SSRI's and Research Chemicals

[Daniel Lioneye]

Recently SWIM has started taking an SSRI, Lexapro(escitalopram oxalate).

SWIM was thinking about obtaining some chemicals to research, specifically Methylone, 2c-e, or 2c-i, SWIM could also consider 5-MeO-DMT.

Would it be wise for SWIM to experiment with any of these RC's?

[toe]

Wise? No. But will the experiments produce results? My houseplants say yes, at least with the 2cthingystuffs.

[nanobrain]

this is your Dr speaking, thats a negatory Captain, - albeit mind manifestation is a laudable driver for getting one's bodymind stabilised - first.

[Nagognog2]

Agreed. Give yourself about 6 months after stopping (with medical advice) your SSRI diet-plan before proceeding.

[Ximot]

SWIX used to be on SSRI's. During this time he had mushrooms and LSD and also MDMA and 2C-B and amphetamine sulphate. It was all fine and worked well if perhaps not quite as intensely (the Fear was greatly reduced and I never seemed to have proper ego-death during those times and as such with hindsight I wouldn't consider my expeirences at the time as fully immersive -read:holistic- psychedelic experiences).

Note that the above aren't "RCs" per se except perhaps for 2C-B. By analogy one might conclude that since some tryptamines and phenethylamines seem to be have been safe in SWIX's case, they may be safe in yours too. But this is mere conjecture and it may not so.

Now SWIX does know one person who has repeatedly used methylone while on effexor, an SNRI, and they were perfectly fine every time.

Note that SWIX used fluoxetine back then and that with fluoxetine SWIX never had any interaction issues. When SWIX, for a number of reasons, switched to sertraline, he had the most awful interactions with amphetamine. With MDMA he also didn't realyl feel very good, and once he freaked out and physically felt like his liver might explode or implode when he was on some weird blotter taken in conjunction with some mornign glory seeds.......

SWIX doesn't remember if his very pleasant and safe-feeling 2C-B/SSRI combo was on fluoxetine or sertraline.

But SWIX has never taken lexapro so can't really help you there.

[Broshious]

There's an Erowid report of someone taking Methylone while on both Prozac and Wellbutrin, and it seems to have worked just fine for him.

[nanobrain]

well, i reckon that while there is some variation in specificity of receptor subtype affinities for different SSRI's, yet the overall effects of the class tend to colour the experience of most any psychedelic with a palate ranging from negating any empathogenic qualiities to - with trypts - turnning the experience into,um, something else.

[Nagognog2]

Bongo can attest that tramadol will block Methylone to the degree that Methylone becomes a simple stimulant (and not a powerful or pleaseant one) without any of the desired effects noted. This effect lasts at least 2 weeks.

[eltimmy]

>There's an Erowid report of someone taking Methylone while on both Prozac and Wellbutrin, and it seems to have worked just fine for him.

Umm, just because someone took a dangerous combination and didn't die doesn't mean other people shouldn't avoid said combination.

[Broshious]

Originally Posted by eltimmy

>There's an Erowid report of someone taking Methylone while on both Prozac and Wellbutrin, and it seems to have worked just fine for him.

Umm, just because someone took a dangerous combination and didn't die doesn't mean other people shouldn't avoid said combination.

I suppose I should've said as much. I just meant that unlike MDMA, an SSRI didn't seem to weaken the effects of Methylone for that particular person. Whether or not it's dangerous I cannot comment on.

[nanobrain]

which effects? stim or entactogenic? when on an SSRI course (horrible case of offlabel misprescription), way back when most of youz were a gleam in your daddy's eyes and MDMA was legal, i remember it still worked as an effective stimulant and ETOH discombobulation mitigator - but thats all. not much data back then, thought the quality of the MDMA went down ;-)

[Broshious]

Originally Posted by nanobrain

which effects? stim or entactogenic? when on an SSRI course (horrible case of offlabel misprescription), way back when most of youz were a gleam in your daddy's eyes and MDMA was legal, i remember it still worked as an effective stimulant and ETOH discombobulation mitigator - but thats all. not much data back then, thought the quality of the MDMA went down ;-)

This is a quote from his report:

"All euphoria now. The 'wave' effect has turned into a steady peak with no feelings of anxiety. Emotional barriers lessened (non-existent?). We discuss past issues, childhood problems, current drama, conversation is flowing quite well. We discuss and work through things that I've never had the nerve to talk about before."

It sounds to me like it's working as well as if he hadn't been on an SSRI, but I can't be certain.

[nanobrain]

oh well, rules are by definition to have exceptions. i general SSRIs negate / alter the fx of most other psychedelics save THC.

[bluestemz]

here is a document I found in my archives on this particular subject:

Subject: NIMH Study Results: Hallucinogens and Antidepressants
Date: 3 Oct 1994 08:13:46 GMT

From: Kit Bonson

As many of you are aware, over the past months I have been conducting a
retrospective study here at the National Institute of Mental Health on the
interactions of hallucinogens and antidepressants in humans. I'm finally
at a place where I can reveal my results. These data have already been
presented at the Serotonin Club meeting in Chicago this summer and are in
the process of being written up for submission to pharmacology/psychiatry
journals (I'll post the references later, assuming the manuscripts are
accepted).

Thanks to all of you on the Net who responded to my requests for subjects!

The basic idea of the study arose because I have a lot of friends who have
been on antidepressants and also have a long-standing interest in
hallucinogens. They would call me up (as their personal pharmacologist)
and want to know why they had unusual responses to LSD while they were
taking antidepressants. It turned out that the experience one had on LSD
could be highly variable, dependent on which antidepressant one was taking.

Based on these initial reports, I asked to interview people with similar
histories by placing announcements in the local D.C. alternative newspaper,
on newsgroups on the Net, and by an article in the MAPS (Multidisciplinary
Association for Psychedelic Studies) newsletter. People also contacted me
after hearing of the study by word of mouth or by being referred by a
health professional.

Although many many people responded to my request, I was only able to
use those reports where there was a "control" condition, ie: either the
person had taken the same hallucinogen prior to antidepressant treatment
or else had friends who had taken the same hallucinogen but were on on
antidepressants. Everyone who participated was given a structured
questionnaire that first asked about the person's antidepressant treatment,
other drugs they regularly consumed, and past experience with
hallucinogens. Then I asked about the experience the person had with a
hallucinogen while taking an antidepressant. The main thing I was
interested in was whether there was an increase, a decrease or no change
in the person's response to the hallucinogen in terms of the time it took to
get high, the physical effects, the hallucinatory effects, the
psychological effects, the total time they were high, any aftereffects or
alterations in sleep and then their overall impression of the trip.

In a nutshell, people who were taking serotonin-selective antidepressants
or MAO inhibitors had a decrease or abolishment of their response to
hallucinogens. This is in contrast to what happens when people were taking
tricyclic antidepressants or lithium: they had a vast increase in their
response to hallucinogens. Please note that everyone who responded had
been taking antidepressants for at least 3-4 weeks, if not longer. This is
the time necessary for therapeutic effects to begin, and this is thought to
correlate with changes in neurotransmitter systems in the brain. We have
no information about what happens when people have only taken
antidepressants for a short time and then consume a hallucinogen.

Below is a more comprehensive summary of the data:

SEROTONIN-SELECTIVE ANTIDEPRESSANTS:

*Fluoxetine* (Prozac) -- even at doses of this antidepressant ranging from
2mg/day to 40 mg/day, there was an overall decrease in most effects from
LSD (no matter how much acid people took), as well as a decrease in
response to ketamine. There was no change in response to psilocybin.
There does seem to be a decrease in the response to MDMA.

*Sertraline* (Zoloft) -- the effect with this antidepressant seems to be
dose-dependent. At 50 mg/day, there was no effect on the response to
LSD nor to psilocybin. However, at 100 mg/day, there was a decrease in
response to both LSD and MDMA.

*Paroxetine* (Paxil) -- decrease in response to LSD.

*Trazodone* (Desyrel) -- decrease in response to LSD.

TRICYCLIC ANTIDEPRESSANTS:

*Imipramine* (Tofranil) -- increase in response to LSD.

*Desipramine* (Norpramine) -- increase in response to LSD.

*Clomipramine* (Anafranil) -- increase in response to LSD.

LITHIUM:

(*alone* or *in combination with a tricyclic antidepressant*) --
increase in response to LSD or psilocybin.

MONOAMINE OXIDASE INHIBITOR:

*Phenelzine* (Nardil) -- decrease in response to LSD

**TAKE NOTE OF THE RESPONSE TO MDMA: combining an MAO inhibitor
plus MDMA has led to a hypertensive crisis and a near-fatal response in
many people!!! This could be anticipated because MDMA is a substituted
amphetamine, and stimulants should not be combined with an MAO inhibitor!!!

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!

There were a few other psychotherapeutic drugs that people combined with
a hallucinogen, but you'll have to wait for the journal articles for these
odd responses.

How do we explain these data?? Well, this is a bit of a theoretical
problem. One would want to say that the hallucinogenic response occurs
because of 5-HT-2 stimulation and therefore there was down-regulation of
5-HT-2 sites following serotonin-selective antidepressants and MAO
inhibitors, thus leading to elimination of the hallucinogenic response.
The problem is that these antidepressants do not always alter the brain in
this way. The other, bigger, problem is that tricyclic antidepressants are
thought to act very similarly to SSRI's in their ability to down-regulate
5-HT-2 sites, and thus there is no accounting for the appearance that
TCA's increase response to LSD. We are at the stage now where we are
trying to formulate a theory based on the difference between classes of
drugs in terms of their effects on 5-HT-1A sites and in terms of the way
the different antidepressant change serotonin levels. Since LSD has effects
not only at 5-HT-2 sites but also at 5-HT-1A sites, this may allow for why
these drugs affect the hallucinogenic response differently.

So, thanks for all the support I received from everyone who helped out with
this study. All of you who participated and then kept quiet about my
results receive my gratitude. Special thanks to Lamont Granquist who not
only was very helpful in recruiting subjects for me and for sending me
references I might have otherwise missed but restrained himself for months
from spreading the word about these interesting results.

Kit Bonson, Ph.D.
National Institute of Mental Health
Building 10, Room 3D41
Bethesda, MD 20892

unfortunately I don't think I have the final journal articles anywhere

Reputation Comments on this post:

Nice article.

[eltimmy]

>i general SSRIs negate / alter the fx of most other psychedelics save THC.

On SWIM's short course of fluoxetine way back when, he seemed to experience some change in cannabis's effect too. *shrugs* Stimulating and anxious, and the orthostatic hypotension SWIM sometimes gets from cannabis seemed exaggerated.

[violinist3749]

In SWIM's experience, while on 25mg-75mg of sertraline, cannabis, DXM (dangerous, SWIM knows), LSD, and salvia have been overall positive experiences and seem to have been as strong as SWIM's friends taking the same substance.

[toe]

oh well, rules are by definition to have exceptions. i general SSRIs negate / alter the fx of most other psychedelics save THC.

I just want to emphasize the importance of differentiating between "negate" and "alter".

Negate? Hardly. Alter? Not by much, and honestly not to any degree that my houseplants were able to detect with LSD, then years later. . . DXM, 2Cs, 5-MEO-AMT. (Since THC has been thrown in, I suppose I'll throw in ketamine and salvia, as well.)

Of course I will not dispute what's been cited in the above paper- it's echoed in material from our own vaults. However, unlike MDMA, the effects of which will be blocked at any halfway sane dose* you choose to feed your SSRI-medicated monkey, the above named compounds produce lovely results. ISE the effects will either be completely negated, or unaffected/ merely diminished to such a minor degree that it's unnoticeable.

NB: I believe the above list is the limit of my houseplants' experience with coadministration of SSRIs & "psychedelics". Being as the actual RC family is obviously much more extensive than what's included here, there's definitely the opportunity for many, many unknown complications to pop up, so I sure wouldn't advise anyone on an SSRI to go fooling around with a new chemical.

And, as I've mentioned elsewhere- I wouldn't advise anyone on any other type of psychiatric med to go fooling around with any other chemicals, period. (THC is probably fine for most, but certainly wouldn't advise *starting* up with it at that point, esp. for those in tx for depression/anxiety/psychosis.)

I'm sure I've just repeated and discombobulated the same good advice that others have already posted. . .