• Neuroscience & Pharmacology Discussion Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Recent Journal Articles Chemistry Mega-Thread
    FREE Chemistry Databases! Self-Education Guide

  • N&PD Moderators: Skorpio | someguyontheinternet

Tyrosine Tolerance Mechanism?

T

Tommy6565

Greenlighter
Joined
Feb 3, 2011
Messages
7
Good evening from a newbie. I have been taking tyrosine for anhedonia and libido issues. I took it a few years ago and it worked EXTREMELY well for 8 months. I stopped for a while and now that I am back on it I am taking 5x the dose and it is not working nearly as well. I really need it as it is the only thing that has worked. I have been researching but I am seeking out the assistance of more knowledgeable individuals. I have a few questions:

1) What has happened that it worked at a low dose the first time but now does not.
2) Why does it work well for a few days when I increase the dose and then level off?
3) What is the neurological mechanism occuring that causes the positive effects to level off?
4) How can I counteract this apparent tolerance to, what was before, a very helpful supplement. Would an NMDA antagonist help?
5) Obviously the method by which it is working is a dopamine increase. Is this similar to an adderall benefit and level off?

Thank you all very much.
 
Um... I've consumed tyrosine in vast quantity and it did fairly nothing. Are you sure it wasn't placebo?
 
Yessir, Nuke. Certain it was not a placebo effect because when i stopped after the first time the good effects wore off. Even if I decrease my dose now I can feel a difference, I just feel like the same dose is not doing what it should (and used to). My questions above are all leading toward a hope that I can re-potentiate the Tyrosine so it works for me as well as it did before.
 
Consider the following hypothetical scenario:

SWIY buys a box of sugar pills, at 500mg per pill. SWIY is very excited about said pills, and hopes that they can ameliorate his various psychological ills. Upon commencing his daily regimen, SWIY's luck turns around and lady luck throws him a bone. He falls in love, gets a promotion, buys a new car, wins the lottery, aces university, or any of the multitude of positive outcomes that this life can throw at you. SWIY feels fucking fantastic. In fact, he fully attributes his good fortunes to his shiny new 500mg pills, which GNC has the audacity to charge $17.99 for.

SWIY is adamant that his new daily regimen is not a placebo. In fact, he is deeply offended every time someone brings up the Placebo Effect. How dumb do people think he is?? These people should get a clue. In any case, placebos are more powerful drugs than many medications currently on the market. In fact, they are so powerful that, if tested in placebo-controlled trials against the very placebos from which they are derived, they would likely show statistically significant superiority over them. Yes, lactose is the new morphine.

When SWIY subsequently returns and buys the same pills many months later, he is disappointed, even astonished, that the effect he so craves has not manifested this time. In desperation, he doubles, even triples his dose, to no avail. All he gets is significant bloating & gas brought on by all the lactose in his lactose-intolerant digestive system. In a show of exasperation, he scuttles off to Bluelight to try and make sense of this astonishing, previously unheard-of phenomenon. Some intelligent soul immediately catches on and gives him the one morsel of wisdom amidst a sea of inconsistent, though well meaning, advice. SWIY has my sympathies.
 
nuke said:
Um... I've consumed tyrosine in vast quantity and it did fairly nothing. Are you sure it wasn't placebo?
Click to expand...

while possible a lot of people on bluelight have suggested that it works wonders for comedowns from dopaminergic drugs (mephedrone being a prime example). is it possible like 5htp that its magic is only noticable if you are going through a patch where you need it?

i have never had pure tyrosine but i eat a lot of cheese and have found that cheese is an essential to getting over a stim binge comedown.
 
Thank you for the responses. I appreciate the the placebo effect argument. Suppose I changed what I was taking from tyrosine to l-dopa, or Tyrosine to adderall. I know those both work on the dopamine system and also commonly cause people to develop tolerance. Would it be possible to answer the questions above using an l-dopa assumption? Thanks.
 
Tommy6565 said:
Thank you for the responses. I appreciate the the placebo effect argument. Suppose I changed what I was taking from tyrosine to l-dopa, or Tyrosine to adderall. I know those both work on the dopamine system and also commonly cause people to develop tolerance. Would it be possible to answer the questions above using an l-dopa assumption? Thanks.
Click to expand...

l-dopa and tyrosine are not going to behave the same as there is a rate limiting step in changing the tyrosine to l-dopa
 
You don't want to supplement with l-dopa outside of a physician's supervision: it can have severe side-effects rivaling stimulants in severity, let alone in combination with stimulants. Ask a Parkinson's patient what the initial process of titration of l-dopa was like. :P

If you are eating anywhere close to a sufficient diet, you should be getting enough tyrosine to saturate the enzyme which metabolizes it to l-dopa. Are you a tweaker who barley eats? :P

ebola
 
OK I don't plan on taking l-dopa without talking to a doctor. Nor do I plan on taking amphetamines without a doctor's supervision. I am more asking a scientific question of what goes on in the brain. If using l-dopa or amphetamines as guidance rather than tyrosine helps for describing a dopamine precursor/increaser's effect on the brain and tolerance helps then...well that is why I mentioned those. My questions in the first post are more about increasing dopamine (and meds that do so) and what occurs in the brain that causes the decreased efficacy over time. Thanks again.
 
Just because tyrosine is a precursor for dopamine doesn't mean that oral tyrosine supplementation has any effect on brain DA concentrations. In fact, I'm fairly positive it has virtually no such effect.

This is something that's probably linked to placebo. Libido is so incredibly intertwined with expectation and mindset that it'd be very, very difficult for any evidence to the contrary suggest that it isn't placebo.
 
Hammilton said:
Just because tyrosine is a precursor for dopamine doesn't mean that oral tyrosine supplementation has any effect on brain DA concentrations. In fact, I'm fairly positive it has virtually no such effect.

This is something that's probably linked to placebo. Libido is so incredibly intertwined with expectation and mindset that it'd be very, very difficult for any evidence to the contrary suggest that it isn't placebo.
Click to expand...

agreed!
 
OK, assuming the tyrosine is doing nothing for me and it is all placebo effect. Fine. Hypothetically, what is the method by which something that increases dopamine in the brain (not specifically tyrosine) creates a tolerance to such a product. I have read about this with amphetamine. Thank oyu.
 
The mechanisms are multiple and depend on the agent which functions to increase intercellular DA temporarily. Receptor downregulation is the simplest.

ebola
 
Could be as simple as the rate of conversion to 5-htp changing for various reasons. I suggest a switch to 5-htp itself plus some dopaminergic agent as well. Nicotine in the gum form should be safe enough if you do not have heart problems. Please check for drug interactions first before you go out and purchase the 5-htp. Hope this helps.
 
I think he was talking about the action and kinetics of tryptophan 5-hydroxylase in regard to serotonin synthesis?

The only time I got really strong psychoactive effects from ingesting these precursors aside from 5HTP was from d,l-Phenylalanine with large amounts of pyridoxine. The effects were pretty weird though, it was very unlike a stimulant.
 
"The mechanisms are multiple and depend on the agent which functions to increase intercellular DA temporarily. Receptor downregulation is the simplest."

ebola?, How can you counteract receptor downregulation? Do NMDA receptor antagonists work?
 
NMDA antagonists work better to prevent the formation of tolerance, but yeah, they should help a bit, particularly when combined with breaks from stimulants.

Really, you need a break from stimulants and then to take them far less often. You just can't sustainably take these agents daily, or even as often as weekly.

ebola
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top