3 replies to this topic

[jasonshadow1976]

Hello everyone,

I have lurking for awhile and now need your help. Let me give you a quick backstory.

I grew up with Epilepsy that orginated in the temporal lobe so consequently my speech, word recall, and general memory is very poor. I have been seizure free and medication free for 8 years now. However, my congnition stiff sufferes. I experminted with amino acid therapy such as dlpa, tyrosine, 5-htp, etc with wonderful success. (I know my Seratonin and Dopamine are quite low.) I was thinking more clearly and speech was more fluid then ever before. However, for some reason the results dwindled. I came across this website and began to read post after post and decided to give Piracetam and Alpha GPC from Relentless a try. I did not expect to feel any changes right away but on day 2 I was doing a accounting work for a friends business and thinking very abstractly and clearly. Now, I'm usually horrible in math but I was thinking so clearly that the ideas just flowed out and was quite wonderful. Now, I know myself and my lack of math skill and there is no way this was a placebo effect. So my questions are:

1. Since Piracetam takes weeks/months to feel the effects could this of been Choline?
2. After about 1 week of using both supplements I began to get pretty depressed with little/no motivation and pretty numb to life in general. Would Piracetam or Choline cause this?

Thanks everyone.

[Imagination]

I wouldn't say piractam takes weeks or months to have an effect, although I find the effects quite mild from it anyway, I have recently dropped all racetams from my stack due to the difficulty to get hold of them these days in the uk. I still have a fair bit of piracetam left though. Going to save it for when it's needed more and hopefully at that time it will be easier to obtain more. However I haven't felt much difference in coming off it.

For the choline, I don't react very well to it at all, I have tried it on several different occations and seem to get the slight depression you mentioned but mainly feeling really pissed off more than anything. Alpha GPC is also really expensive.

I prefere to take DMAE instead of choline for acetylcholine, works well for me, no negative side effects plus its cheap.

[soulfiremage]

I wouldn't say piractam takes weeks or months to have an effect, although I find the effects quite mild from it anyway, I have recently dropped all racetams from my stack due to the difficulty to get hold of them these days in the uk. I still have a fair bit of piracetam left though. Going to save it for when it's needed more and hopefully at that time it will be easier to obtain more. However I haven't felt much difference in coming off it.

For the choline, I don't react very well to it at all, I have tried it on several different occations and seem to get the slight depression you mentioned but mainly feeling really pissed off more than anything. Alpha GPC is also really expensive.

I prefere to take DMAE instead of choline for acetylcholine, works well for me, no negative side effects plus its cheap.

Imagination,

Use Mike at smartpowders.com - he's on these boards and he sent me mine in about 4 working days. 1kg of it.

As for the depression, I got this on the monday morning-BUT I've a small vulnerability to it anyway and persisted through it. It was a working monday-I hate those when I've had a good weekend anyway .

For me the piracetam mixed with 60mg of dmae and 60mg of phosphatidylcholine works fine. I have epa/dha with it and fizzy soluble multivits. It gets better the longer you take it.

I levelled off emotionally in one day and over the work found short term memory is more fluid and recall of older material is better. Clearer sense of self and introspection is more focussed and productive.

The effects take 14 days at least to be of use and longer. Not unlike many anti depressents. Yes you can get an immediate "sense" of the effect to start with but it's the changes over time you are looking for.

If you want a high-forget it unless you take alcohol or other things like amphetamine/mdma etc. These don't do anything like that.

I'm using 2.5 grams twice a day with choline and a single 2 gram dose in the evening. Only other side effect is occasionally brief diarrhea.

Note if you are new to any of this stuff, it's easy to rely only the on the "pill". I'm sure you are already more than aware of this, however I'll be a jackass and tell you anyway.

1)Exercise-if you are sedentary then 45 minutes brisk walk 3 times a week will have a marked effect. Daily exercise is better and a mix of aerobic, skilled and strength workouts even better.

2)Social-if you can mix your exercise with social stuff (team sport, classes etc) even better-but simply being social most days or more makes a difference. A huge difference as the brain evolved and was designed for precisely this.

3)Varied experiences and new skills. Seriously challenge yourself-physical, mental, creative. Daily! even half an hour a day study can turn you into a semi expert in a bunch of new fields. Gaining knowledge alone can build a stronger sense of self.

4)Healthy diet. There's anyone on here that even needed that comment? Um probably not. It's the obvious that gets forgotten.

5)Not essential but try this out for 20 days @ 20 mins a day.http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net - it's free, plenty of material written and some research behind it-non biased. I used it and since last november completed Mark Bear's Neuroscience - twice and a load of other neuro material. I'm into this as I'm about to get into an OU degree encompassing Neuroscience and hope to reach pHd level in time to come.

6)Teach yourself some cognitive behavioural therapy (For Dummies works fine) or REBT (very similar). Or try motivational interviewing. Learning a few basics of self counselling/coaching skills is now a common strategy employed by many of the best therapists-giving you the tools to work with yourself.

Thought I'd throw my two pence worth in. For me working on the brain is a multi self discipline approach. I find it hard to overcome certain things myself - I work from home and need to get out of my own comfort zone in order to earn more money in the future. Part of this is feeling "smart enough" to be any good at the things that would genuinely fire me up. The introspection offered by my use of piracetam has given me plenty of insights into "why" I am as I am--and also informs me that knowing why means shit. It doesn't help you move forwards .

[russianBEAR]

I wouldn't say piractam takes weeks or months to have an effect, although I find the effects quite mild from it anyway, I have recently dropped all racetams from my stack due to the difficulty to get hold of them these days in the uk. I still have a fair bit of piracetam left though. Going to save it for when it's needed more and hopefully at that time it will be easier to obtain more. However I haven't felt much difference in coming off it.

For the choline, I don't react very well to it at all, I have tried it on several different occations and seem to get the slight depression you mentioned but mainly feeling really pissed off more than anything. Alpha GPC is also really expensive.

I prefere to take DMAE instead of choline for acetylcholine, works well for me, no negative side effects plus its cheap.

Imagination,

Use Mike at smartpowders.com - he's on these boards and he sent me mine in about 4 working days. 1kg of it.

As for the depression, I got this on the monday morning-BUT I've a small vulnerability to it anyway and persisted through it. It was a working monday-I hate those when I've had a good weekend anyway .

For me the piracetam mixed with 60mg of dmae and 60mg of phosphatidylcholine works fine. I have epa/dha with it and fizzy soluble multivits. It gets better the longer you take it.

I levelled off emotionally in one day and over the work found short term memory is more fluid and recall of older material is better. Clearer sense of self and introspection is more focussed and productive.

The effects take 14 days at least to be of use and longer. Not unlike many anti depressents. Yes you can get an immediate "sense" of the effect to start with but it's the changes over time you are looking for.

If you want a high-forget it unless you take alcohol or other things like amphetamine/mdma etc. These don't do anything like that.

I'm using 2.5 grams twice a day with choline and a single 2 gram dose in the evening. Only other side effect is occasionally brief diarrhea.

Note if you are new to any of this stuff, it's easy to rely only the on the "pill". I'm sure you are already more than aware of this, however I'll be a jackass and tell you anyway.

1)Exercise-if you are sedentary then 45 minutes brisk walk 3 times a week will have a marked effect. Daily exercise is better and a mix of aerobic, skilled and strength workouts even better.

2)Social-if you can mix your exercise with social stuff (team sport, classes etc) even better-but simply being social most days or more makes a difference. A huge difference as the brain evolved and was designed for precisely this.

3)Varied experiences and new skills. Seriously challenge yourself-physical, mental, creative. Daily! even half an hour a day study can turn you into a semi expert in a bunch of new fields. Gaining knowledge alone can build a stronger sense of self.

4)Healthy diet. There's anyone on here that even needed that comment? Um probably not. It's the obvious that gets forgotten.

5)Not essential but try this out for 20 days @ 20 mins a day.http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net - it's free, plenty of material written and some research behind it-non biased. I used it and since last november completed Mark Bear's Neuroscience - twice and a load of other neuro material. I'm into this as I'm about to get into an OU degree encompassing Neuroscience and hope to reach pHd level in time to come.

6)Teach yourself some cognitive behavioural therapy (For Dummies works fine) or REBT (very similar). Or try motivational interviewing. Learning a few basics of self counselling/coaching skills is now a common strategy employed by many of the best therapists-giving you the tools to work with yourself.

Thought I'd throw my two pence worth in. For me working on the brain is a multi self discipline approach. I find it hard to overcome certain things myself - I work from home and need to get out of my own comfort zone in order to earn more money in the future. Part of this is feeling "smart enough" to be any good at the things that would genuinely fire me up. The introspection offered by my use of piracetam has given me plenty of insights into "why" I am as I am--and also informs me that knowing why means shit. It doesn't help you move forwards .

Exactly. You have to strive for self-improvement with nootropics being "your little helper" as opposed to a "crutch". If you're interested in somethin, learn all about it and analyze and verbalize your mistakes. Make an effort to get off your butt and realize negative experiences are key to growth. It's all easier said than done and it's a daily challenge, but you can't just hope to take some pills to replace an actual learning experience.