Pharmacology What Does Reindeer Urine, Gabapentin and Pregabalin Have in Common?

[TheLightBringer]

Whats crazy is that if we assume that all 98% of the pregabalin are re-consumed it would take a full 34 days to get down to half the dosage originally consumed. You could essentially prevent withdrawal for a decent while by drinking your urine in a pinch

Although Im not sure if someone would be too keen on guzzling down 2 liters of pee a day unless they have a fetish…

 

[4DQSAR]

YES
YES
Happy that at least one other person had this idea seeing the excretion rate. How this isn't a more widely discussed topic baffles me.

My previous post on the matter (without much success from the public too):

Gabapentinoids Thread 'Did anybody try to exploit this scientific fact to achieve perpetual motion?'

Jul 5, 2025

Drinking pregabalin piss juice, i mean. It's a 4000% increase in efficiency.

• OrconectesLimosus
• Replies: 5
• Forum: Other Drugs

I don't think ANYONE had N-mehyl pregabalin being the minor (metabolized) fraction on their bingo card. Somewhere, something got O-demethylated ;-)

 

[JitteryKitteryDoo]

Forgive the noob but what is ACRE? My brain is not going to let me get on with my life. I must know. Please enlighten me, my elders.

 

[OrconectesLimosus]

Whats crazy is that if we assume that all 98% of the pregabalin are re-consumed it would take a full 34 days to get down to half the dosage originally consumed. You could essentially prevent withdrawal for a decent while by drinking your urine in a pinch

Although Im not sure if someone would be too keen on guzzling down 2 liters of pee a day unless they have a fetish…

Or you could evaporate the liquid and consume the residue in capsules.
Or bake cake with the residue, some compounds in urine are used as leavening agents because they decompose into gases during cooking (ammonium carbonate, urea).
Pregabalin seems to start decomposing at around 200°C, so cake would be optimal because of lower cooking temperatures compared to bread or pizza.

There's also room for speculation on an extraction method - from a quick google search, it seems that pregabalin is very insoluble in acetone, while things you don't want to eat in urine are mostly soluble in acetone. There are also some solids in unevaporated urine that could be centrifuged before evaporating.

Bacterial decomposition seems like a reasonable choice too: pregabalin is processed very slowly, while most nitrogen/carbon compounds in urine are steadily decomposed by algae and bacteria. Sterilization and evaporation should get you a residue that's lower in noxious urine compounds and higher in protein, although do mind that some aquatic bacteria can produce toxins that are not removed with sterilization; there is also some inevitable loss of pregabalin due to the mysterious ways of life.

Since pregabalin doesn't undergo any metabolic process other than physical excretion, you can get a good estimate of the amount in your urine from the reported half life of 6 hours.

 

[4DQSAR]

@JitteryKitteryDoo - Sorry. Absorbtion, Distribution, Redistribution, Excretion.

Most medicines demonstrate the much more common ADME i.e. Absorbtion, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion.

As part of my own 'defensive design' of novel ligands, I will tend towards ADRE so I don't have to worry about metabolites OR I ensure that there is a labile (easily broken down) moiety. An example might be pyrophenidone. That para methyl is what some term a 'magic methyl' but in that case, it increased activity while being labile so metabolism would be the body oxidizing that methyl group to a carboxylic acid which can then easily be excreted. So while metabolism takes place, 98% of the ligand undergoes a well understood metabolic pathway. So it's sort of a double magic methyl... if that makes sense.

 

[JitteryKitteryDoo]

@JitteryKitteryDoo - Sorry. Absorbtion, Distribution, Redistribution, Excretion.

Most medicines demonstrate the much more common ADME i.e. Absorbtion, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion.

As part of my own 'defensive design' of novel ligands, I will tend towards ADRE so I don't have to worry about metabolites OR I ensure that there is a labile (easily broken down) moiety. An example might be pyrophenidone. That para methyl is what some term a 'magic methyl' but in that case, it increased activity while being labile so metabolism would be the body oxidizing that methyl group to a carboxylic acid which can then easily be excreted. So while metabolism takes place, 98% of the ligand undergoes a well understood metabolic pathway. So it's sort of a double magic methyl... if that makes sense.

That does make alot of sense. I can integrate that concept into my ongoing learning. I do really want to up my game when it comes to learning organic chemistry and pharmacology. I'm not in a great financial situation so I do my learning from home, but I do find it endlessly fascinating. My local university has a medicinal chemistry course that I'd absolutely love to do if I'm ever in a position to do so.

 

[Loquacious]

Ill join you. Come search santa with me and a 10g bag of pcx.