Posted by aazospiro on September 1, 2004, at 19:48:10
What is REALLY responsible for the calming effects of a psychostimulant?? Serotonin/ Dopamine/ norepinephrine???
Or is it a complex interaction? And what about the graduall decline in the calming effects of a stimulant? Does this mean a serotonin depletion? Can it explain stimulant tolerance?
The reason I ask this is that I found that after 6 months on a stimulant the calming effects seemed to gradually decline in intensity and duration, but when I took a single dose of 20 mg prozac, it came right back again AS CALM AS A CUCUMBER!!!! and over a period of a a few days the stimulant calming effects declined again.
I chose to take only one prozac because of its long half life and active metabolite and monitor my behaviour. And it seems to work.
I had an almost identical effect when I combined a single tablet of 100/10 Sinemet and supplemental 5-hydroxytryptophan, but for obvious reasons the effect lasted much shorter than with the prozac.
The effect can best be described as very calm, very focused and a HUGE drop in jitteryness, restlessnes and anxiety both psychologic and somatic [hand tremor].
My symptoms from the age of 13 always consisted of the following:
1. Anxiety [foot shaking, hand tremor, butterflies] and especially in social situations, not so much on a "one on one" basis but especially amongst several people.
2. Severe inner restlessnes [nail biting, foot shaking]
3. Inability to concentrate on any one thing unless it was VERY interesting to me, and if that were the case, a very difficult time diverting my attention away from that one thing to another. In otherwords, multitasking was disastrous.
3. Hard to get going on mornings 9 out of 10 times. Severe drowsiness during the day especially afternoons regardless of how much sleep I had the previous night. And difficulty falling asleep at nights. Up late if a sleeping aid wasnt taken.
4. Low self esteem, short temper, slight to moderate agitation that was at its worse when daytime drowsiness set in.
Anyone else experience this??
poster:aazospiro
thread:385411
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040830/msgs/385411.html