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New page at erowid: anti-oxidant's and MDMA

A paper published in early 2001 by Shankaran, Yamamoto, and Gudelsky not only confirmed the previous work showing that antioxidants prevent serotonin depletion, but found that rats given ascorbic acid (vitamin C) with their MDMA and then given another dose of MDMA a week later had stronger effects during the second experience than rats who did not receive ascorbic acid the first week. This means that antioxidants administered with MDMA may not only reduce neurotoxicity, but may also decrease the reduction in effects experienced with a second dose a week later.
This is fascinating, and very noteworthy. If you have two MDMA users, and one takes antioxidants while one does not, and they both take MDMA two weekends in a row, how much stronger/better will the first user's second roll be? How significant is the difference here?
Overall, great article! A must read for conscientious MDMA users.
I think I would like to write something similar regarding amp/meth and neurotoxicity, as most amph/meth users are not aware of the damage they may be suffering, and wouldn't even know where to begin in terms of supplements.
Click to expand...
 
Two weeks ago I rolled, and preloaded with 5-HTP and a shitload of vitamin C (about 300 mg) Then I post loaded with the same amount of vitamin C and a couple of 20 mg Prozac.
The day after, my "cracked-out" feeling was almost negligible --in spite of having snorted K and meth toward the end of my roll, and the experience itself was better than it had been (I got some of the famous "magic" back)
This past Saturday, I rolled again, did the same preload, and, I am happy to say, I felt the X A LOT better than two weeks ago --even though the pills weren't the best. Here I need to add that, having abused ecstasy last year (5-6 tabs a week, every week for 7 months), my tolerance got tho the point where 3 tabs gave me just a tiny, little, slight feeling.
Of course, I had read this thread before that, and there is always the possibility of a placebo effect -- the improvement of the effects brought about by my own conviction that vitamin C would make them better.
Then again, I may have just discovered the way to enjoy rolling again. But I will NOT take 6 pills a week, though...
 
Clearly, some new measurement system must be constructed for rolls.
I propose: eye-hammer spasms. Not that nystagmus is necessarily a means by which to asses strength, but it sounds good.
The second roll with Vit-C is about 3 EHS stronger (or faster?) then the non Vit-C roll

Originally posted by fairnymph:

how much stronger/better will the first user's second roll be? How significant is the difference here?
Click to expand...
 
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That was an interesting article. It seems to suggest that having a lot of antioxidants pre-e reduces the roll, but post-e it makes recovery better. To my way of thinking, this suggests that one should pre-load on 5HTP, and postload on 5HTP plus vitamin C.
Another question:
It has been said many times before that MAOI's and MDMA should not be combined (seratonin syndrome). What about using MAOI's _after_ the effects of e have gone?
After pilling, your brain's seratonin levels are depleted. Is it acceptable to use MAOI's at this point to reduce the oxidation of available seratonin? Or am I missing something?
Cheers
 
yes, but not allowing all the serotonin swimming around to breakdown by maoi may be dangerous to your health.
ieven if its not, logically this will keep you above baseline for a long time, and the crash afterwards would be horrible i assume...
 
No it doesn't at all yonder because I believe other studies have shown no serious effect from vitamins on neurotransmitter release. We know that both the released neurotransmitters and the subjective effects of the ecstasy are reduced if taken again next week. Combined with the above ancedotal evidence rather suggests to me that antioxidants diminish the one-week depletion in 5HT associated with ecstasy neurotoxicity.
djremix is trying to point out that one major effect of most MAOIs is to significantly lengthen the roll (probably by itnerfering with the metabolism of the ecstasy but im not sure). They can also dangerously raise blood pressure and cause all sorts of nasty health problems if mixed.
However some animal studies have shown neurotoxic protection from MAO-b inhibitors (of some kind...don't go trying this at home they may have administered them intercrannially I don't remember).
 
I was extremely happy when this article was published as I've been taking 5-HTP and a selection of vitamins for a while now. I'd found that a lot of people were simply saying that it may not work so you were stupid to even try - my point of view is that if it might work, then you might as well try, and thankfully I was right in this instance. I really overdid it a couple of weeks ago (pilling every couple of days - don't have a go at me, I know the risks) and found that a combination of 5-HTP, vitamin C, B* and multivitamins helped a lot and meant that my tolerance wasn't really going up, until one night when no matter how many I took, I got no more than a speedy buzz. I'm now taking longer breaks and keeping up the healthy routine and find that it makes me feel exactly that - healthy. I've been eating a lot more fresh fruit and veg and am taking a bit more exercise - I feel great physically but I'm not sure about mentally (was feeling shit, but don't know if it can be attributed to the pills - I think they aggravated things though). However, I made the mistake of thinking that because I wasn't feeling really bad, that I could keep taking more and more - this is a stupid trap to fall into as it defeats the purpose of trying to safeguard against neurotoxic damage, but then I suppose, as with everything else, people will have to find out for themselves first...
 
Interesting link...
Without revealing my weight...though someone will do the math... I would have to take 30 grams of vitamin C to achieve the same effects. That's a lot of vitamin C.
It's not uncommon for people to take 20, even 50 times the RDA of vitamin C. 3 grams. Even 6 grams no problem. 30 grams? I'll have to look into that. I'm reasonably familiar with mega dosing on them for certain conditions...But that's high. I'm not sure you wouldn't upset your stomach and intestines with a dose that high. I'll have to look around.
I can see where a regimine like:
3000mg of vitamin C (50x rda)
200mg of B3 Niacin (10x rda)
100mg B6 (16x rda)
60 IUs E (2x rda)
500mg magnesium (right about rda)
50-100mg of 5-HTP
Would be useful for that.
Vitamin C is a pretty neat chemical in the body. Curiously enough it's been used to decrease the symptoms of lead, mercury, and arsenic poisoning in the body with some success. (It's in dispute whether or not it lowers lead in the body. Those results weren't replicated consistently.)
BTW, 300mg of vitamin C isn't all that much. Your body makes between 6 and 14 grams a day (it's relational to body weight) on it's own. As far as getting into your blood steam it's about 1/2 the dose you take. So 300mg would cause an elevation of about 150mg -- or a very small amount in relation to your total production of it. It's produced in the liver if I remember correctly. Your bodies ability to make vitamin C goes down dramatically when it's starved of other vitamins. A diet of nothing but salty fish will do that. This is why people got scurvy on those long boat trips.
 
30g? You've got the bear in mind rats have a way faster metabolism and all their "chemicals" were injected. 30g would give you a HUGE case of the shits too.
I take about 5g over the space of 16 hours. I also take 81x the RDA of Vit E. The tablets I have have 27x in each and I take them in the morning, evening and next morning.
What are the problems caused by too much Vit E?
 
Other than aggrivating your GI ...not very much. But keep in mind, that's for 10-25X the RDA.
People taking 10-25X the dose of vitamin E tend to get nausea, diarrhea. It reduces your bloods ability to clot, similar to aspirin. Other than nausea and diarrhea -- people tended not to develop symptoms like headaches, blurred vision -- except when they had weeks of high doses. The mega doses you are taking may be a little high.
Conversion of mg into IU ...800mg = 1777 and some change IU. That's a little over 59 times the RDA.
81 times the RDA is probably a bit much. I don't have a lot of information on doses beyond that.
"The toxicity of vitamin E in adults appears to be low. Clinical trials have shown that large doses (e.g., 200-800 mg/d) do not result in serious side effects in most adults, with the possible exception of individuals taking oral anticoagulant therapy and those with vitamin K-related clotting disorders. High levels of vitamin E can adversely affect the absorption of vitamins A and K, and long-term use of high doses may cause nausea, diarrhea and blurred vision. High-dose therapy in infants may be associated with more serious side effects." (Kaegi)
"Megadose of vitamin E may depress blood coagulation. Platelet aggregation is inhibited and the prothrombin time may be prolonged." (Loescher) (Ontario)
According to one study, alpha-tocopherol increased the risk of coronary heart disease. "Based on these findings, we recommend that patients with a previous myocardial infarction who smoke should not use this agent." (Rapola)
Reduced sexual function is a sign of vitamin E overdose, although it is rare. (Cassileth)
According to Roberts, the most common complaints attributable to megadose vitamin E supplementation were hypertension, thrombophlebitis [inflammation of a vein due to obstruction by an aggregation of blood factors], pulmonary embolism [the closure to the pulmonary artery by a blood clot], painful or enlarged breasts, and severe fatigue. "Other reactions included the apparent precipitation or aggravation of angina pectoris [spasmodic, choking, or suffocating thoracic pain], infection, urticaria [hives], headache, and hypoglycemia [abnormal decrease in sugar in the blood]." (Roberts)
"Animal studies showed that vitamin E is not mutagenic, carcinogenic, or teratogenic. The toxicity of vitamin E is very low." (Helzlsouer)
 
i read somewhere that combining anti ox's such as ala, c, e, selnium and q10 has a very big synergestic effect with each other. much greater than the sum of invidual effects.
 
They do indeed. C & E in particular are quite synergistic as far as antioxidant effects go.
I did a bit of digging on ultra-high dose vitamin C. There are doctors out there delivering 30G a day to patients on a slow drip IV. 'The cut-off is to increase the dose until nausea and diarrhea kicks in, then back off from that dose'. I couldn't find anything on anyone giving that high of a dose non-IV other than a handful of poison control reports in young kids. That isn't very encouraging for taking that high of a dose non-IV. That seems to suggest that nausea and diarrhea is going to kick in at a lot lower doses with oral use.
The highest credible ones I saw were 12G orally in people who had slowly bumped up the dose over a considerable amount of time.
 
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