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Stimulants Adderall Withdrawl (Please help me)

I've been using stims for periods of weeks and months and always stopped cold-turkey and got nothing more than sleepiness, a bit brain fog and some depression (with meth more ponounced) but as said depression comes with sleepiness, one can just sleep it off. The med memantine is able to completely eliminate stim withdrawal and doesn't cause w/d itself when used only for some weeks. Really really no comparison to opioids and I even seem to be lucky not to get full force w/d with projectile vomiting etc.

But 30mg's dex are a decent dose, I can't imagine taking much more daily like the speedfreaks who take 1g of maybe 40-60% purity (?) so 400-600mg consisting of 1/.2 d-amph so 200-300mg/d which is a whole lot...
Just that these days of pharma dex are over, now only lisdex is available for a high price cause patented and here in MX I have great difficulty finding a doctor willing to script me "evil amphetamines" just now..
 
I've been using stims for periods of weeks and months and always stopped cold-turkey and got nothing more than sleepiness, a bit brain fog and some depression (with meth more ponounced) but as said depression comes with sleepiness, one can just sleep it off. The med memantine is able to completely eliminate stim withdrawal and doesn't cause w/d itself when used only for some weeks. Really really no comparison to opioids and I even seem to be lucky not to get full force w/d with projectile vomiting etc.

But 30mg's dex are a decent dose, I can't imagine taking much more daily like the speedfreaks who take 1g of maybe 40-60% purity (?) so 400-600mg consisting of 1/.2 d-amph so 200-300mg/d which is a whole lot...
Just that these days of pharma dex are over, now only lisdex is available for a high price cause patented and here in MX I have great difficulty finding a doctor willing to script me "evil amphetamines" just now..
Yes. 30 mg is the maximum legal dose here that a psychiatrist can prescribe. It is possible to get a little bit more if you get a second opinion from a specialist psychiatrist but it's a big hassle. I only went to 30 mg after a while because I was studying/working 12 hour days and needed 3 separate doses 8 AM, 12 PM, 3 PM to be on top of things that long. But, like I said, I often wouldn't take the whole 30 mg. I'd sometimes also have an afternoon nap between 1-2 PM (a siesta!) even after taking the dex - which I always thought was a good sign I actually do have ADHD.

It's sad you cannot get pharma dex in Mexico. If you have ADHD there is no question that amphetamines are the first line treatment - but there are lots of countries that do not agree and do not allow them to be prescribed. When I lived in Singapore I could not get them. They don't believe in ADHD there.
 
I agreed with your post until you mentioned memantine. That is an Alzheimer’s medication that is an extreme off label remedy even for chronic meth addicts withdrawals. It is in no way suitable to suggest to the OP get memantine for adderall withdrawals.

Plenty of sleep and eating well/exercise is all that should be suggested here for adderall withdrawals, and that’s all!

I already have a problem with people suggesting people to use memantine for anything meth. It is seen as a go ahead cure for tolerance and withdrawals and everything in between. It’s flaunted as a cure all for all of meth abuse that lacks any real scientific review.

So a big no from the wizard using memantine for adderall withdrawals.

🧙‍♂️

I'd agree that there is not enough research to safely recommend Memantine for meth-related issues. And zero research related to it's use with Adderall and amphetamine salts. And most of the people that do recommend it do so from amateur theoretical conjecture rather than from reading the actual research that does exist. If they did, they'd know that most of the Memantine/Meth reserch is based on rat studies where it is very well-known that results often don't subsequently apply to humans.

However, there is some evidence Memantine is neuro-protective while you are still taking meth: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166432816309196

But, at the same time there is some evidence that taking Memantine while on amphetamine-type stimulants actually increases the plesurable effects and therefore the addictive potential: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-002-1225-9
 
I recommend memantine based on its mechanism, user reports but primarily my own experience and that is that memantine smooths stimulants out - look at e.g. reddit or other forums, many people are taking memantine off-label to reduce stimulant tolerance and from there it's not too far off that it helps with rebound/withdrawal (it does). I agree, recommending meds on- or off label requires great care and in general shouldn't be done by amateurists over the internet and there are not many things I'd recommend but memantine is one out of these, like e.g. clonidine for an opioid withdrawal. I am very experienced with both memantine as well as dissociatives in general and would say experience makes up for lack of doctor studies a bit.

Yeah, memantine increases the potency of stims, it's not sure by which mechanism but as it's a D2 agonist, this is the likely origin as well as the mild NMDA antagonism will increase dopamine output, and as it doesn't fiddle around with the transporter, that one can regenerate while one takes memantine. I don't speak of infinite use but like 2-3 weeks and hell we have people (including me) who did astronomical, three number figure dosages of it and it's a fairly nontoxic molecule.
 
@Perforated, this is the reason that I think this forum is a fucking joke for harm reduction. People can just parrot whatever they heard on fucking reddit or wherever and pass it off as good advice and harm reduction without anyone checking them. I see it here constantly and I want to pull my wizard whiskers out.

Dude I’m sorry @plumbus-nine, but your advice for people to take memantine for adderall withdrawals is beyond irresponsible, it’s potentially dangerous.

Please provide credible evidence to warrant your advice for memantine helping with adderall withdrawals.

🧙‍♂️
Hey @The Wizard of the Creek I really understand the point you are making and sympathise with you on the issue. This is not my sub-forum to moderate but I'll give you my understanding of the way things work and I'll ask @negrogesic @falsifiedhypothesi @F.U.B.A.R. or @Keif' Richards to correct me if I am wrong.

We do not have an editorial policy or panel of experts by which Mods can adjudicate what posts contain credible information and what posts contain questionable information except for grossly ridiculous posts. Even collectively, the Mod team do not have the expertise to validate every claim that substance X if fantastic to treat condition Y.

Consequently we see ourselves more as the infrastructure to sustain the kind of marketplace of ideas John Stuart Mill had in mind in On Liberty (Chapter 2) in which if all sides of a question are allowed to present their arguments the truth will win out in the end. We believe the community here will step in and correct bad advice - and your actions in this thread are a perfect example of how the system works.

Perhaps problematically in some cases, we do rely on the people seeking advice to exercise some common sense and also to have the ability to exercise reasonable judgement in determining what action to take after reading the discussions in the thread. This can be a little bit risky when new, young, or credulous members get impressed by people who post using scientific or medical sounding terminology when they don't have any real scientific training and don't cite their sources. There are also many members who mistrust the wisdom of the scientific and medical establishment and history shows that maintaining a questioning attitude to those establishments is highly appropriate.

That said, I do believe there is a specific and quite common issue when people claim doing something to produce changes in a single receptor type (usually regardless of the location of that receptor type) will solve a problem. This has been going on since the 1960s when the Dopamine Hypothesis of Psychosis emerged and nothing seems to be able to kill it despite all things learned about multi-factor determinants of many neurological phemonena since PET was developed and people began brain imaging down to receptor level.

So, my suggestion is don't slag BL for not doing something it was never intended to do and keep on calling out questionable advice as you have been doing. Even when you don't know what the correct answer is, it's always worth publicly red-flagging you feel is dangerous. As you have. The more that active members do this (rather than locking themselves in the Lounge for endless shitposting) the higher the quality of our harm reduction contribution to the world will be.
 
Hey @The Wizard of the Creek I really understand the point you are making and sympathise with you on the issue. This is not my sub-forum to moderate but I'll give you my understanding of the way things work and I'll ask @negrogesic @falsifiedhypothesi @F.U.B.A.R. or @Keif' Richards to correct me if I am wrong.

We do not have an editorial policy or panel of experts by which Mods can adjudicate what posts contain credible information and what posts contain questionable information except for grossly ridiculous posts. Even collectively, the Mod team do not have the expertise to validate every claim that substance X if fantastic to treat condition Y.

Consequently we see ourselves more as the infrastructure to sustain the kind of marketplace of ideas John Stuart Mill had in mind in On Liberty (Chapter 2) in which if all sides of a question are allowed to present their arguments the truth will win out in the end. We believe the community here will step in and correct bad advice - and your actions in this thread are a perfect example of how the system works.

Perhaps problematically in some cases, we do rely on the people seeking advice to exercise some common sense and also to have the ability to exercise reasonable judgement in determining what action to take after reading the discussions in the thread. This can be a little bit risky when new, young, or credulous members get impressed by people who post using scientific or medical sounding terminology when they don't have any real scientific training and don't cite their sources. There are also many members who mistrust the wisdom of the scientific and medical establishment and history shows that maintaining a questioning attitude to those establishments is highly appropriate.

That said, I do believe there is a specific and quite common issue when people claim doing something to produce changes in a single receptor type (usually regardless of the location of that receptor type) will solve a problem. This has been going on since the 1960s when the Dopamine Hypothesis of Psychosis emerged and nothing seems to be able to kill it despite all things learned about multi-factor determinants of many neurological phemonena since PET was developed and people began brain imaging down to receptor level.

So, my suggestion is don't slag BL for not doing something it was never intended to do and keep on calling out questionable advice as you have been doing. Even when you don't know what the correct answer is, it's always worth publicly red-flagging you feel is dangerous. As you have. The more that active members do this (rather than locking themselves in the Lounge for endless shitposting) the higher the quality of our harm reduction contribution to the world will be.

Yeah that's essentially it. This is really just a place to exchange experiences and perspectives and hopefully benefit from that collective wisdom. A group of people who have gone through a similar struggle can often offer decent advice. Not always though. Nothing is fact checked here, at very best overtly dangerous advice or disinformation is removed if detected.

Memantine for amphetamine withdrawal wouldn't be something I'd recommend (magnesium glycinate and l-tyrosine would be a more moderate course of action), but I wouldn't exactly call it dangerous. There are far worse ideas floating around here than this (there was recently a thread somewhere -- not in OD/BDD -- that asserted in the title that IM injection was safer than IV inject, now that is some grade A harm inducing disinformation).

In the end this site is "not intended to diagnose, treat or cure", everything here should be taken with a grain of salt.

 
I just wanted to say that I know nothing other than a coulpl flings with ads but will ty to keep up with more amp related threads just to learn i mean wtfn, yes?
one
crackin up right now
 
Y
Yes, but extrapolating from rats to humans is pretty risky. Here’s why:



 
True. It's just a single anecdotal report from myself, I can confirm that it worked, but that's just me and the rats. Of course, YMMV and not intended to diagnose, or cure, any medical condition, if in doubt see and ask your doctor, etc.pp. I should add this to my signature.
 
I just thought of something… Adderall withdrawals are probably not studied as much as say opioid withdrawal because adderall withdrawal doesn’t cause the type of physical withdrawals that opioids do. Stimulates do cause some pretty severe physical withdrawals like severe depression and anhedonia for possible long periods of time for some. They are not to be dismissed by any stretch of the imagination. To date, few studies have been performed, and the lack of clear-cut physical withdrawal symptoms as seen in alcohol, sedative, and opiate withdrawal makes it difficult to demonstrate definitively the presence of withdrawal during stimulant abstinence.

That’s probably why scientists aren’t going out of their way to study adderall withdrawals too much, when the remedy is just sleeping it off. I wish that was the case for when I got off of methadone!
True. They’ve barely studied anti-psychotic or SSRI withdrawal either. In fact it is one of the flaws in the FDA approval process that they don’t consider long-term effects or specific cessation side-effects.
 
I totally understand the frustration. It's like the discipline of History. There is a lot of bullshit, a lot revision, a lot of opinion, but if you wade through enough information from enough sources, you can begin to extract some basic truths. I would argue that our avatars, names, post numbers and etc. add another layer of legitimacy to a given person's post. Sure, you could get to 5,000 posts being a dick the entire time and not really helping anybody, but human nature tells me that although there are people out there like that, it's far too large an investment of time.

You have to do research. We're a free exchange of ideas and it's my opinion that this is integral to our service to others. There is a lot of misinformation out there, but I still think we're the best.
 
It’s still not safe to recommend memantine for adderall withdrawals. That much I know.
What makes it specifically not safe (and I mean safe as you say it, not just ineffective because ineffective != unsafe)? Memantine is one of these few meds with a huge dosage window, 5-10mg are already active but people take hundreds of mg's without ill effects (but of course, strong dissociation). It's original purpose is treatment of Alzheimer's which means it's safe in the elderly, who tend to be more sensitive. I never said that memantine is any accepted or widely recommended treatment, just that I myself had positive experiences with it, and at least I myself value first-hand experiences at least similar to PubMed articles. Of course, everybody has individual genetics and thus reactions to drugs, and everybody should take everything read on the net with at least one grain of salt. I could go and recommend wasp spray as meth replacement, I don't do that but as an example. I myself overdosed on DXM based on these plateau calculators, this taught me a lesson. Somehow it's ridiculous to trust unknown people specially with sourcing stuff (see: RC vendors) but sometimes it's better than nothing and sometimes information can be verified or discarded by common sense. You discarded my hint about memantine, nothing wrong with that, but it's your opinion like mine is mine.

Full agree @ Keif' Richards.
I'll put the not intended to diagnose or cure in my sig.
 
Other side of the medallion would be not to offer a possibly helpful and as far as I can tell pretty non-unsafe (as in risk of serious adverse effect; there are few but with any prescription med comes a leaflet) option. If nobody would recommend nothing out of line, we wouldn't have things like baclofen for alcohol or ketamine for depression, heck even MDMA for PTSD etc. yeah they are backed by many studies these days but at least the K came from druggies afaik.

I completely agree to harm reduction first. If I (not repeating some random Reddit person, it's at least first hand stuff) hadn't taken several times the recommended dosage and still felt pretty safe (don't do this at home kids), I wouldn't recommend it. But really, where's the difference to recommending DXM, or memantine, for opioid withdrawal or potentiation - even pregabalin for opioid w/d one could call experimental and unsafe, specially the pregabalin because if one relapses and does an overdose, then some pregabalin left in the system might make the difference between passing out and dying. Still, as it can avoid tremendous suffering, people are recommending it.
 
Just to be clear @The Wizard of the Creek, nowhere in our mission, rules, or history is there anything about our model of harm reduction being limited to being a clearing house for peer-reviewed scientific research. In fact, if anything, it’s primarily been the opposite. It’s mostly based on being a community of people sharing their common lived experience of dealing with drugs and their fallout.

Now personally, I never give any experience-based advice about anything without spending a bit of time reading through any relevant research to see if there is anything to back it up or contraindicated it. In the same way, I never follow anybody’s advice without doing the same thing. I try and back up most claims I make with reference to the literature and I often highlight the flaws in other people’s advice the same way.

But you seem to be holding us to a standard that does not correlate with what we purport to be or our operating model as clarified by several moderators in this thread.

In matter of Memantine and Adderall withdrawal, it is one thing to point out that there is no evidence that it works. That seems to be true. But it’s another thing to claim that proposing it will significantly increase harm (which is what you seem to be accusing @plumbus-nine of and by extension condemning us for facilitating). In the latter I think the onus might be on you to be the one to provide the evidence or at least a reasoned argument as to why.
 
You don’t know, I don’t know, he doesn’t know if recommending memantine for adderall withdrawals is harmful or not! That’s my whole point. Besides @Perforated, who on earth is willing to take memantine for adderall withdrawals anyways? Nobody would ever think to potentially endanger themselves with a non-tested, non-researched cure-all unless they read it on reddit or here with people saying it really helps for this or that? That’s so fucking beyond irresponsible, when just sleep, vitamins and eating healthy food is all it takes for fucking adderall withdrawals.

I’m done with this conversation
@The Wizard of the Creek I'm very sorry if you even remotely thought I was referring to you when I spoke of people behaving like dicks. You're not at all in this category and I was merely using it as an example. You're a tried and true member of the community and I have the same level of respect that I have for anyone else willing to donate their time to our little thing.

I don't want to pidgeon-hole you here dude, but I honestly think your complaint is more of an existential one. It's not something we can truly fix. It's that moment in the realms of free speech in which we all question the true value of free speech. I get it completely. THe best we can do is try to silence unfounded or dangerous claims as they pop up and accept that some people are misguided or have been otherwise mislead either by their own research or by others. It's a tough thing, but part of what we do here, I feel, is that we show respect to those of us who consistenly put out the type of information that we deem to be in line with Harm Reduction philosophy.

You have to earn your place in that mutual respect by thus respecting the community itself. That's why we can say "oh they, there's Keif, there's Negro, there's Wizard, they've been legit in the past, so I'll give them the time of day at least".

I just want to say, as a major proponent of completely unrestricted speech, I've had all of these same feelings man. Don't feel out of place or anything. I'd let my neighbors preach about a second holocaust day in and day out if that's really what they want to do. I have to understand that my free speech is the best way of countering this.
 
You don’t know, I don’t know, he doesn’t know if recommending memantine for adderall withdrawals is harmful or not! That’s my whole point. Besides @Perforated, who on earth is willing to take memantine for adderall withdrawals anyways? Nobody would ever think to potentially endanger themselves with a non-tested, non-researched cure-all unless they read it on reddit or here with people saying it really helps for this or that? That’s so fucking beyond irresponsible, when just sleep, vitamins and eating healthy food is all it takes for fucking adderall withdrawals.

I’m done with this conversation
I'm laughing at how you're acting like taking fucking memantine is going to kill the dude, it's funny honestly. Seriously dude, calm the fuck down.
 
That's exactly what I meant. Memantine is safe as fuck, people hell even myself did 10+ times the recommended dosage without ill effects, and recommending it is somewhat like recommending aspirin for an unknown ache - it might work, it might not work but it won't do harm. Probably the person won't even be able to get it, unfortunately because it's a good aid in some situations even backed by some science but most docs are ignorant about PubMed and even more about laymen's experiences.

There is no real study stuff for this exact situation and recommendation but is for what psychiatrists do day by day, recommending either antipsychotics or antidepressants for just everything and for fucks sake I am on SSRIs and can't quit them while memantine is just a tool. Wizard, you're doing good but here you overshoot. The plumbus knows too some wizardry. You have no monopoly on that. Peace(cake). :)
 
Good morning all,

I got myself into a difficult situation and I'm desperately asking for your help. I'm working now and will make this as shortened as possible to get to the point.

Around 3 months ago I started using adderall to help me get things done after my work day. I didn't read enough on dosage and just took it til it felt good. Used to be addicted to intranasal heroin around 3 years ago, so I do have an addictive personality. This adderall use turned into a habit, and for the past 3 months straight I've been taking high doses of adderall. Usually around 120mg a day (stupid, I know.). I decided I want to stop taking them, so I cut back to 60mg for the week and will drop to 30 next week, treating it similar to an opiate taper.

During my couple of months of binging I was sleeping 4 hours a night on average. Since I dropped the dose in half, I have been getting 6-8 hours but I wake up extremely hazy and confused most mornings. Keep in mind I was typically dosing strictly in the evenings. The first couple of mornings I legitimately was sleep walking after my alarm went off with only partial consciousness. It wouldn't be until my alarm woke me up a second time that I would be conscious enough to comprehend what was happening around me. This has started getting slightly better, I get up every morning at 530am to get ready for work, but I'm wondering if this is a normal occurrence? I end up being so tired first thing in the morning that I need 3 separate alarm clocks to get me out of bed. I'll briefly fall asleep while standing up, have trouble s staying awake driving to work (I work in a luxury car line, professional setting), fall asleep at my desk, etc. Once I take a dose of adderall and drink a coffee I'm back to functioning, but the first half hour of my morning is kind of scary.

I want to know if there's anything I can do to help this, and if this is expected when coming off of a high dose of this shit. I currently take supplements to try to help with brain fog. Those consist of ground mushroom capsules (lions mane), rhodiola. GABA, 5htp, mens multivitamin, L-Tyrosine, fish oil, ashwaganda, vitamin b12, vitamin d. They seem to help during the day, and I'm committed to continuing to taper off of this shit entirely, I'm really just seeking peace of mind that this is normal at this point. If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it, and thank you so much for your time today.

Love and light
Hi. I get prescribed 3x 30mg IR daily, I run out about two weeks into the month. I refuse to spend money on buying it so I just use Bronchodilator Bronkaid (ephedrine and guaifenesin) and my Rx of Provigil and a few caffeine pills to function when I’m out. That helps me a lot.
 
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