mdma and the brain

[VIKETIME]

how many ppl believe that mdma will not cause brain damage or other bodily harm? i personally think that it has to be horrible for you, but it seems that some ppl think it doesnt cause any of the problems people end up with after taking it so im curious on the logic. im starting to research this topic more so i will post any good info i can find. so share ur opinions on mdma and causing problems like the person on here who isexperiencing disreality and such and thoughts about brain damage.


-VIKE

[junglist]

in my opinion taking e was the worst decision of my life.


6 months ago I was a happy, outgoing, straight A student with the rest of my life ahead of me. after taking e three times over christmas and being completely naive I am now a different person.


I am quiet, depressed and emotinally numb. I have had to take three weeks off from my work placement to try and recover and have been put on anti-depressants. My memory has got worse and I now get aching pains down the back of my neck where the spinal cord meets the bottom of the brain. I am so paranoid that I struggle to make conversation with people and when I do there is a feelng that it doesnt seem as real as it did in the past.


although taking e to some people doesnt affect their quality of life, it clearly causes adverse reactions in others. if you are willing to take that risk then go for it, but my advice is to stay well clear. E has ruined my life.

[Tony Blair]

on the flip side, E has enhanced my life.



I have become even more confident - I realised I was completely
confident on E, and that I dont need a drug to be confident, it is in
me all the time.



Have become very productive, at work, and socially - been promoted a lot, got my own business going etc,...



Have laughed my ass off on nights out and the following days, have met
loads of new people, have restored my faith in human life.



Also, have become pretty content - I felt like I was 'chasing'
something before, a lot of the time.. Now I am more satisfied with
everyday life.



Hang on.. What was I just talking about?

[pancho]

if i could go bak to the 1st tyme i had a chance to take rolls i wouldn't do it. my brain has to be covered with holes. my memory is shot, my vision is constantly blurry, no interest left in life, every now and then i'll feel the roll come bak but it always jus makes me more angry, i feel that it is difficult to have a conversation with someone because i always forget everything in a minute plus i just get confused all the tyme. If i would of been smart and only done them every couple of months i think i would be fine but would snort 2 rolls a nite about 2-3 nites a week and when it got bad i was rolling 4-5 times a week. Rolls are great but be smart when you take them and too much of a good thing can be badEdited by: pancho

[whatwhybecause]

i think it depends entirely on what kind of person you are. take egs such as ozzie osbourne and its immediately apparent that ecstasy over a large period of time at high doses can and will cause some kind of neurotoxicity.


i'm a uni student with my whole ahead of me and some people would think it ludicrous to take pills at this time in life; like lev though it has made me realise that i was always confident and that i can do/acheive anything so long as i put my mind to it.


fair play, this may all be psychological activity that has been triggered by the 'overt' properties of e, but whether it is or not, that doesn't matter because it means that i have been able to find myself.


now i can concentrate on uni like never before and my life as a whole has been enhanced by experiences as i now have a massive circle of friends etc etc.


as for neurotoxicity however, i totally believe that it can be caused by e. mdma has been proven to cause n/toxicity in both mice and apes and although neither are 'quite' human, due to their genetic makeup, it would show that this is also feasible to the human race.


this is all an issue of moderation, experience and understanding. i can't grasp the idea that people out there are taking drugs on a regular basis and they know absolutely nothing about what it does, sideeffects etc etc. not a week goes by without me surfing for something new that may have cropped up on the net about mdma. fair enough we never got a guidebook to alcohol when we started drinking, but research is happening into it all the time because it isn't illicit and the precautions are spelled out for us wherever you can get a drink.


if only the same applied for drugs..


mdma can cause irritability, emotional fatigue, irrationality and apprehension. at a more fundamental level it has been seen that mdma causes breakdown of the reuptake inhibitors in the brain and the serotonin axons in some people. although these axons/nerves grow back, they grow back irregularly meaning that serotonin and dopamine are not metabolised or even created as they should be, thus causing depression, fatigue, lethargy, insomnia and one hell of a migraine.


what you have to remember though is that as far as research has gone so far, the risks of this happening are rare if you use mdma in moderation, can draw from your experiences and have a deep understanding of what mdma actually does to the body (this doesn't mean you have to be some nuclearscientist - some sites such as erowid spell it all out in pretty simple english).


if any of the sideeffects do end up affecting you in the end then that was the risk that you took. mdma is not addictive in the way that heroin is (you probably wouldn't go out and steal from a bank to feed the habit), but more like the way in which alcohol is, i.e. if it's available when you go out and you take it, then the chances are that you'll do it again.


i know people who have taken mdma for twenty years and they are the happiest people i know.


just keep it safe and n/toxicity is the least of your worries.Edited by: whatwhybecause

[Hyperreal]

Well, to answer your question, no one knows. In my opinion, it's not toxic, but what does my opinion count for? Check out the debate here:


http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma...nal.shtml#neur otoxicity


I think that MDMA is either not at all neurotoxic, or else only slightly so. One thing that is not open to doubt is that it is nowhere near as neurotoxic as alcohol. I've posted this at least three times here already, but taking Prozac after ecstasy will probably totally block neurotoxic effects. Whatever about MDMA, 'ecstasy' (i.e. impure street pills) will usually cause some damage. If you're doing them for a while, you're gonna come across some iffy.


Psychologically, I've found them very very superhealthy. I'm always up now, whether or not I take them. i think the trick - as with other drugs- is to make the effect part of your psyche, rather than something you need an external source for. I'm probably one of the happiest people I know because of pills.

[billyloner]

i agree with what most people have said, taking e was the best decision of my life. i much prefer the person i am since i took it to the person i was before.


as for whether it damages the brain - im sure it does a little, when i was taking it regularly my memory was fairly screwed up, and i was 'down' quite a lot - not depressed as such, just kinda like tuesday blues all the time.


however now i have cut down on the amount of pills i take in a session, and how often i have them, my memory has fully recovered and im happy nearly all the time. within reason, obviously. so im not convinced it causes irreversible problems. obviously the more you take, the more regularly you take them, and the longer you take them for without a break, the longer this effect will last.


the real key to using e is not to overdo it - but you can only learn this from experience.

[Tony Blair]

Sorry to sound like a board admin, but...



Good posts, keep the effort up

[GreyApple]

Have you ever heard someone just getting off a heroin or meth benge and saying wow that really helped me, I havent, but im sure mdma is not exactly good for your body, good scource of info for me on this subject is "ecstasy rising" very informative and nonjudgemental.

[DocJunk]

For those people who mentioned that they feel that their infrequentecstasy usage has damaged their brains, I can assure you that you are imagining things (permanent damage after three pills? No.). There are many other factors in your life which are MUCH more likely the cause. Perhaps you live a generally unhealthy lifestyle? Maybe you have undiagnosed clinical depression? Perhaps everything is blurry because you need new glasses?


Recently I too, after a particularly hard and extended series of E Binges, worried about the state of my poor head. But now, a month down the road, and after reinstating nutritious food and exercise into my lifestyle, I'm feeling on top of the world. I'm not quite ready to start doing X again though - Don't get me wrong, I still love it, and have nothing but good things to say about it when its used moderatly and wisely, but I think some downtime is definitely order; even if only to let my tolerance go back down to human levels

[X-Dream]

Holy cow, xtc is bad for you?!!? I guess I shouldn't have eaten them like vitamans for ten years. A lot of these I ate 3 rolls and it ruined my life posts have been coming around lately. I've eaten about 300 and beside the occasional upset stomach, nausea I can't say any of that stuff has happened to me.


Sure I hate going to work now and I get depressed at times, but I think that was the same before I ever did it. Maybe I'm just a vivid example, but I made it through high skool with good grades, high skore on my SATs, got thru college, maybe missed a few days of classes cause I partied too hard the night before, but I made up the work I hadto do. I agree with the whole confidence thing though, I used to be really shy when I started high skool.


Ya only use 10% of your brain anywayz if you're lucky, right? I only have one life and a kagillion brain cells just sittin there not doin anything so I put em to good use! Edited by: X-Dream

[pancho]

perhaps maybe other people have had cleaner rolls and maybe the ones swim took had other things that shouldn't have taken, That post was swim comming of a rather unhealthy binge and thats how i was feeling at the tyme, when swim used apporpiatlly swim felt like everyone else does. think smart

[hedonaut]

Ecstacy is OBVIOUSLY bad for you if done in large doses regularly, but not neurotoxic. Of course you felt DOWN when taking E regularly. One of the KNOWn effects of a flush of seratonin. It takes about a week to build back up to the levels you were at before. If you roll every week your seratonin will be chronically low and you will generally be more depressed/grouchy all the time. If you stop doing it as frequently, then there shouldn't be any problems. The stuff doesn't cause brain damage, but it DOES cause a depletion of chemicals that make us happy. Those chemicals are produced fairly quickly, but if you constantly deplete them, there WILL be some negative effects. Likewise, if you don't feel as GOOD from ecstacy anymore, you most likely aren't letting your seratonin recharge sufficiently between rolls. You really shouldn't take the stuff more often than once every three weeks for optimal effects and once a month would be even better.

[Rach]

I realise fully that I experienced a particularly rare and adverse reaction to the pills that I took well over a year ago now. I also accept that the majority of users will thankfully never experience negative effects to the extent that I have. That is not to say that it is impossible, even if cases are rare. All I know is that any damage that I sustained from the substance that I took has as yet failed to repair itself completely.Someone else mentioned in a reply to my last post about the need to adapt and I totally agree and support this. I have adapted to the point where I can't quite remember normal.All I know now is that 'normal' was happy and I definately miss that.
I for one have always taken care of my physical wellbeing.I always visited the gym 3/4 times per week which I continue to do now for the obvious health benefits, both physical and mental. I take a good quality multivitamin each day and eat a diet that would impress Dr Gillian McKeith (all Brits will know the pinched little Linda McCartney lookalike).
Lifestyle factors in no way came into play with the onset of the depersonalisation/derealisation that I experience quite frequently nor the grainy static covered vision, negative afterimages and halos around lights which persist to this day. No pair of glasses are going to fix that DocJunk but I do appreciate your suggestions.I wholeheartedly agree that some depressions can be prevented and eradicated by personal changes made by the individual.
If I am indeed suffering from clinical depression than I can say hand on heart that it was 100% substance induced (MDMA or not). I was not depressed on the night that I took the pills nor at any point leading upto this.I was having a fantastic time with loads of my best mates.The next day however and for many months after I was pushing suicidal.Things have improved slightly, but there's a long road to go.I nowhere near feel 'well' and also my memorys still pretty much fuckered.Edited by: Rach