Nootropics
I haven't seen a nootropic thread here which surprises me greatly.
What does everyone here use, if anything? I'm probably going to try Piracetam soon, I plan on ordering some this weekend or next week at the latest.
What does everyone here use, if anything? I'm probably going to try Piracetam soon, I plan on ordering some this weekend or next week at the latest.
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Dexedrine + Phenylalanine + B vitamins
Piracetam sounds cool. Let me know if you like it.
(Yes, I'm joking. This time.)
Sharper or faster? Not particularly, but then, I hadn't done much intellectually demanding for a couple of months before starting, so my baseline's a little funky. I also started from a point of grasping most things pretty quickly.
If you've a little free time you can get a massive supply for pretty cheap, so it could be worth just trying it yourself to find out; order a bulk package, a capping machine and empty capsules, and make your own.
Can you tell me about these horror stories? I know there have been reports of DRESS and Steven Johnson's with modafinil but I was under the impression that this was relatively rare. They're rare enough for the drug to be approved for use in the air force as a go pill.
I want to try modafinil (I'm known in my circle of friends for freqently going without sleep for long periods so my interest was instantly peaked when I learned about it) but I don't imagine being able to get a doctor to prescribe it. But, adrafinil is not scheduled in the US, it's a prodrug to modafinil. Has anyone tried it? If so what did it cost, modafinil is pretty expensive?
I plan to take some of the other ones listed, as well. Actually, I don't think that most nootropics have been actually demonstrated to work, so what I'll do when I start taking them is make a bunch of sugar pills or similar, so I have a control to work off of. I'll make the placebos as much like the actual drug, so I can't tell the difference. I'll have a third party randomly decide which ones I take first, and then I'll take the first one for thirty days, and the second one for thirty days, all the way taking tests to measure my cognitive capacity, as well as tracking several other variables. I'll track the *rate* of improvement, not necessarily the actual capacity demonstrated to avoid biasing the results in favor of the second one I take, and then perform a statistical analysis on the data to determine if the actual drug is significantly better than the placebo.
Obviously, there are limits to trying this out on only a single person, but it's a start. Thoughts?
As far as piracetam goes, I don't know of any studies off hand that involve it's effect as a noot in healthy people who are using it purely for cognitive enhancement but there have been studies that demonstrate it's effectiveness in the treatment of things like alzheimers and closed cranial injury when it comes to improving the higher functions, including cognition. The idea behind alot of noots (but not all) is that you are providing your brain with the base materials that are required for the synthesis of the neurotransmitters acetylcholine, dopamine, and serotonin.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r7357123h331j661/fulltext.pdf
"Piracetam was found to have positive therapeutic effects on impairments
to higher mental (memory, attention, executive) and motor (coordination) functions and on measures of the speeds of cognitive and motor operations."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11277345
"In conclusion, we did not find any strong evidence that a difference in
efficacy exists between AChE-Is and nootropics in the treatment of
Alzheimer's disease."
Interesting stuff
And please post the results of your experiment, I am interested.
I certainly will post the results. Presumably, since this will take a minimum of two months, the publish page will be up by the time I write up the results, so I'll post it there. If not, I'll probably post it on some open journal such as the Public Library of Science. In either case, hopefully the paper will be "peer-reviewed" to satisfaction. If my results turn up positive, it will hopefully spark other people to conduct similar experiments, and then we might get a better answer by means of meta-analysis. Or they might decide to test other nootropics than the one I end up using, which is also a good thing.
And of course they do; the best thing you can do to boost brain function is sleep enough and get adequate nutrition.
Does it just improve retention, or have you noticed it help with recall of pre-dosage memory?
I was on four of them the fourth and current one is Piracetam(4-5g per day), not the best thing but an economic one. I take it with choline source - a must when taking nootropics which is Lecithin(2g daily)
Overally nootropics improve memory, thinking, concentration and few extra things specific to each type of them.
Piracetam I think works quite equally on the memory, thinking, concentration and as bonus improves self-confidence, lowers tolerance on various drugs, and boosts their effects.
Piracetam + Caffeine combo is a very nice thing.
I've taken adrafinil, but I had only four tablets so I can't write detailed report, one pill - very little stimulation and effects, but again mixing it with caffeine helped a lot. Two pills and some caffeine made me through night with clear head and zero side effects tomorrow after 7-8 hours of sleep.
I thought it wouldn't help recall, but thought it was worth checking.
The real issue is paying for it; if you live in a country without universal healthcare, insurance companies frequently deny modafinil prescriptions due to its prohibitive costs (around $300 or so per month for daily 100mg doses.) I believe that adrafinil is prescribed as Nuvigil and comes with a lower price tag, so that is potentially worth considering.
Thanks for the info, I'll keep that in mind in the future. Even so, I doubt I'll be able to get it, I'm a student and my student health insurance only covers the on campus clinic (unless there's an emergency, or something like that) and, while I have no hard evidence of this, they're probably more skeptical of people coming in claiming they have ADD, as a result I doubt they are as willing to perscribe any ADD drugs (except perhaps
those new ones that are supposedly useless as cognitive enhancers). Regardless though, price.
But, yeah, definitely going to try adrafinil at some point, it's on my list (yes, I have a list). I also put off buying the piracetam, going to spend that money on some st. john's wort instead (I suspect I have atypical depression or some form of mild depressive disorder). I'll get it when I'm in a better place, mentally.
Edit: I just did some googling out of curiosity and apparently there's at least one study which noted "significant" improvement in patients with atypical depression who were treated with modafinil. *score* Going to do more research but if I find more along this vein then I'll get adrafinil soon and kill two birds with one stone.
And if you're buying piracetam, buy the powder and cap it yourself; it works out much, much, MUCH cheaper.
I was wondering, with the powder, do I need to cap it? Could I just, like mix it in to like a bottle of water or something? I think I read that it doesn't smell very good (so probably doesn't taste good) but I could add it to a coke or something to hide the taste. My question is, is there a medical difference by taking it in a pill form rather than straight powder? I don't know, it just seems it would be easier.
Was looking at qhi.co.uk it looks good, generally I think these online pharm dealies have a very sketchy feel, this less so. But, $60 minimum order... damn. When you get your stuff please post your results, if it's worth while I might suck it up. I might have a job lined up so it might not be so bad, but still, damn you minimum orders...
Has anyone had any dealing or problems with customs? Ardafinil is legal in the US but that doesn't mean that they won't confiscate my stuff, if it turns out I'm going to have to go through the bureaucratic circus to get my stuff I'd sooner just not even bother.