Anyone else try Orexin-A?

So I ordered some Orexin-A from Ceretropic and decided to try it out last night, see if I could pull an all-nighter without falling asleep.

I pretty much did this by the book. The Orexin-A came in as a powder which I gently reconstituted in a spray bottle with bacteriostatic water so I could administer doses nasally. I reconstituted so that one spray would equal 50mcg of Orexin-A. The bottle was stored cold in a mini-fridge that is set up to where it doesn't get agitated when opening. All of this is because I have read Orexin-A is super sensitive to rough handling.

Yesterday I woke up at around 8am, put in an 8 hour shift at work, then came home. Upon return, I administered 100mcg to myself.

Long story short, it didn't keep me awake at all. Around 3am this morning I was fighting to keep my eyes open and no amount of Orexin-A was doing ANYTHING to stop it. And honestly, the supposed cognitive enhancement while sleep deprived wasn't anything special either. Washing modafinil down with coffee would have been much more effective.

Am I missing something? I fail to see how this could even put a scratch in narcolepsy when it couldn't even keep me awake longer than I can stay awake on even just green tea alone. Anyone else have any input here?

Comments

  • Ok, modafinil has changed the game. Obviously modafinil works great by itself but there's very noticeable synergy between the two when taken at the same time. Modafinil also works on the OX1 and OX2 receptors and if I had the means to test I suspect it essentially "opens the flood gates" for the unusually high amounts of orexin to bind to the receptors. Presumably, there's also synergy with other receptors as well that become more available while orexin works upstream helping promote more neuropeptides such as histamines, dopamine, etc.

    Again, lacking means to actually test this for myself I can only go off existing paperwork out there on the two items so this is a best guess.

  • I had the same lack of results with Orexin and was pretty disappointed. The agitation thing is interesting because someone else told me to shake the bottle before using it each time haha. I'll have to try the Modafinil out.

    How has the experience been? Is it literally that just "normal awake" feeling?
  • Not quite, but I should begin by saying that my experience was very uncontrolled. Which is to say, I made no attempt to set baselines, stick to rigid times, etc.

    My absolute best results were gained by starting a day out with 200mg modvigil modafinil and bulletproof coffee. Old school Dave Asprey style. However, I have the coffee as just a beverage and still eat quite a bit in the morning.

    Later in the evening toward nightfall, I would redose another 200mg modvigil modafinil, have another cup of bulletproof coffee, and also at this point have ~100mcg of Orexin-A via nasal spray.

    For whatever reason, this worked better than simply doing only the evening dosage or only doing them in the morning.

    Since I was laid up for a couple weeks with an injury and wasn't able to work, I used the time to play around with this a bit. The results got pretty interesting actually, this is a rough time lapse of events:

    Wake up on first morning, around 6am. Take modafinil and bulletproof coffee. Around 8pm, more modafinil, more bulletproof coffee, and a dose of orexin-a. I managed to stay up all night without too much trouble but by morning I became pretty tired. I napped for about 2 hours, just enough to kill the urge to sleep. Upon waking back up, more bulletproof coffee and more orexin-a. Later in the morning, more modafinil.

    At this point I simply wanted to see how long I could go before either a major crash or blatantly unhealthy vitals. So at this point I began monitoring my heart rate and blood pressure irregularly throughout the day. Again, not very scientific of me.

    8pm again, same routine. At this point, I felt an insatiable urge to learn stuff. I started browsing YouTube for decent content and basically couldn't peel my eyes away. At midnight I started to crash again so I took another two hour nap. Upon awakening, more orexin-a and more coffee. I went back to YouTube and began watching more videos.

    This process went on for about 80 hours total until I decided I felt physically very strange despite acceptable (by no means 'good') vitals. Before going to sleep for a normal duration, I felt mentally incredible. I remembered nearly all of the content from the videos and was coming up with all kinds of fun ideas and thought processes that were new to me. Some thoughts felt very profound and somehow "ground breaking" to me, philosophical viewpoints and such. I know it sounds strange or like I was high, but that's how it was. My last thought was thinking I almost didn't want to go to sleep because during the experiment I had read about the effects of sleep deprivation on the brain and how it can actually, eventually, cause the mind to think better and more creatively. Between that and everything I was taking, I thought that when I went to sleep I'd wake up dumbed down and normal again.

    Honestly, that's pretty much how it happened. When my mind was racing and a sponge, I didn't want to come down at all. I wanted to learn everything, to better myself. And when I woke up, there was just recollection but the mindset was completely gone. I still remember pretty much everything I learned during that period and have expanded upon it since.

    ANYWAY, to TL/DR answer your question, it's not a normal "awake" feeling at all that I had. At the same time, you're definitely not keeping the body from going to sleep, but you are sort of ignoring the signal and increasing neuropeptides/hormones that would otherwise deplete in a sleepy phase. I would hypothesize that combined with the natural increase in creativity granted by lack of sleep, the brain goes into a state that is both constantly interested in information and able to generate new ideas well while remembering everything rather than forgetting. Ever come up with an amazing idea while half asleep only to wake up and only remembering that is was amazing but you can't remember exactly what it was? Basically that, but you don't forget anymore and you stay awake and continue coming up with better ideas.

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