Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An Experience with Modafinil

erowid.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 363 posts

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#341

Post by kortex »

0des wrote: post #329
inter_netuser wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To DNA? as in cancers? Pls send some studies, very interesting.

Sure. The early history of ritalin was the first sign to me that pharmatech industry owns their regulators. Check out the follow up research on 8-hydroxyguanine glycosylase as an indicator of oxidative DNA damage in response to the 2005 nih publications asserting no increased biomarkers, its somewhat surprising on both sides for Ritalin and the popular amphetamine alternative as well. https://link.springer.com/articl…

> The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of drugs (amphetamine, methylphenidate and atomoxetine)

> We observed decreased expression of this enzyme for all applied substances.

Yeah no I'm not buying it. Amphetamine, perhaps, but atomoxetine causing DNA damage? That sets off my "spurious results" detector, hard.

I'll look into it more but I've done deep research into all things psychostimulants and I have not seen any indication of genotoxicity of methylphenidate or atomoxetine. Amphetamine has a slight risk of increased oxidative stress due to making dopamine leak places where it shouldn't, and DA's electronic structure makes it prone to generating singlet oxygen and ROS, but it's typically only observed in really high doses, like the equivalent of hundreds of mgs per dose.

Like, maybe there's some increased ROS due to any drug that boosts DA/NA (oxidizing catecholamines produces ROS in general), but like, "ritalin causes DNA damage" is the wrong conclusion to draw from that.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#342

Post by kortex »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #323
kortex wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sublingual caffeine is definitely a thing. There is caffeinated gum you can get on Amazon. You can feel it kick in almost immediately.

Huh. Technically, that would probably be considered buccal (via the cheek) delivery, but, close enough, right? I had no idea caffeinated gum kicked in significantly faster than pills or drinks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buccal_administration

Yep, good catch. "buccal administration" is a bit more obscure so I often just refer to sublingual unless I know the audience.

Mucosal absorption is definitely way faster than pills (unless you chew them) or drink.

One time a friend and I tried making caffeine patches with DMSO as a transport, and put it on our arms with a cotton ball and tape...NOT PLEASANT. Extreme pruritus and erythema at the administration site. Hoo boy were we alert though. Nowadays the gum is perhaps a bit too fast even, it's easy to overdue and I get palpitations.

Follow me for more horrible ideas and biohacks. /s. I don't actually have a channel for my misadventures and shenanigans...maybe I should?

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#343

Post by oceanghost »

RankingMember wrote: post #263
oceanghost wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible but unlikely. You physically cannot sleep on these drugs without something like clonazepam. So I have no doubt a series of bad decisions could lead to someone being up that long. However, psychosis usually sets in around ~96 hours of sleep deprivation. It is however possible that this individual is unique or resistant, or maybe just his youth helped him. When I was 16 and MTV still played music-- I coul…

> You physically cannot sleep on these drugs without something like clonazepam. Please tell my brain this. Around 50% of the time my ADHD meds (Adderall) make me sleepy because, for once, my brain is calm and focused and it's a very relaxing experience as opposed to my typical state.

That just means you have real ADHD. Stimulants can have the opposite effect on people with ADHD.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#344

Post by madaxe_again »

openknot wrote: post #295
madaxe_again wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

>I may as well have been looking at someone else’s code in a language I’d never worked with before. Was there any memory or retention of C# and .net at all (e.g. if you tried to learn it later, was it easier to pick up, or was the memory completely gone)? I'm curious about what happened after, too. Were you rewarded with a raise/promotion, or was there no reward so you moved companies? Faced with an impossible deadli…

Nope, completely gone. I may as well have started from scratch the next time I looked at it.

It was my business. I was the idiot that signed us up for it - it was kinda out of necessity, as it was for the New York marathon, and their developers had evaporated on them two weeks before a critical deliverable - and we charged blood money for it.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#345

Post by inter_netuser »

fragmede wrote: post #330
inter_netuser wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's only half true. It's true that we don't know everything there is to know the brain, and critically we have zero idea where consciousness actually comes from; where 'you' exist within your brain. But we do know a whole hell of a lot of details. A bunch of the different chemicals inside of the brain, how they influence behavior and mood. We know a whole bunch about different receptors and have drugs to modify th…

I don’t disagree, there is of course a body of knowledge, which rapid churn implies that we are accreting that at a good pace.

And yet, despite all this, no better treatments that amphetamines have been found for so many cognitive disorders.

100 years old drug, and to prescribe which you don’t even need to know how much the brain weighs.

What is the use to the laity of all this research, if half of the time the answer is stimulants, the other have is SSRI?

I think we will be seeing the most promising area in sleep, because it’s so underserved and you can collect a lot relevant data inexpensively and un-intrusively.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#346

Post by sk5t »

samatman wrote: post #220
pengaru wrote: 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.

Or, and hear me out, people outside of cocaine's traditional region are using it wrong. The past being a different country, I was fortunate in the early Noughts to be able to purchase Bolivian coca tea bags from an early online drug dealer called Amazon dot com. They were a fantastic addition to the tea shelf. I would favor a cup of the coca tea when energy was low going into an evening with social plans. Even, brigh…

> intranasally

Should perhaps be insufflation

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#347

Post by inter_netuser »

dpark wrote: post #302
bgroat wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this argument in response to sugar. Sugar can't be as addictive as heroin! People give blowjobs to get more heroin, no one gives a blowjob for a chocolate bar. But that has nothing to do with addictiveness. I don't need to murder someone for coffee or provide oral sex for a snickers, because I can easily get those things anywhere, anyway

Pretty sure that sugar is not as addictive as heroin. Heroin users can literally die from withdrawal.

Given now we have dedicated facilities withdrawals from social media, I suppose it is pretty addictive, maybe even as bad heroin, but at least as bad as stimulants.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#348

Post by marcan_42 »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #262
pfortuny wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the score what makes a student a winner, though? That is what parents have to learn to curb.

The score is supposed to be representative of your knowledge in a subject. And the entire point of going to school is to become more knowledgeable in a subject so you can apply it somewhere in your life. If the score was not an indicator, then it serves no purpose.

Unfortunately, academic scores in most of the world stopped representing knowledge and started representing rote memorization long ago. They are a very, very poor indication of knowledge.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#349

Post by mannerheim »

krageon wrote: post #181
marcan_42 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe school shouldn't be a competition with winners and losers.

Capitalist life is a competition with winners and losers. The losers are basically debt-slaves, and the winners are modern royalty.

Capitalism has nothing to do with it. Schooling in China is and was even more competitive, making competition in American schools look like child's play. This was the case even before China opened up and introduced market reforms in the 90s.

Re: An Experience with Modafinil

#350

Post by saganus »

iammjm wrote: post #293
saganus wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a friend that liked the effects of Modafinil, but would complain of bad headaches every time they took some. Even less than 1 quarter of tablet would be enough to produce the bad effects. Is that something that happens just to some people or is there a way to avoid the headaches? I'm curious about trying, but since I used to suffer migraines (not anymore fortunately) I am worried that I will have headaches or t…

I suspect that his headaches might have been due to dehydration - Modafinil does indeed make me pee a little bit more/more often, but since I am drinking water constantly I don't consider this a negative side effect and I also don't suffer consequences such as headaches. But I am fortunately healthy, fit and relatively young (30) and only very rarely suffer headaches. Before I decided to use Modafinil I did research…

Interesting, thanks!

Definitely will need to read more about it before considering trying it.

Post reply on HN