Health - In case you didn't already know....

[cannagirl]

There has been much research about the use of anti inflammatories (like aspirin) during a meth trip (or others like coke I think, don't quote me on that though) to help protect your oh so important dopamine receptors from permanent damage. Aspirin has neuroprotective properties, as does Omega 3 (fish oil). Also, other anti-oxidants are neuroprotective as well. And marijuana has been the subject of some good studies regarding it's own neuroprotective properties.

Do yourself a favor and learn about how to protect swiys brain so in the future when swiy either chooses to quit or are forced to, swiy will actually be able to sustain happy feelings without the drug.

Oh and regarding aspirin, swiy must take it with a meal so swim would recommend eating right before swiy binges and popping an aspirin and some form of antioxidant (swim uses Acai, Omega 3 and Selenium).

Swim recommends reading up on the subject as much as swiy can, because eventually swiy will really wish swiy did.....



And also meth causes hyperthermia (high temp) which excels brain damage in a huge way. Swiy might want to consider only using when swiy is quiet and relaxed and rotate cold compresses on the head for the duration. It could really really save swiys future happiness.

Swim also read a lot about vitamin E helping. But swiy also has to take vitamin A b/c swiy needs it to absorb the vitamin E. swim would just take a good multivit.

Swim doesn't really care if anyone replies, swim just knows she would love this information to just be available in one place...so here is what swim just found very interesting.

This is a study on meth/amphetamines in rats, here is a paragraph in regards to cooling the brain while using the drugs to lessen brain damage. Swim has seen a few studies like this which is why swim always uses ice packs....


http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi.../full/55/1/133

"Although the 3 x 40 mg/kg dose of l-ephedrine should produce CPu extracellular dopamine levels more comparable to the 4 x 5 mg/kg d-amphetamine dose, the excessive cooling necessary to prevent lethality would obtund dopamine and 5-HT levels. The reduction in dopamine and 5-HT levels is not the only mechanism by which cooling would reduce long-term dopamine depletions. We have previously observed that animals dosed with 4 x 10 mg/kg d-amphetamine in a cold environment have higher CPu microdialysate dopamine levels than animals dosed with 4 x 5 mg/kg d-amphetamine at 23°C temperature but no significant long-term dopamine depletions (Bowyer et al., 1993). The cooling should also reduce oxidative stress, since indices of oxidative stress produced by quinones of dopamine are decreased when hyperthermia does not occur during methamphetamine exposure (LaVoie and Hastings, 1999). Increased oxidative stress and reactive oxidative species of dopamine, such as 6-hydroxy-dopamine and quinones of dopamine, have been postulated to be mediators of dopamine neurotoxicity in the CPu (Graham, 1978; O'Dell et al., 1991; Seiden and Sabol, 1995; Stokes et al., 1999; Yamamoto and Zhu, 1998). Thus, from these previous studies, it seems likely that the greater the dopamine release and hyperthermia the greater the generation of reactive dopamine-like species. However, it is possible that the increase of dopamine within the dopaminergic terminals of the CPu is primarily mediating long-term neurotoxicity (LaVoie and Hastings, 1999)."



I pretty much understand it and get the big points, it's still a little confusing but it looked good....keep those temps down. Remember for reading hypothermia means cold which is good and hyperthermia means warm which is bad.

And lastly. Swim is not a doctor, just a researcher. Please educate yourself and make your own informed decisions. Well chosen search terms can yield a lot of interesting studies.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	great info.....Beachbabe x
	Good harm reduction thread, no matter what the formatting difficulties were.

[beentheredonethatagain]

posting back to back is bad, I know I have done it and it has gotten me in trouble, but four post back to back is just over the top, you should have edited your post , if you needed to.

[entheogensmurf]

Originally Posted by cannagirl

And lastly. Swim is not a doctor, just a researcher. Please educate yourself and make your own informed decisions. Well chosen search terms can yield a lot of interesting studies.

Thank you for posting the information. I'm a strong advocate of harm reduction. It seems to be the logical route to go as people are going to use anything and everything, no matter the consequences. --- but some would love a way to decrease the damage or plausible damage.

I may throw out "it's best not to use certain drugs" but realistically people will keep using and this in turn opens up the window to provide information to lessen or prevent damage.

I wonder how many people are actually pre/post dosing with antioxidants and the other supplements when taking MDMA. It'd be an interesting statistic to look at if there was a way to gauge this information somewhat accurately.

[cannagirl]

Originally Posted by beentheredonethatagain

posting back to back is bad, I know I have done it and it has gotten me in trouble, but four post back to back is just over the top, you should have edited your post , if you needed to.

If someone wants to neg rep me or ban me i couldn't care less. I apologize for posting back to back though. I posted over the course of a day or two not one after another however. I thought it was highly significant information that could save someones life literally and hey i thought it going back into "new posts" was a good thing. If it were me with no dopamine left after a long addiction, i'd probly kill myself and care a lot less about someone posting back to back. But i wont do it again in the future anyhow. Thank you for informing me.

Originally Posted by entheogensmurf

Thank you for posting the information. I'm a strong advocate of harm reduction. It seems to be the logical route to go as people are going to use anything and everything, no matter the consequences. --- but some would love a way to decrease the damage or plausible damage.

I may throw out "it's best not to use certain drugs" but realistically people will keep using and this in turn opens up the window to provide information to lessen or prevent damage.

I wonder how many people are actually pre/post dosing with antioxidants and the other supplements when taking MDMA. It'd be an interesting statistic to look at if there was a way to gauge this information somewhat accurately.

Yeah swim would be interested too. swim is am all about learning everything and anything pertaining to damage control. If there is a way to help from hurting swim's self permanently and still have fun, swim for sure wants know about it. Thanks for replying!

Swim also wonders if swim is the only one.....Swims a health nut who loves to experiment with drugs, guess the two don't overlap too often.....

EDIT: Ok look what swim just found -

"Dopaminergic changes were studied in the caudate nucleus of adult female mice after pre- and post-treatment with an antioxidant, selenium, 72 h after the multiple injections of methamphetamine (METH, 4 x 10 mg/kg, i.p. at 2-h interval) or an equivalent volume of saline. Selenium treatment prevented the depletion of dopamine (DA) and its metabolites 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) and homovanillic acid (HVA) in caudate nucleus resulting from the METH treatment. These data suggest that METH-induced neurotoxicity is mediated by free radical and selenium plays a protective role against METH-induced dopaminergic neurotoxicity."

SELENIUM keeps popping up over and over again in studies reducing neurotoxicity from meth. It's like number one thing swim keeps reading, definitely go buy some from walmart.

ANOTHER EDIT because I just found this. Very interesting regarding anti oxidants and MDMA. Read this ->

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma...article3.shtml

Summary
MDMA causes a sharp increase in oxidative hydroxyl radicals shortly after administration. It is now believed that this rise in oxidative stress is likely involved in MDMA's neurotoxicity, and may be involved in some of its negative side effects. Very high doses of injected antioxidants have been shown in rats to dramatically reduce or block MDMA neurotoxicity as well as reduce tolerance to MDMA's effects between neurotoxic doses. Based on these findings, it is possible that common vitamin antioxidants may be effective at reducing risks of MDMA neurotoxicity, hangover effect, tolerance, and general body stress.

Supplement Regimens Reported Effective by MDMA Users

Regimen 1

One dose just prior to use, one as effects wear off, and a third at 10-12 hours

5-HTP = 100 mg
Vitamin C = 1000 mg
Alpha Lipoic Acid = 250 mg

Regimen 2

One dose just prior to use and one dose as effects wear off.

5-HTP = 100 mg
Magnesium = 500 mg
Vitamin C = 1000 mg
Vitamin B6 = 100 mg
L-Tyrosine = 1000 mg
DLPA = 400 mg

Please note that both regimens include 5- HTP. While 5-HTP is an anti-oxidant, it is also a direct precursor of serotonin. It's quite possible that the effectiveness of the regimens are the result of 5-HTP as a serotonin precursor.

Both L-Tyrosine and DLPA are dopamine precursors. Dopamine has been implicated in MDMA neurotoxicity and there are some concerns that they may do more harm than good.

It is also important to note that we have received many reports of ineffective supplement use. Given the current dataset, it's impossible to know what factors are responsible for differing reactions to MDMA and supplements.
The practical implications of rat-based laboratory research are difficult to reliably assess. However, well-tolerated, common antioxidant supplements such as vitamins C, E, alpha lipoic acid, and others certainly warrant further investigation as a simple means to reduce the negative impact of ecstasy use on the body. For MDMA users who already take antioxidants occasionally, there seem to be few downsides to making sure to take reasonable doses of antioxidants in the days before, during, and after their ecstasy use. The risks are low and the benefits may be immediately apparent.

A potential side-benefit to suggesting ecstasy users take vitamin supplements may be to increase awareness that MDMA is hard on the body. Taking antioxidants before, during, and after experiences could help foster more intention around ingestion, act as a reminder that ecstasy is physically stressful, and could offer an additional way experienced users and harm reduction workers can communicate to new users about risks and precautions. Harm reduction groups could engage users in the issue of toxicity by discussing proper nutrition as a way to maintain the enjoyable effects and recover more quickly.

The primary downside to suggesting antioxidants may be neuroprotective is the chance that some ecstasy users will misunderstand the information and believe that taking vitamin C will protect them from harm or that some will assume that taking antioxidants will allow them to increase their use of MDMA. Increasing MDMA dosage or frequency of use is likely to significantly increase risk of neurotoxicity. The simplest and most effective way to reduce risk of neurotoxicity is to reduce dosage, refrain from re-dosing during an experience, and reduce frequency of use.

Reputation Comments on this post:

ok