Posted by g_g_g_unit on June 22, 2012, at 6:29:22
In reply to Re: going off meds - finding doc for opiods or stims? » g_g_g_unit, posted by novelagent on June 21, 2012, at 14:24:58
Yeah, in certain cases, Memantine has been used when *genuine* tolerance has developed to the cognitive effects of amphetamine, or excessively high doses are required to maintain an effect.
The majority of users seek to preserve the anti-anhedonic, motivational, pro-social effects of amphetamine. I don't see what's ethically wrong with this, and I'm sure it could be useful for certain kinds of reward-deficient depressive states. As someone who used to work in a creative field, I find that increase in emotional tone derived from the first few days of amphetamine use far more useful than the subsequent effect, where I'm able to focus but just have no enthusiasm for anything creative (whether doing or experiencing). It forces my interests to shift to experiences that lack emotional engagement - non-fiction, documentaries, etc.
You yourself were contemplating inducing a "healthy hypomania" with Aricept, so I don't see how that would be any different to the Memantine + Stim combination.
> Having been on memantine and amphetamine myself, I know it does make the amphetamine more effective, but it does not do so by "affecting tolerance." I never have developed any tolerance fo amphetamine. I think they are conflating tolerance with potentiation,
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> I've also been on aricept and amphetamine, which also potentiates each other. I couldn't take more than 5mg of aricept, even though 5mg is only suppose to be used as a starting dose before going to 10mg. So it's just potentiation, not "tolerance" being affected.
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> Tolerance is rare on amphetamine at therapeutic doses-- but on the Internet, people think it's "tolerance" when the same dose doesn't make one feel super awesome while doing boring tasks like day one. That's not tolerance-- that's an issue with unrealistic expctations for a drug.
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> > > memantine doesn't do anything for tolerance. >Forums have posts about memantine "reverse >tolerance" by people (not you) who misread the >term "reverse tolerance" to mean "reverses >toleramce" and that's where you're getting that >from. If you ask me, it's mostly written by >people who take excessive amounts of >amphetamines-- enough to cause tolerance- and >their IQ is impaired... they also (not you) get >obsessive on those forums about it, since >they're hyperfocused.
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> > There's more than enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that it does. If you look up the gigantic Memantine thread on addforums, you'll find a poster called surferdude who's been on the combination for more than two years. He's also either currently in med school, or a graduate (I forget the exact details) and is interning at a hospital, so I doubt his IQ is impaired.
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poster:g_g_g_unit
thread:1019790
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120608/msgs/1020041.html