arylcyclohexylamines neurotoxicity recovery

[hydroazuanacaine]

i found this class of drugs and have had with fun with them for a bit. if i were to stop, does the brain recover? i tried googling and couldn't find much. there's no way i'll never use again, but if went years without does science show that the brain recovers? because despite all the beauty these drugs offer, they are neurotoxic.

i've used ...

.5g k (comforting)
.5g 2fdck (less wild but even more more comforting)
.75g 3-meo-pce (let me kiss angels once i found out how to use it right, my favorite)
.5g probably less of mxpr (taught me a lot but to hard on organs. by far the most extreme and least recreational)

i know this post is selfish. people still use these drugs and i totally understand why. i want to know when we each decide to move on how much our brains will recover. and again, i'm not trying to put any shame on people who still use these drugs because they are so beautiful. like i said, there's no way i can never use 3-meo-pce again. it's the closest thing to grace i've ever encountered. i can't believe how beautiful it feels. opiates were good; dissos are divine (or give the appearance of being).

thanks

 

[G_Chem]

What makes you think you’ve sustained neurotoxicity?

-GC

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

i don't know that i have. because i've used neurotoxic drugs? i am not saying to a significant degree.

i do know that when i close my eyes i don't see darkness anymore. instead i see other worlds. i figure that is acute and could be related to other mental illness, though likely triggered by the dissos.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

the benzos will give me alzheimer's. serotonin psychs are were cool. then i found opiates and benzos and forgot about them. after benzos and opiates revealed themselves as a drain, i reconsidered psychs. that's when i got introduced to dissos. once i saw the angels, serotonin psychs were out of the picture again.

i swear to god i've kissed an angel. almost as good as kissing alex over 10 years ago on new years when she was rolling and her mouth tasted like ring pop. same thing. alex moved on. those angels are still waiting for me. signing their song. luring me into the sharp rocks. i kinda wanna sink.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

I just wanted to ask what makes you think benzos “give” you Alzheimer’s? I’ve researched the subject heavily as I’m gonna be on them for life most likely, and there are a lot of factors that contribute towards the risk for Alzheimer’s, and no study has conclusively shown that BZDs cause it. They can be associated with it but... just being white instead of black can make you less at risk. Reading books and doing sudoku in your old years can reduce chance. Exercise can reduce it. People who eat Mediterranean diets are less prone to it (probably the fish oil). So basically I’ve altered my lifestyle to do all those things and my memory seems to be holding.

OT: Yeah, I don’t think dissos are neurotoxic. Olney’s Lessions has been proven wrong just like the MDMA puts holes in your brain lies have been proven wrong. Like the guy prior said, in studies that support you thinking it’s neurotoxic, they inject heavy ass doses into those poor rats. You shoot a gram of ket into a person there’s bound to be repercussions

I think, and I mean this in the most loving way possible hydro , that you just need a break from them. They seem to be having a profound effect on your life right now, and whether that’s positive or not, I do not know.

If it helps, I don’t see darkness behind my eyelids anymore either. Always color and chaos. Maybe it just comes with the territory.

 

[Vastness]

Yeah, I'm not sure there's much evidence to suggest arylcyclohexylamines on their own are neurotoxic, although personally I don't believe they are entirely benign either, especially with the heavier, prolonged sessions most dissociative fans like to indulge in.

The primary danger is when they are combined with other drugs, particularly stimulants, there's a pretty cool study somewhere where they scanned the brains of a range of polydrug users who combined ketamine with other drugs on a regular basis, and pretty much all of them showed what you could call "minor brain damage", obvious structural changes and shrinkage of various brain regions.

I can't remember offhand if there were any test subjects who didn't combine with anything, I think there might have been one but I could be wrong about that... either way though I think he had used fairly heavily for a while, I'll have to dig it up when I'm not on my phone.

But anyway, even the lightest users studied showed measurable changes in brain structure, so Olney's lesions or not, arylcyclohexylamines cannot be said to be entirely safe, neurologically. That said, I would expect most minor damage to be far more reversible that the kind of toxicity induced by abuse of stimulants, for example.

 

[Hexagon Sun]

Yeah, I dont think, a priori, are neurotoxic.

But bladder and kidney toxic, hell yeah, there´s a ton of evidence suggesting that. So better space all the takes, go for lighter doses and try to use better the potent ones (3-meos>than K) as your body needs to process less amount.

Take all this info with a grain of salt, as it could be that K is safer than 3-meos, for example, as we are moving in a pretty speculative territories yet

I love my dissos as well. I haven´t kissed angels but similarly impposible to conceive things while in the zone.

Im positive in future we will learn how to get the most of the disso space without damaging our precious bodies. In the meanwhile stay safe, space the doses and use the minimum quantities that you can

 

[sekio]

I've used way too many arylcyclohexylamines and have no complaints, in fact two CT scans I had done years ago at the peak of my dissociative use were utterly unremarkeable.

So my answer is yes, if you cease use you will probably be fine. In fact if you continue to use dissociatives infreuently you will also be fine, in my books.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

I just wanted to ask what makes you think benzos “give” you Alzheimer’s?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6325366/
i know dementia is a symptom of alzhimer's, but there's a strong connection between the two. there are also lots of studies specifically about alzhimer's. i picked this one because it's a meta-analysis including many of those studies and is on the first page of google results. the comment was offhand, sorry. in the citations there are plenty of studies that say it's not conclusive that long-term benzo use increases the risk. it isn't something i pulled out of the air either; they suspect and are looking into it. i too use benzos dailey and have more more have for most of my life. doesn't mean i think it's healthy.

i agree, i do need to cut back on disso use. no doubt.

interesting that you don't see darkness when you close your eyes either. do you like it? i do not. i wish it was dark when i closed my eyes. i hope that once i cut back on dissos that it will be dark when i close my eyes again. i don't see colors and chaos, but clear images. those images often disturb and or confuse me. mostly confuse me, because when i open my eyes and am somewhere else it shocks me. i do not even know that the two are connected. the timing matches up; that doesn't prove anything.

there is evidence to suggest arylcyclohexylamines are neurotoxic. is it conclusive? no. research almost never is. the possibility is there.

i suppose i shouldn't worry so much about what can and can't be undone and focus on my future behavior. which again, i agree should involve less disso use. easier said than done. the only reason i haven't used today is because i'm out of sterile water packs and the needle exchange bus is far away today. i will work on it. i will.

i appreciate all the replies.

I haven´t kissed angels

it's wonderful. they're quite good kissers.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

I think my “colors and chaos” is basically just HPPD from tripping well over 100 times and smoking weed all my adult life. I don’t mind it at all. I used to enjoy sitting around my old college campus and staring at OEVs while totally sober. I love popcorn ceilings lol. But I imagine if I saw formed imagery it might bother me too.

In regards to benzos, yeah, they might contribute, they might not. I have no choice in the matter so I just try to address other known causes of Alzheimer’s. If I didn’t need them for GI pain I wouldn’t allow myself to use them daily like I do.

And yeah, maybe ACHs do do some changing of the brain, maybe there is damage. Idk. Since nothing definitive is known I just don’t worry about it. I also don’t use them very often, it’s been years since I last did anything but nitrous. But I did have a year with weekly (sometimes more frequent) MXE use and I don’t feel any worse off for it. I plan to use MXE in the future and other ACHs as well. Until someone can prove it’s actually THAT bad for me, I’ll keep using them.

So I guess I’m saying, don’t worry, be happy? No sense in worrying about something you can’t change. I regret my abuse of alcohol more than any of my otter drugs of abuse. I know for a fact I’ve lost some of my brain to booze. And 25i-nbome... I still have frequent headaches even many years after my 4 uses of the drug. Now that’s an evil drug...

Take care hydro, be safe, and try not to worry so. You’ll be okay

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

yeah, alcohol has probably done a number on me as well.

Take care hydro, be safe, and try not to worry so. You’ll be okay

thanks, Cream. take care as well.

 

[+96+]

The most worrying side-effect I've noticed which I haven't been able to fully come to terms with is a seemingly permanent erasing & dulling of past memory.

Wow man, thank you for this valuable insight, it came at just the right time. I've been noticing this for a few years now and you helped me realize it's definitely because of my heavy dissociative abuse. It's like there is this wall between me and my old memories sometimes like important times with friends yet now I can only remember snippets.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

Pro tip for abusing mind wiping drugs: keep a daily journal. Then if you forget shit a quick read can bring it all back

My grandpa is losing his memory but he journals daily still and has for years so he’s got his life catalogued for future reference.

 

[Wishdoctor79]

Yeah, I'm not sure there's much evidence to suggest arylcyclohexylamines on their own are neurotoxic, although personally I don't believe they are entirely benign either, especially with the heavier, prolonged sessions most dissociative fans like to indulge in.

The primary danger is when they are combined with other drugs, particularly stimulants, there's a pretty cool study somewhere where they scanned the brains of a range of polydrug users who combined ketamine with other drugs on a regular basis, and pretty much all of them showed what you could call "minor brain damage", obvious structural changes and shrinkage of various brain regions.

I can't remember offhand if there were any test subjects who didn't combine with anything, I think there might have been one but I could be wrong about that... either way though I think he had used fairly heavily for a while, I'll have to dig it up when I'm not on my phone.

But anyway, even the lightest users studied showed measurable changes in brain structure, so Olney's lesions or not, arylcyclohexylamines cannot be said to be entirely safe, neurologically. That said, I would expect most minor damage to be far more reversible that the kind of toxicity induced by abuse of stimulants, for example.

Did any of those so-called studies have matched images for before and after the drug usage? No, of course not, because that would require administering the putative causal drugs. And how did they know what drugs were actually used and in what doses?

It's total delusion (drinking one's own Koolaid) to think that these so-called imaging studies show anything at all. Who is it funding the continuation of the This Is Your Brain on Drugs propaganda from around 1970? NIDA? They ignore the 2000-yr-old dictum that the only difference between drug and poison is in the dose. Maybe they can show organic brain damage in rodents after high doses orders of magnitude higher on a per-kg basis than anything possibly taken by a human, but then so what? Why should there be a linear dose-response? Because it's the simplest? You can't say it ought to be used because someone else once assumed that. Anything given in high enough doses is toxic. But with vitamins and minerals for example you have sub-therapeutic/sub-dietary where it does nothing observable, and then a region where it gives benefit and then a very long range of doses where some individuals might need it and others are starting to get poisoned, and then a high dose region where it's essentially everyone poisoned.

I've long been of the opinion that when it comes to both opiates and dissociatives the primary motivation for their chronic use is a kind of inner pain which our society does its best to deny. What if that "brain damage" or whatever in fact had really caused those changes was the very reason for their drug usage in the first place?

Why do people use drugs? See Ronald. K. Siegel (1989) Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of Artificial Paradises, who showed that voluntary drug use is found in many different animals. A healthy animal will regulate its drug use, but there were some drugs such as cocaine which were often used to self-harmful excess.

 

[Vastness]

Did any of those so-called studies have matched images for before and after the drug usage? No, of course not, because that would require administering the putative causal drugs. And how did they know what drugs were actually used and in what doses?

It's total delusion (drinking one's own Koolaid) to think that these so-called imaging studies show anything at all.

Well, they definitely show something. Here is the study I was talking about: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3713393/

Granted, there are no before and after images for humans, and the level of usage is not exact, because to construct such a study would be impossible for ethical reasons. However there is a fairly clear correlation between the damage observed and the duration and magnitude of the subject's ketamine habit. Additionally, there are multiple studies in rodents and a few in primates (many of them referenced in the paper linked) which DO have data recorded both before and after ketamine administration, as well as precisely measured and recorded dosing information, and the brain changes observed in these cases do correlate to those that are seemingly observed in humans.

What you say about the reasons for people using dissociatives or opiates might be somewhat true in some cases, although I don't agree with the generalisation. But the kind of lesions imaged here and similar ones in animals are clearly indicative of some kind of damage, ie, induced by some kind of environmental factor. There's also no evidence that the kind of "inner pain" you speak of would be expected to correlate with these kind of brain changes, prior to ketamine administration. If it did we would expect to see other physical changes correlating with other mood disorders, which we generally do not.

It would be a strange coincidence if there was such a specific type of inner psychological dysfunction which correlated with brain lesions which occurred spontaneously, were in actual fact quite benign, but just happened to look quite similar to the kind of lesions that can be actually induced by ketamine administration in animals... and people with this unlikely condition always gravitated towards ketamine use. Not impossible, but unlikely for sure.

Again, most (maybe all) of the subjects in this study were using multiple other drugs, were heavy users, and there's no suggestion or indication that these kind of changes would occur overnight, and I'm not saying there's any reason the OP should be concerned. But to just flat out dismiss the idea that ketamine could be a contributing factor here is just wishful thinking.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

i found this class of drugs and have had with fun with them for a bit. if i were to stop, does the brain recover? i tried googling and couldn't find much. there's no way i'll never use again, but if went years without does science show that the brain recovers? because despite all the beauty these drugs offer, they are neurotoxic.

i've used ...

.5g k (comforting)
.5g 2fdck (less wild but even more more comforting)
.75g 3-meo-pce (let me kiss angels once i found out how to use it right, my favorite)
.5g probably less of mxpr (taught me a lot but to hard on organs. by far the most extreme and least recreational)

i know this post is selfish. people still use these drugs and i totally understand why. i want to know when we each decide to move on how much our brains will recover. and again, i'm not trying to put any shame on people who still use these drugs because they are so beautiful. like i said, there's no way i can never use 3-meo-pce again. it's the closest thing to grace i've ever encountered. i can't believe how beautiful it feels. opiates were good; dissos are divine (or give the appearance of being).

thanks

Please see a doctor or neurologist, and ask them. You will not get into legal trouble for doing this. Be honest about your drug use both past and present.

 

[Wishdoctor79]

Again, most (maybe all) of the subjects in this study were using multiple other drugs, were heavy users, and there's no suggestion or indication that these kind of changes would occur overnight, and I'm not saying there's any reason the OP should be concerned. But to just flat out dismiss the idea that ketamine could be a contributing factor here is just wishful thinking.

Your last line is blatant straw-man argument. I did no such thing as dismiss the idea of ketamine causing organic brain damage. I rejected out of hand the pseudo-scientific methodology of Wang et al. (2013) and all the others of that ilk. The researchers draw conclusions based on retrospective accounts going back years and seemingly made no attempt to verify that any or all of those reports were accurate, and there could be numerous other factors more causal than ketamine usage.

I'd never suggest that long-term usage of ketamine is harmless because I have first-hand knowledge to the contrary. What I rejected was the pseudo-scientific approach utilized to support that conclusion. Correlation is not causation. Seems to me that the authors had a certain conclusion in mind and they set out to "prove it" and of course they succeeded. It screams out cherry picking everywhere. Selection bias of the human subjects can't be controlled for. The subjects enrolled were the bottom of the proverbial barrel and if there were people like John Lilly around I doubt they'd be enrolling in that imaging study. They were paid money -- how much? -- to tell a story and receive an image of their brain. When I took the MMPI personality inventory test one of the scores measured the consistency of my answers to the same question asked in different ways. Was any effort made to screen out obvious liars? No, of course not. Of course they'll be telling the researchers whatever it is they want to hear.

Long-term heavy usage of ketamine could be harmful and could be causal of severe adverse health effects resulting in psychiatric hospitalization as recounted for example in John C. Lilly 1978, The Scientist: A Novel Autobiography, first and second editions only.

John Lilly was admitted to a mental hospital after a 3-week period when he was taking 50 mg of K every hour on the hour for 20 hours a day, with 4 hours for sleep. That's 1000 mg per day for 21 days, this was given IM. Prior to that he'd been experimenting with taking doses up to 75 mg hourly through the day, or 1500 mg per day. He had what's commonly called a psychotic break after this heavy usage of ketamine for approximately a year.

I understand that behaviorism and its mechanistic views of living organisms is mainstream science and the behaviorists are in firm control and nobody can achieve a PhD unless they follow the rules of herd. Konrad Lorenz 1971, Studies in Animal and Human Behavior, Vol. 2, compared and contrasted the "behaviorist" as opposed to the "vitalist" view. Lorenz says that the fundamental flaw of the behaviorist approach is that they're pretending to be using the methods of physics to analyze living beings and because living beings are not machines their science is, umm, a kind of stillborn, dead on arrival, literally.

 

[sekio]

interesting that you don't see darkness when you close your eyes either. do you like it? i do not. i wish it was dark when i closed my eyes. i hope that once i cut back on dissos that it will be dark when i close my eyes again. i don't see colors and chaos, but clear images. those images often disturb and or confuse me. mostly confuse me, because when i open my eyes and am somewhere else it shocks me. i do not even know that the two are connected. the timing matches up; that doesn't prove anything.

Just a quick note on this, the phenomenon of not seeing total darkness upon closing one's eyes (or if one is in somewhere with no light, like a cave) is normal and not neccesarily an indicator of damage at all. The fancy term for it is "eigengrau" and it is supposedly caused by the nonzero firing rate of neurons in the visual cortex and thermal effects causing the isomerization of rhodopsin causing false visual stimulus. (compare CCD cameras: image noise is proportional to the temperature of the imaging element)

I actually can say with certainty I experienced this (as well as pressure induced phosphenes) well before I was even aware of what a hallucinogen was. So it's not directly caused by drug use, though it may become more "apparent" as one learns the edge cases and imperfections in one's sensorium.

 

[t_wrex]

Just a quick note on this, the phenomenon of not seeing total darkness upon closing one's eyes (or if one is in somewhere with no light, like a cave) is normal and not neccesarily an indicator of damage at all. The fancy term for it is "eigengrau" and it is supposedly caused by the nonzero firing rate of neurons in the visual cortex and thermal effects causing the isomerization of rhodopsin causing false visual stimulus. (compare CCD cameras: image noise is proportional to the temperature of the imaging element)

I actually can say with certainty I experienced this (as well as pressure induced phosphenes) well before I was even aware of what a hallucinogen was. So it's not directly caused by drug use, though it may become more "apparent" as one learns the edge cases and imperfections in one's sensorium.

Would this happen to be the explanation behind the “prisoners cinema” effect reported by people who have been locked in total darkness for extended periods? It sounds similar.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

When I was a child and forced to go to mass every Sunday I’d get super bored so I would mash my fists into my eyes when I was pretending to pray and it would give me CEVs of color just blotching all over the place. I think that’s when I first realized I 1) didn’t believe in Catholicism and 2) had an interest in mind alteration.