trashed and left me with euphoria and then a hangover the next day so the tolerance reduction is rather marked.

Also since I have been taking memantine, I have had some respiratory suppression here and there - I can't yet determine if this is due to the Valium being potentiated or if it is a side effect of the drug itself but it seems to be much worse when I take my Valium early.

Another key point that I've noticed is that at night, I randomly pass out, and end up missing my night dose of meds, usually before midnight, and then I wake up like clockwork around 4:45AM every morning now and generally can not go back to sleep. I woke up in my computer chair (this has been happening pretty frequently) - the ironic thing is that my back and neck hurt less falling asleep sitting up, in an awkward position on my computer chair, than they do when I sleep in my bed.

The extreme sedation that I experience at night is BEFORE I take my night dose of Valium and memantine and the sedation is rather marked - it is impossible for me to fight through it to stay awake.

I added in 30mg of Delsym yesterday as a tester to see how it would interact with the mix because I was experiencing rather significant benzo withdrawal (damn Valium and its ridiculously long half-life - it takes about 14 days before 50% of the blood plasma level goes down and I'm on day 10 as of now) - to my surprise, memantine doesn't seem to increase tolerance to DXM and about two hours after dosing the Delsym, my withdrawal side effects all but subsided. I am now up to 45mg of Delsym and I believe I will keep taking the Delsym since there is something about Delsym's pharmacokinetics that allows it to reduce tolerance to meds that you are still taking just as fast as memantine does for drugs that you are NOT currently taking.

Thanks for the note about the benzos. I am hoping so as well. I am quite confident that NMDA antagonism is the way to go in regards to benzo withdrawal but I hope I can keep doing my 25% cuts - I may wait until I've been on the DXM/memantine combo for 7 days before I attempt to dose any lower on the benzos as I'm looking for as much discomfort as possible.
 
MagickalKat777 said:
Thanks for the note about the benzos. I am hoping so as well. I am quite confident that NMDA antagonism is the way to go in regards to benzo withdrawal but I hope I can keep doing my 25% cuts - I may wait until I've been on the DXM/memantine combo for 7 days before I attempt to dose any lower on the benzos as I'm looking for as much discomfort as possible.
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Hey just outta curiosity what kind of valium dosage are you trying to taper yourself off of??
 
I'm tapering from 40mg a day to zero... originally was going to cut 25% a week but now I have adjusted that to 25% every two weeks after going through withdrawals the last two days. The withdrawals haven't been severe by ANY means whatsoever but I want to be as comfortable as possible but I also want off the benzos as quickly as possible.
 
Yeah I know about titration.

I actually just got the diazepam syrup from my doctor... But the thing is, I am on borrowed time right now with this taper because I've been on short term disability and my company has already filled my position - I have to get this fixed ASAP.
 
I just took 100mg of Lyrica and I'm definitely feeling something going on. For one, I'm breathing better and two, my eyes feel a bit heavy and I have some mild euphoria.

So yes, it appears that memantine potentiates Lyrica a LOT - I took 900mg a few weeks back and didn't feel much of anything at all from it.
 
MagickalKat777 said:
I like the fact that with memantine, while I sometimes feel like I am on a dissociative, I don't have any psychoactive effects besides the "brain fog".
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Are there any doses of memantine that you've tried that have so much dissociative or brain fog feelings that you wouldn't feel safe driving a car?







.
 
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avcpl - the first few days I was on memantine, I didn't feel safe driving a car. The brain fog lifts though with time. I have hardly any now.

And I want to thank the OP. I'm now taking 50mg of Lyrica every time I start feeling too anxious - it is potentiated IMMENSELY by the memantine and I feel that this will help my benzo taper to proceed even faster. Thank you!
 
MagickalKat777 said:
avcpl - the first few days I was on memantine, I didn't feel safe driving a car. The brain fog lifts though with time. I have hardly any now.

And I want to thank the OP. I'm now taking 50mg of Lyrica every time I start feeling too anxious - it is potentiated IMMENSELY by the memantine and I feel that this will help my benzo taper to proceed even faster. Thank you!
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NP. Thanks for all your input. Lyrica is rather pricey and I would take ~900mg as well with ~4-5g of phenibut divided through the day while drinking lots of coffee. The lyrica gets kind of expensive at that dose so the potentiation with memantine is something I'm looking forward to.

I have fallen asleep in my computer chair too when the night is coming to an end with the lyrica/phenibut/weed combo.

I have 20 10mg memantine pills. Would you say 10mg is a good starting dose? Would you predict I'd experience any effects off that dose?

I'm not looking to get high out of my mind. My whole thing is mood enhancement and motivation.
 
Memantine doesn't really get you high - it just gives brain fog and a feeling like you're dissociated but without any real hallucinogenic effects. Its quite odd.

Start with 10mg twice a day for the least brain fog but memantine doesn't start reducing tolerance until the 40mg mark or so. I'm probably gonna go up to 60mg here soon as a matter of fact.
 
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