Health - DXM Neurotransmitter Depletion Hypothesis

[Smokey420]

My monkey wrote this a few nights ago...what follows is what is written by the typewriter report.

"
Well, we have our two good friends of the brain, dopamine, and serotonin..

Serotonin thought to be more responsible for memory, mood, and emotions.
Dopamine thought to be more responsible for motivation,pleasure,reward, "wanting".

So lets start to talk about the DXM-Experience, and why it may lose it magic touch over time, and how it can affect your sober life.

Some of the actions DXM has on the brain is serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and dopamine reuptake inhibitor, much why we feel great on DXM. Let me explain this, instead of serotonin and dopamine being reabsorbed, it is released, creating the emotion and pleasure DXM brings.

Now, your first trips on DXM will be your funnest, because you have a adequate amount of these neurotransmitters(unless you naturally have low levels of this/family mental history). So you trip a few times, lets say you do it...a few times a week at the 2nd plateau, sounds like fun, right?

Ofcourse it's fun, all of the natural pleasure emotions for everyday tasks is being released into one, very fun task... robo tripping.

So you take it for a few months, and then after a few trips, you realize you haven't been having good ones lately, they weren't "good" and euphoric trips, but not exactly dysphoric,why is this? Well, your neurotransmitters as we know them are being depleted. The first one to go would probably be dopamine, making your trip instead of being pleasurable, and euphoric and... well, doin the robo-dance.. to just a trip of hard emotions intensified by music. You relax yourself before your next trip, and you try and try, but you can't get that pleasure and euphoria you once could.

This is when the magic starts to get lost... when neurotransmitter depletion and long-term potentiation takes place.
Long Term Potentiation - Basically your brain gets used to the changes DXM makes in your brain and so you don't get as much of that neurotransmitter because your brain is used to it being released, this goes away when you stop using DXM but may take a while!

Now lets say you like to mix weed with DXM, one of the effects is a dopamine release in the brain, a synergy of this with DXM's dopamine reuptake inhibition effect, would cause intense euphoria, I've experienced this and I describe it as a very pleasent feeling in the back of your mouth.

So now when you smoke weed alone, you don't get the laughs, you don't get happy, you don't have dopamine! This is a sign you need to stop using DXM. Even when you smoke weed with DXM, you get the trip through emotions but you still can't get that intense euphoria, maybe a euphoria, but not like before when you mixed weed and DXM.

Alright, so lets say your serotonin starts getting depleted to very low levels like your dopamine, your trip will be dull feeling and will lack emotion, without pleasure, either, thus losing the magic. I must say, I think dopamine is very responsible for the magical aspects of tripping, serotonin alone is not going to make you want to trip, dopamine is going to.

Alright, so now you've realized your DXM use has come to an end, you can't have good trips on it anymore, it's more dull and dysphoric than ever. You try to smoke weed, and you get anxiety, you go into the social world... social anxiety, you smoke a lot of weed, and you get an anxiety attack! This is most likely due to the lack of dopamine, it is found that people with low levels of dopamine have social anxiety, or anxiety in general.

What do I do? What drugs can I take? I feel like I've been banned from using substances by my own brain...

Well, you can't do anything but wait it out, eat healthy, and take supplements. Sorry but it's just the way it is...
You should take a 5-HTP(5-Hydroxytryptophan) supplement, and a Tyrosine supplement daily and also something that is important is to intake all the necessary vitamins, or these supplements may not have a significant effect. 5-HTP helps replenish Serotonin, and Tyrosine helps replenish Dopamine. Together, this can put your brain back into normal place in just as little as a month, remember folks, neurotransmitter depletion can take months to go away!

Not only that, but think about the possibility of Long-term potentiation, your brain is adapted to not having to re-absorb serotonin and dopamine to feel happy, the DXM did it for you. This may also take a month, maybe even two to completely go away.

So in conclusion, if you find yourself with an impairment while your sober, burnt out feeling, stressed, anxious, whatever it may be, it's probably not permanent unless you did 4th plateau doses every week for months, i don't recommend this as it will probably deplete your neurotransmitters VERY rapidly, remember, once depleted your body has to synthesize more, which can take quite a while.

Things to remember if you have neurotransmitter depletion:

Eat healthy, drink milk, vitamins, etc...
Optional: Take 5-HTP and Tyrosine, it will help your brain recover much faster.

From personal experience, I did a lot of DXM and the magic was lost because my dopamine must've been very depleted. When I completely stopped, I still used it at low doses(200mgs or less) every 2 or 3 weeks. The last time I have used it was 21 days ago and it's been 3 months since my last higher dose.

For the first month I suffered social anxiety and general anxiety during sobriety, smoking weed would only make it much worse. The social anxiety seemed to finally go away a bit since last week, I've been taking 5-HTP supplements, but I didn't know I should be taking Tyrosine also, Im starting on that soon. I was beginning to think I was permanently fried, and feeling like shit, but its been going away slowly and magic has been coming back, along with weed giving a euphoric effect. I'm not planning on using DXM for a few more months, and in the meantime doing what I recommended above.

Comments? Questions? This is completely a hypothesis but I think it may be accurate, I've looked up much of that in the wikipedia but just now put it into my own terms."

Yes moneky.