Help: I did Speed than took an Antipsychotic

[I hope it gets better]

Hey guys so last year December I did what I thought was MDMA for the first time but upon further research of the high I just realised that it was probably Speed or something similar because the high was a energetic and attentive one and I was also very talkative and I felt in control and hyper focused.

We took the drugs for 3 days straight , I took about Day 1: 1 pill; Day 2:1.5 pill and on day 3 it was 1 pill. The high was getting less and less enjoyable I became more and more hyper focused when on the drug almost just concentrating on my on thoughts I think.

I couldn't sleep on the 3rd day I got brain zaps and I got heart palpitations and nightmares when trying to sleep , I woke up on day 4 with no energy for anything I didn't want any food I felt super depressed and my heart was racing. My attention was all over the place I day dreamed a lot like I'd be there with people but I'd just not talk or be involved in conversation, I'd sort of be in my mind.

The brain zaps persisted and they got me super worried I thought I was gonna have a seizure or something so I took Sodium Valproate which is a Anti-epileptic and Antipsychotic to stabilise my mood. And that's when stuff got more freaky.

I took the medication for 6 weeks, I'm week 2 I started having neck jerks and neck rigidity with a load of other symptoms and I figured damn the drugs I took are probably the cause of it all and it's probably abnormal brain activity, so I continued taking the medication and I realized 6 weeks in upon further research that the movement disorder was a result of me taking speed which depletes dopamine concentrations and that taking Sodium Valproate which is a dopamine antagonist and dopamine is a neurotransmitter used for movement.

Ive been to 2 neurologist already and they both told me that Sodium Valproate only caused tremors and they can't do anything for me.

The movement disorder has been getting a bit better more and more and the neck jerks have decreased but I've since gotten tinnitus and visual snow.

I'm asking anyone with neurological knowledge to look at my case and try to give me an explanation of what could've possibly happened to me, I'm trying to build a case to show to the next nuero I got to so he can at least know where to start and look when dealing with me.

Thank you

 

[Jabberwocky]

Sorry to hear about your problems. It is very difficult to know what was in your pills but presuming it was speed it would have been out of your system before you started taking the sodium valproate which makes an interaction unlikely. It is possible there was some other chemical in those pills since the symptoms you mention are not known side effects of sodium valproate (which is not, by the way, actually an anti-psychotic and does not cause movement disorders)

Your best bet is to see a specialist and be totally honest about investing unknown substances. Sorry not to be more help.

 

[I hope it gets better]

Sorry to hear about your problems. It is very difficult to know what was in your pills but presuming it was speed it would have been out of your system before you started taking the sodium valproate which makes an interaction unlikely. It is possible there was some other chemical in those pills since the symptoms you mention are not known side effects of sodium valproate (which is not, by the way, actually an anti-psychotic and does not cause movement disorders)

Your best bet is to see a specialist and be totally honest about investing unknown substances. Sorry not to be more help.

It is true whatever was in those pills could've possibly anything I'm just using my knowledge about how the high made me feel and the high I had correlates with an amphetamine high when orally taken, I was attentive and energetic but not to a point where I was restless.

And yes even though the drug was out of my system when I took SV can we not argue that it reduced my dopamine levels and thus me taking SV had an adverse effect? On my dopamine because it is in fact a antipsychotic its used for some cases of treatment resistant schizophrenia and bipolar cases among other mental sicknesses.

Its also linked with many other anti epileptic and antipsychotic drugs to a series of movement disorders in fact in all the anti epileptic medications it's 10× more likely to give you drug induced parkinsonism. I'll leave links to all these studies below.

Movement disorder study:

Movement disorders in patients taking anticonvulsants

A wide variety of movement disorders may occur as a consequence of the administration of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). Although it has been suggested that the risk of parkinsonism is 10‐fold higher in those taking valproate as compared with other ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Antipsychotic study:

Off-Label Use of Sodium Valproate for Schizophrenia

Off-label use of a drug not according to its regulatory labeling has become common in medicine, especially in the field of psychiatry. Mood stabilizers are intended to be used to attenuate mood fluctuations in bipolar disorder, but their use has spread ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Jabberwocky]

Thanks for the links. I used to take SV and had no idea those movement disorders were potential side effects. I hope you recover quickly.

 

[dopamimetic]

Brain zaps are related to serotonin depletion, also the diminishing effects you describe don't sound like plain speed but probably some research chemical, it certainly was a serotonin releaser, otherwise you wouldn't have got brain zaps. They for sure feel like seizures but in people without underlying disorder it's not enough to trigger a real one.

Sodium valproate isn't a dopamine antagonist to my knowledge, we still don't know exactly how it works to protect against seizures but a bunch of mechanisms are known. It has weird side effects for sure and visual snow I got personally from it.

How much did you take? What did you take the last days, any improvements without?
Sorry for the short reply, but it's really many unknowns here unfortunately :/ also unfortunate but a reality that it's often better not to tell anything about substance use, particularly not on the first visit to a new doctor. Many will write you off just for using drugs.

 

[I hope it gets better]

Thanks for the links. I used to take SV and had no idea those movement disorders were potential side effects. I hope you recover quickly.

They don't tell you about this effect as its very unlikely heck I went to a nuero and in all his 30 years of work he didn't know it caused movement disorders aside from tremor until I showed him.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Sorry for the short reply, but it's really many unknowns here unfortunately :/ also unfortunate but a reality that it's often better not to tell anything about substance use, particularly not on the first visit to a new doctor. Many will write you off just for using drugs.

I agree with this advice about not mentioning drug use to doctors in the case of general practitioners, but in this case the drug use could be central to the specialist’s ability to make a correct diagnosis. It’s like going to a psychiatrist for treatment for psychosis but failing to mention you are a daily IV meth user. Can’t expect the doctor to help without full facts.

 

[dopamimetic]

That's true too ... but it needs somebody who doesn't close down after hearing the word 'drugs' and some might then overlook/see things. Still need to find that open one for myself. Stopped counting how many times I decided against visiting a doc when I could have needed one - that's a bad habit and not recommended at all but you get the picture. Doesn't have to be the same everywhere.

 

[MrsGamp]

Hey guys so last year December I did what I thought was MDMA for the first time but upon further research of the high I just realised that it was probably Speed or something similar because the high was a energetic and attentive one and I was also very talkative and I felt in control and hyper focused.

We took the drugs for 3 days straight , I took about Day 1: 1 pill; Day 2:1.5 pill and on day 3 it was 1 pill. The high was getting less and less enjoyable I became more and more hyper focused when on the drug almost just concentrating on my on thoughts I think.

I couldn't sleep on the 3rd day I got brain zaps and I got heart palpitations and nightmares when trying to sleep , I woke up on day 4 with no energy for anything I didn't want any food I felt super depressed and my heart was racing. My attention was all over the place I day dreamed a lot like I'd be there with people but I'd just not talk or be involved in conversation, I'd sort of be in my mind.

The brain zaps persisted and they got me super worried I thought I was gonna have a seizure or something so I took Sodium Valproate which is a Anti-epileptic and Antipsychotic to stabilise my mood. And that's when stuff got more freaky.

I took the medication for 6 weeks, I'm week 2 I started having neck jerks and neck rigidity with a load of other symptoms and I figured damn the drugs I took are probably the cause of it all and it's probably abnormal brain activity, so I continued taking the medication and I realized 6 weeks in upon further research that the movement disorder was a result of me taking speed which depletes dopamine concentrations and that taking Sodium Valproate which is a dopamine antagonist and dopamine is a neurotransmitter used for movement.

Ive been to 2 neurologist already and they both told me that Sodium Valproate only caused tremors and they can't do anything for me.

The movement disorder has been getting a bit better more and more and the neck jerks have decreased but I've since gotten tinnitus and visual snow.

I'm asking anyone with neurological knowledge to look at my case and try to give me an explanation of what could've possibly happened to me, I'm trying to build a case to show to the next nuero I got to so he can at least know where to start and look when dealing with me.

Thank you

One thing I know for sure: people who are NOT psychotic should NEVER take anti-psychotics ...you will get the rigidity and twitchy thing you describe, but worse still your mood will get seriously fucked and possibly you'll become psychotic.
Used to have bipolar friend: she'd get manic but never delusional until she was clapped on mental ward and force fed anti-psychotics. Then I'd go to visit her and she really would seem truly crazy.
I used to sometimes take a TEENY bit of valproate if I ran out of Valium, but no more than like a quarter of a tablet.
3 days awake on some sort of speed ... you're gonna crash!

Stims really fuck you up if you have such protracted sleep deprivation...into your second sleepless night/day, it's really more or less a waste to keep taking pep pills. You don't recover the original feeling. You're on diminishing returns. Your coach will always turn into a pumpkin, and the longer you've been up, the shittier the "pumpkin" bit will seem.

I take Dex most days - whatever you're on sounds stronger (?!? what was it .,.? I wonder) but I sleep by taking Mirtazapine plus Valium. Being addicted to Valium is a fucking nightmare of course, but if you only take it occasionally I think it would be a much safer way to taper off from stim binge than Valproate...

But course I am not a doctor and everyone's different ...

 

[I hope it gets better]

Brain zaps are related to serotonin depletion, also the diminishing effects you describe don't sound like plain speed but probably some research chemical, it certainly was a serotonin releaser, otherwise you wouldn't have got brain zaps. They for sure feel like seizures but in people without underlying disorder it's not enough to trigger a real one.

Sodium valproate isn't a dopamine antagonist to my knowledge, we still don't know exactly how it works to protect against seizures but a bunch of mechanisms are known. It has weird side effects for sure and visual snow I got personally from it.

How much did you take? What did you take the last days, any improvements without?
Sorry for the short reply, but it's really many unknowns here unfortunately :/ also unfortunate but a reality that it's often better not to tell anything about substance use, particularly not on the first visit to a new doctor. Many will write you off just for using drugs.

I agree there are a lot of unknowns like what specifically I took but let's assume for theoretical purposes I did take speed or something that's related to it in the amphetamine section because judging from the high I got it wasn't MDMA.

Amphetamines work on dopamine and they cause wakefulness and concentration and energy when taken orally , they can also cause brain zaps Adderall has been known to cause brain zaps too and other dopamine acting agents its not limited to the serotonin system.

To answer your questions , I took Epilizine CR500 which is SV and I took 500mg 2x a day for 6 weeks. After stopping the medication I have steadily seen improvements the rigidity has been decreasing and the neck jerks are gone. The reason why I think an amphetamine caused this chain of events is because this is not my first time taking SV I took it 5 years ago for 3 months and I never felt any side effects but I took it now after a binge of what I think was speed and it gave me a movement disorder. My question is what does SV do to the dopamine system? And how did you get visual snow through it?

 

[I hope it gets better]

That's true too ... but it needs somebody who doesn't close down after hearing the word 'drugs' and some might then overlook/see things. Still need to find that open one for myself. Stopped counting how many times I decided against visiting a doc when I could have needed one - that's a bad habit and not recommended at all but you get the picture. Doesn't have to be the same everywhere.

Yeah its super true all the doctors that I've been to just think I'm a druggy as soon as I mention I did drugs , they even think I'm still on them even though I did urine tests.

They change the way they treat you as soon as you mention drugs, that's why I'm gathering all the information I can in order to build a case because they all don't know where to start looking in my case. But I'm adamant that whatever it is its in the dopamine system as it controls fine motor movement.

 

[MrsGamp]

I

I agree there are a lot of unknowns like what specifically I took but let's assume for theoretical purposes I did take speed or something that's related to it in the amphetamine section because judging from the high I got it wasn't MDMA.

Amphetamines work on dopamine and they cause wakefulness and concentration and energy when taken orally , they can also cause brain zaps Adderall has been known to cause brain zaps too and other dopamine acting agents its not limited to the serotonin system.

To answer your questions , I took Epilizine CR500 which is SV and I took 500mg 2x a day for 6 weeks. After stopping the medication I have steadily seen improvements the rigidity has been decreasing and the neck jerks are gone. The reason why I think an amphetamine caused this chain of events is because this is not my first time taking SV I took it 5 years ago for 3 months and I never felt any side effects but I took it now after a binge of what I think was speed and it gave me a movement disorder. My question is what does SV do to the dopamine system? And how did you get visual snow through it?

I dunno man -I'm a bit tired me self so I hope I am not missing the point ...but I really think you should just ditch the Valporate and any anti-psychotic stuff you are taking ... because you're not actually clinically psychotic, right? Sounds like you had a wee bit of speed psychosis but that ought to go away after you've rested and recovered from the mood crash ... I've known quite a few people who had to take anti-psychs for schizophrenia and bipolar. And long term, you'll get physical health issues like a lot of weight gain ...super-long term use you'll get cognitive impairment.

Eg I know a guy who was quite brilliant - a gifted engineer. Sadly he was afflicted with very florid schizophrenia. He had to take his meds or he could get quite violent. 25 years on, his schizophrenia is controlled, but he's got no attention span at all, seems really "flat" emotionally and keeps saying the same things again and again ...of course part of this is probably the schizophrenia but I am sure the meds are implicated ... Also he's got a permanent "moon face" - that,I know, is a side effect of the meds.

Of course you aren't going to take this stuff that long (I hope!) - but especially with the twitching and rigidity - it just sounds wrong for you. I sympathise because I was misdiagnosed with bipolar ten years ago and had one HORRIBLE week on Seroquel ...my face was twitching and I had restless leg syndrome...horrible.

If you are still feeling "brain zaps" and other symptoms of dopamine/serotonin imbalance, why not try instead an anti-depressant like Pristique or even an older tricyclic like Deptran?

I've been on anti-depressants of all sorts and while they're not marvellous, they do take care of "brain zaps" etc, without the weight gain, no twitches and much less stupefying...

Hope you get well soon.

 

[MrsGamp]

I agree there are a lot of unknowns like what specifically I took but let's assume for theoretical purposes I did take speed or something that's related to it in the amphetamine section because judging from the high I got it wasn't MDMA.

Amphetamines work on dopamine and they cause wakefulness and concentration and energy when taken orally , they can also cause brain zaps Adderall has been known to cause brain zaps too and other dopamine acting agents its not limited to the serotonin system.

To answer your questions , I took Epilizine CR500 which is SV and I took 500mg 2x a day for 6 weeks. After stopping the medication I have steadily seen improvements the rigidity has been decreasing and the neck jerks are gone. The reason why I think an amphetamine caused this chain of events is because this is not my first time taking SV I took it 5 years ago for 3 months and I never felt any side effects but I took it now after a binge of what I think was speed and it gave me a movement disorder. My question is what does SV do to the dopamine system? And how did you get visual snow through it?

Oh ps sorry I AM tired. Just noticed you said you've stopped the Valproate! Good!

 

[I hope it gets better]

I

I dunno man -I'm a bit tired me self so I hope I am not missing the point ...but I really think you should just ditch the Valporate and any anti-psychotic stuff you are taking ... because you're not actually clinically psychotic, right? Sounds like you had a wee bit of speed psychosis but that ought to go away after you've rested and recovered from the mood crash ... I've known quite a few people who had to take anti-psychs for schizophrenia and bipolar. And long term, you'll get physical health issues like a lot of weight gain ...super-long term use you'll get cognitive impairment.

Eg I know a guy who was quite brilliant - a gifted engineer. Sadly he was afflicted with very florid schizophrenia. He had to take his meds or he could get quite violent. 25 years on, his schizophrenia is controlled, but he's got no attention span at all, seems really "flat" emotionally and keeps saying the same things again and again ...of course part of this is probably the schizophrenia but I am sure the meds are implicated ... Also he's got a permanent "moon face" - that,I know, is a side effect of the meds.

Of course you aren't going to take this stuff that long (I hope!) - but especially with the twitching and rigidity - it just sounds wrong for you. I sympathise because I was misdiagnosed with bipolar ten years ago and had one HORRIBLE week on Seroquel ...my face was twitching and I had restless leg syndrome...horrible.

If you are still feeling "brain zaps" and other symptoms of dopamine/serotonin imbalance, why not try instead an anti-depressant like Pristique or even an older tricyclic like Deptran?

I've been on anti-depressants of all sorts and while they're not marvellous, they do take care of "brain zaps" etc, without the weight gain, no twitches and much less stupefying...

Hope you get well soon. ❤❤❤

Thank you for taking the time and answering. And yeah true those meds are super bad for you I think I might've done super damage to myself. 6 months ago I was the most happiest guy healthy physically and mentally ,its super messed up what drugs can do to you.

 

[MrsGamp]

Thank you for taking the time and answering. And yeah true those meds are super bad for you I think I might've done super damage to myself. 6 months ago I was the most happiest guy healthy physically and mentally ,its super messed up what drugs can do to you.

hey you'll be okay! it was only 6 months!
sorry if i spooked you ... the guy I mentioned (engineer) was on this crap for TWENTY FIVE years!!! not 6 months. plus he had acute schizophrenia.
sometimes there's accumulation of psych drugs and it takes a while for it to totally go away, even after you've stopped the meds.
I quit Valium and for nearly a year after I still had shaky hands, rapid heartbeat and panicky feelings...but it went away eventually!
unfortunately am back
on Valium again - trying to wean off but last 2 weeks I've really messed up with my "step down" ...not catastrophically but enough that I'm cadging extra pills off my brother.
ugh, sorry for cliche but it is true that "Rome wasn't built in a day!"
Give it time. God's on your side