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An Experience with Modafinil

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Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#311

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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.

I was diagnosed last year and the psychiatrist I was seeing worked at a clinic that primarily sees inner city patients with much different health profiles than a mild mannered engineer. This is one of my favourite exchanges from the intake meeting: “So, the first time you tried cocaine, were you surprised that you didn’t react the way everyone else did? Did it calm you down instead of getting you keyed up?” “I’ve nev…

Interesting.

I was diagnosed twice, both times in adulthood. The first time was by a neuropsychologist who did something like 8-10 hours of testing over about 3 days. I’m not even sure if she ever asked me about any sort of drug use.

The second person to diagnose me was a physician at the student health center where I was a graduate student. Believe it or not, he was actually a pediatrician! I think he may have asked me about my caffeine consumption (excessive!), while also being impressed by my shockingly normal blood pressure (almost always between 110/70 and 125/83). I actually think going on Adderall might have lowered my BP overall, due to the increased ability it gave ume to tolerate and problem solve my way through stressful situations.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#312
post #264
post #190

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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,…

> 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 don't overthink. I just am and I do. It's amazing. Have you been evaluated for ADHD? This is one of the classic tells. Methylphenidate is structurally and chemically very similar to cocaine. Vyvanse is definitely the best when it comes to dur…

I have no idea why people like Vyvanse so much. It’s just time release with a fancy mechanism and paranoia around abuse potential of instant release formulations, which work just as well in most, if not all.

However, Ritalin is less neurotoxic than amphetamines that can indeed hike your risks of Parkinson’s (and probably few other things)

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#313
post #168

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Serious question. How do you deal with life when you aren’t high on IV coke? That state sounds so good I’d absolutely get addicted first thing.

Never done anything IV, but I do plenty of drugs (cocaine included) during basically every weekend, and have been doing so for the last ~30 years more or less. Sure, some people do fall down into the trap of doing something too much, this is true for lots of things, including video games (which I've been more addicted to than drugs at some points in my life). But if you have a kind of normal life during the week that…

Its like eating. Most of us do it every day with no issue, and some of us are mindlessly munching and experiencing negative effects of obesity.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#314
post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 don't overthink. I just am and I do. It's amazing. Have you been evaluated for ADHD? This is one of the classic tells. Methylphenidate is structurally and chemically very similar to cocaine. Vyvanse is definitely the best when it comes to dur…

I have no idea why people like Vyvanse so much. It’s just time release with a fancy mechanism and paranoia around abuse potential of instant release formulations, which work just as well in most, if not all. However, Ritalin is less neurotoxic than amphetamines that can indeed hike your risks of Parkinson’s (and probably few other things)

Ritalin does damage to DNA, if that counts for anything.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely different. Caffeine is a very well studied substance with widely known effects, it has been used for literally centuries by a sizeable portion of the human population.

And in modern day, we have FDA, which is a very-tough-to-get-by filter for public medication.

The FDA has decided that this a substance the needs restricting from general consumption for a reason wrong or no. Was that the right decision or wrong I don't know. But I have to assume they have some reason but it would be enough for me to take seriously the possible consequences of having a adverse reaction when dealing with the lives of OTHER PEOPLE if he had started his self experiment on his own time that would be one thing but he was treating other people and that makes this inexcusable. had he tried it in a safe controlled situation, then determined it to be safe and used it at work then I wouldn't care but he didn't. bottom line he put other people at risk.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#316

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As another 2 data points: My brother has narcolepsy, and finds modafinil much better than amphetamines. He says he has zero side effects with modafinil, and it makes him much less jittery than amphetamines. I have CFS, and sometimes need a stimulant if I must stay awake. I've tried amphetamines, but they make me really jittery and a bit anxious and snappy - I feel "tweaked", and it's not pleasant. By contrast, modafi…

Asking as a layman: What's the current understanding as to why modafinil and stimulants affect different people so differently?

If anyone tells you they understand the brain - they are lying.

The only certainty we know is it’s located in your head and weighs a few pounds. That’s pretty much it.

The absolute best neuroscience program at the absolute best university would essentially read from an outdated curriculum (which means it’s from the last semester, in neuroscience that’s ancient history), supplemented with current studies, and you will be told that you will not be penalised for using answers from six months ago that have been invalidated now, and are absolutely wrong, but were the textbook dogma last semester.

Top program in America.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#317
post #303

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Some people try taking a smaller dose to shorten the duration of action

Like most drugs, finding and sticking to the right dose is made more difficult by ever-increasing tolerance. I'm not saying there's no way around the insomnia problem with proper planning and self-control, but for me the easiest solution was just stop taking it.

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Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#318
post #36

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Am I the only one thinking there is something seriously wrong with an education system if students have to resort to drugs that keep them awake for a week to succeed in it? I mean I'm not exactly anti-medication but... wow.

"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.

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Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#319
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea why people like Vyvanse so much. It’s just time release with a fancy mechanism and paranoia around abuse potential of instant release formulations, which work just as well in most, if not all. However, Ritalin is less neurotoxic than amphetamines that can indeed hike your risks of Parkinson’s (and probably few other things)

Ritalin does damage to DNA, if that counts for anything.

To DNA? as in cancers?

Pls send some studies, very interesting.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#320
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is whether the two are somehow indistinguishable (to 80% of people, at least). IV bleach would also have pretty serious effects, but likely no one would confuse it for cocaine. The onus is on inter_netuser to provide evidence for the claim, not for pennaMann to refute it. I would imagine that literally no study exists comparing the effects of intravenous caffeine and cocaine, because who would possibly f…

Here is one similar study (I don't think is the right one though): > Intravenous nicotine and caffeine: subjective and physiological effects in cocaine abusers > The subjective and physiological effects of intravenously administered caffeine and nicotine were compared in nine subjects with histories of using caffeine, tobacco, and cocaine. > https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11160635/ Since this study exists, why is it…

Nora Volkow, the director of NIDA, an agency of NIH working on drugs and addiction, has like a 100 papers on cocaine.

Idk why people are so surprised. Even iv DMT has been funded and officially researched some time around 90s

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