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An Experience with Modafinil

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201–210 of 363 posts

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the dosing might explain the equivalence. I’ve not come across the study, but if the conclusion was “a 1/100th of the normal dose of cocaine is equivalent to 3 cups of coffee equivalent” I could believe that.

dosing usually would be dialed-in to provide roughly identical autonomic effects (at least) and then graded increased doses. otherwise it would be a pointless study. here is a very old one, but oral not i.v.: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4900434/ 5mg/10mg amphetamine sulphate vs 300mg and 600mg of caffeine (all oral). The study scales ended up being skewed because one subject had paradoxical response and felt rela…

>The study scales ended up being skewed because one subject had paradoxical response and felt relaxed instead on amphetamines, lol.

That happens to me and I want to research what it means but your link doesnt seem to work

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#202
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caffeine would be illegal to possess, if it were invented yesterday. 80% of people couldn't distinguish I.V. cocaine from I.V. caffeine in some study I am unable to locate at the moment, which I think involved Nora Volkow from NIH, either as PI or collaborator.

> 80% of people couldn't distinguish I.V. cocaine from I.V. caffeine in some study I am unable to locate at the moment, which I think involved Nora Volkow from NIH, either as PI or collaborator. All this tells me is that I'm clearly consuming caffeine incorrectly in the form of coffee and/or tea.

I have a friend who can't stand the taste of coffee but of course likes caffeine as do we all, and had to import it via mail drop to Denmark in order to get his espresso-equivalent shot in the morning.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#203
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Have to", maybe not. Will perform better if they do, probably. Will be outcompeted by others if they don't, many of whom only did better because they used drugs, yes. It took me half a lifetime to really come to grips with it, but fact is, winners absolutely do use drugs. William S. Sessions' anti-drug arcade game ads lied to me.

Be careful with this line of thinking. It can lead you to justify some extremely unhealthy habits. You'll justify it by saying it's fine, you're getting things done. But the cost will always be there, either physical or mental.

On the other hand, the cost of not using those things can be not getting a good job, or not being able to do your job, which has costs too. A small difference in work done can be the difference between keeping a job and getting fired.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#204

Modafinil is a pretty amazing drug. The come down after one use isn’t too bad. But if you’ve been using it daily for a week, the comedown is BRUTAL: pretty much feel like you have zero energy and feel like laying prone for 8 hours. Once did 48 straight awake on it and felt wide awake 36 hours in… Distinctly remember the 1st time I took it. Was perhaps 8pm at night and I swore it was 8am in the morning and I’d just ha…

I’ve used it once, for a week-long slog on an impossibly short timescale project - it just made sleep an absolute irrelevance, and I was able to just sit and code from Sunday to the following Tuesday. The delivery was on time, the client congratulated “the team” (lol), and our business gained a reputation as being able to pull off the impossible. I felt fine for the duration.

Two things, though.

One, that week does not exist to me. Like, I don’t remember it apart from the abstract knowledge that it happened. I learned C# and .net in the first 48 hours, having never used either before (we were a PHP shop - but some combination of naivety and hubris had us take the project on) - and a few weeks later when making some tweaks, I may as well have been looking at someone else’s code in a language I’d never worked with before.

Two, the comedown wasn’t awful, but I did sleep for about 36 hours straight, and woke up hungry enough to eat a bear.

Haven’t used it since - haven’t needed to - but I do keep a blister pack handy in case I ever find myself needing to function without cessation for a week again.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#205
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caffeine would be illegal to possess, if it were invented yesterday. 80% of people couldn't distinguish I.V. cocaine from I.V. caffeine in some study I am unable to locate at the moment, which I think involved Nora Volkow from NIH, either as PI or collaborator.

You remember the topic and the name of the PI but still can’t find this study? I am relatively certain that’s because it does not exist. The idea that caffeine is comparable to cocaine is pretty nuts. People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? I can totally believe that if you give someone who’s never done drugs a high dose of caffeine and tell them it’s cocaine, they might beli…

>The idea that caffeine is comparable to cocaine is pretty nuts. People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks?

I don't know, when's the last time Starbucks was selling pure caffeine injectable via IV?

on edit: another day, another downvote, but that doesn't change the fact that the whole discussed comparison is between IV versions of the drug, and as such it's ridiculous to compare cocaine against Starbucks coffee as if that disproves the assertion.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#206
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 80% of people couldn't distinguish I.V. cocaine from I.V. caffeine in some study I am unable to locate at the moment, which I think involved Nora Volkow from NIH, either as PI or collaborator. All this tells me is that I'm clearly consuming caffeine incorrectly in the form of coffee and/or tea.

Time to mainline it directly into your eyeballs

In all seriousness, taking it sublingually might actually be extremely effective. Sublingual delivery tends to be more effective with lipophillic substances than hydrophilic substances. Caffeine is a bit weird in that it is hydrophilic, but, it is sufficiently lipophyllic to cross cell membranes and penetrate the blood/brain barrier, which is what makes me suspect it would work out well.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#207
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've purchased prescription drugs from Indian pharmacies online and they take a while to arrive, but they do make it through customs and arrive and they are legit. The funny thing is, I mostly do it because I don't want to go to the doctor every six months to say "mother may I" for a very mild and safe statin. My insurance would pay for everything, but it's such a pain to do.

I always find it incredible that in our free and civilized societies an adult isn't allowed to decide what chemicals he can put in his body. He must first beg for them.

That's why we are civilised. People value dignity, grovelling for drugs should make one feel shame, and acts as a decent filter for those not desperate.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#208
I took it for years alongside Dexedrine for ADHD, then my insurance stopped covering it and the cost for Provigil was prohibitively expensive (like $1700 a month), so I went off it. I think the patent expired so you can get a generic now, but unfortunately, getting prescribed it again in addition to the Dexedrine has just been more of a pain than it’s seemed worth. I’ve been able to get Nuvigil (very similar chemically and created for the express purpose of extending the modafanil patent) scripts easily, but it legitimately doesn’t work for me, sadly.

Anyway, I feel like I was extremely productive on 400mg of Modafanil a day, and I understand why people have used it for nootropics.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#209
I used Modafinil almost daily for a few years. It was amazing at times, and some of my projects' success I can attribute directly to Modafinil. One of the main downsides was (what I assume was?) the lactose they use as a binder (if you get the cheap Indian variant at least) wreaked havoc on my digestive tract.

Over time I started to get panic attacks, culminating in a finaly, massive, life altering experience. I haven't touched it since. I don't think it was soley due to the drug alone--but it almost certainly didn't help.

Modafinil is awesome, but it's not a cure for whatever underlying problem you have.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#210
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has done a lot of IV cocaine and coffee I find this hard to believe. IV cocaine is one of the most euphoric highs in the world

I've had cocaine a few times now and while everyone is saying it's euphoric, I keep saying it's the most normal I've ever felt. Not "euphoric", I've done other stuff that felt suuuuper good (in an actual euphoria sense) so I believe can compare. But normal . The cloud of thoughts gone, I am able to make myself do anything with one thought, I have energy, the aches are gone, the tinnitus is gone, I don't second guess,…

I know this is kind of an obvious follow up to your comment, but, have you been tested for ADHD? You described exactly how my brain reacts to mixed amphetamine salts (AKA Adderall). Caffeine doesn’t really do much for me, either, incidentally.
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