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okay, time to admit it. I'm scared I have screwed my brain

streetsurfer

streetsurfer

Ex-Bluelighter
Joined
Feb 18, 2004
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I spent about 8 months manicly high from the combination of ritalin and selegiline. Since stopping not only has my severe depression returned but my level of funtioning has deterierated sharply. For example

I can't plan anything without stimulant drugs. I will just screw around on the net wasting time, or wonder around town thinking what I need to organise my life.

I can't prioritise to clean my room. I just look at the mess and feel overwhelmed by it

When I take a dose of dex I can do this stuff and funtion, a larger dose and all of a sudden I go "Oh shit! There all all these things I need to get done and here I am just twiddling my thumbs and immidiately spring into action.

I am just directionless, I feel hopeless, I have no insight ...

I am scared I have fried my brain. None of these areas was great before by the way but it is definetly worse now and I have also become more hypo manic as part f my depressive symptoms.

At the moment I am on
Dexamphetamine
Selegiline
Lamictal

I know I post alot asking stuff like this but would really appeciate some feedback this time

Cheers
B
 
That was pretty well written

so I don't think you have fried the old bean........... yet.

I feel/act like you described
first couple weeks off meth and then --Voila --everything snaps back into place, even mood staabilizes, well, I am still on Neurontin

( I was on Lamictal for a while this year I HATED IT ! )

have alwasy wanted to try selegiline but my dr wont allow it saying since I am cyclothymic, ( she THINKS so anyway ) it could be DANGEROUS for me . oh well.

why dont you just drop the DEX. wait it out, be lazy. relax, sleep a lot, then later cut down the lamictal a bit if you can,

and make to do lists with just a few obtainable goals on them , tape them to your door, get a little done each day.
 
I would give up on everything but the selegiline just to see if you regain the lost functionality. There is a doc somewhere who posted an article about how he was able to take 80% of his psych patients off of everything else just by substituting selegiline. And it is remarkably safe, clean, and side-effect free.

Disclaimer: This does not constitute medical advice since your doc already has you on it.

Most docs that I have talke to about selegiline either never heard of it or claim it is far too dangerous since it is an MAOI. But they don't know their brain chemistry. They are just following their teachings which say MAOI=DANGER. But science has come a long way since most of them were in med school. And unless psychopharmacology is their specialty, they probably are just playing it safe. And the cool thing about selegiline is that you don't have to go on a 6-week trial. If it is going to work, you will probably notice results in 20 minutes, increasing over a couple of weeks.
 
Sounds like you're depressed and listless. When I get depressed, those are almost exactly my symptoms. I think that if you can nail your depression, you'll be just fine. Of course that's harder than it sounds... but I think your brain will be okay, and in fact is right now other than having some sort of imbalance that's making you feel depressed. :)
 
Maybe so more or less than others^^

Have you tried counseling? or behaviour modification w/ someone? instead of just working overtime on the biochemical nature...
 
did you taper the dex down? in your other thread, it sounded like you were still taking the dex. if you are, you should taper it down rather than stopping cold turkey. you will still feel more tired on lower doses and perhaps less motivated, but it won't feel as drastic a change as stopping cold turkey would. further, i have experienced real and drug-induced mania myself, and i know how depressed/incapable/unmotivated/overwhelmed one feels once the mania has dissipated, but you have to remember that it is normal to feel lazy/overwhelmed to some extent...'normal' people don't have the energy and drive of mania. however, it sounds like you are very depressed, which is something that should be addressed. i really think you should consider therapy (particualrly cognitive behavioral therapy if you're not a fan of talk therapy) in addition to medication.
 
I'd drop the selegiline and maybe think about an SSRI (although have you said that you've tried SSRIs before?)

You're obviously depressed...
 
how many SSRIs have you taken...what was your dose, and how quickly did you titrate up? it's true that TD can be a side effect of SSRIs, but it is relatively rare. also, please look into therapy and possibly raising lamictal. lamictal can be a pretty potent antidepressant...oh, and fish oil capsules.
 
I am on 50mg lamictal morning and night
I take handfulls of fish oil
I belive they both work and I do feel better, but I started/altered alot of shit at the same time such as started sublingual selegiline, uped lamictal from 75 to 100 started using nicotine patchs for concentration and the big one, went back on the dexamphetamine.

Which is the bitch I think which is why I ditched em today.

I am hoping I will be better when I get the dex out my system but nothing else stops me ruminating like it does.

Tardive Dyskenesia, All of em did it, Prozac was by far the worst (yet most effective) I started at quarter of a tablet a day and took a month to work up to a full dose but had to stop even with propranolol to numb it down.

Teeth grinding, constipation, fuck I hate SSRI's
 
Why do I get dysphoric agitation as my mania and not some nice euphoria is what I want to know. Fuckin ritalin with selegiline changed that, destroyed my short term memory but by fuck I was happy
 
streetsurfer said:
Why do I get dysphoric agitation as my mania and not some nice euphoria is what I want to know. Fuckin ritalin with selegiline changed that, destroyed my short term memory but by fuck I was happy
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I was on ritalin for about 2 months - loved the high and motivation and got lots done, but after 1 month i started getting 'floppy muscles', which got much worse by the 2nd month stage. All my muscles, especially in limbs, would go very soft and floppy, even walking was hard. Not a good side effect, so i stopped ritalin, and got very depressed for the next WHOLE next month. Was like comming off Cocaine strangely enough ...

After a few months, i tried Dex and it works much better for me, but i take it with Epilim (Sodium Valproate) cause Bi-polar's (like you and me) should NOT TAKE DEX without SODIUM VAL. You are just asking for trouble - which you now got.

And i personally would not mix Selegiline with Dex, i think that is stupid. What can seleline give you that dex cannot ?
 
streetsurfer said:
I can't plan anything without stimulant drugs. I will just screw around on the net wasting time, or wonder around town thinking what I need to organise my life.

I can't prioritise to clean my room. I just look at the mess and feel overwhelmed by it

When I take a dose of dex I can do this stuff and funtion, a larger dose and all of a sudden I go "Oh shit! There all all these things I need to get done and here I am just twiddling my thumbs and immidiately spring into action.
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i have these symptoms too . I struggle every day to get 'basic' stuff done. I only seem to get anything done on dex. Your not the only one.

My job is caring for disabled people - you should get a job like that.

One of my clients has the brain of a 3 year old (she is 28), cannot move the right side of her body, cannot walk, someone has to change her nappy every 2 hours, cannot talk (only communicate by very simple syntax), has NO short term memory at all (very frustrating for every one), drools constantly, all from a car accident 4 years ago.

It makes me feel 'normal' and 'life is not that bad'.
 
Another thing: if you take Dex in high dose's (30mg +) every day it LOWERS dopamine and makes you feel flat and serious.

So what i do is have breaks: i only have it every 2nd day, usually 4 days a week, so i still get the 'zip' from the Dex when i take it.

I dont tell my doctor cause he hates us doing that, but fuck him, i dont want to be a zombie on the stuff, cause that is how i feel when i take it everyday in high dose's.

I am lucky in that in my job i choose when to work, so i tell them i can only work every 2nd day, and on those days i take dex cause it makes working one thousand times better and easier.

and one day a week taking dex at home for washing and cleaning up the house. fuck cleaning every day!
 
I was on sodium valproate with the dex but the dose just kept getting higher and higher and (I don't know if this is real or my imagination) I was sure my stomach became distended rather than just put on weight. But yeah, when I first tried it it worked well.

But the trouble with Dex like I mentioned is I just can not control my use. I always end up staying up all night working popping em, take the week to recover then do it again.

That said I had a massive psychological breakthrough in regards to one of my relationships the first night I went back on it. .... I dunno

As for selegiline over dex, Dex won't make u live longer like selegiline does for one. It also kills the dex effect if u take it at the end of the day.
 
Is this just bipolar 2 pure and simple? I wake up in the morning with some inane song I heard on playschool 10 years ago doing laps in my head, fatigue totally wrecks me even with out drugs, makes me more manic as above.

Why don't I get a happy manic, seriously?
 
Sounds like low dopamine levels to me. The whole sitting around not doing thing that is. I had that problem for a long time before I started wellbutrin. If your case is the same, an SSRI won't do jack (believe me I know), since you need an SDRI.

Maybe your levels are just low due to having been artificially elevated for so long. It might take a while for things to level out again on their own.
 
Dr. Beat said:
Bi-polar's (like you and me) should NOT TAKE DEX without SODIUM VAL.
....or any other mood stabilizer, and he is taking lamictal, albeit a relatively small, possibly subtherapeutic dose.

ss-
in terms of the euphoric mania, recent research is finding that pure euphoric mania is very rare. hypomania (increased energy/motivation/disinhibition but not to the point of losing touch with reality) is usually accompanied by an elevated mood - have you ever experienced that? but more and more, doctors are recognizing that dysphoric/agitated feeling you are describing is a very common form of mania, perhaps the most common...unfortunately.:|
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