Daily Harmalas + St. John's Wort - absolutely not an option?

[alkan0id]

I've been using various means of trying to deal with crippling depression caused by co-dependency over the last 12 years or so, including various SSRIs on and off (evil), and St. John's Wort. I've had far more success with the latter, despite it being less potent in its overall effect. My best spell with it was around 4 years ago, I had just come back from 6 months of travelling (escapism) in South East Asia, and couldn't deal with the pressure and responsibility of day-to-day life. I tried SJW and for a good while it eased a lot of tension, and I actually started to go out and be sociable and enjoy myself, relatively unimpeded by neuroses and depression. I even got a part-time job that helped keep me motivated and active.

SJW tends to wear off in its efficacy though, and after a few months I'd lost interest in life and my social life wasn't progressing how I had hoped. Also, the insomnia was always just terrible, even when it was working well. Cutting down the dose to reduce the insomnia just made the depression and demotivation came back stronger. Interestingly, re-upping the dose did not restore the original level of energy and anti-depressant effect. I went on and off SJW ove the next couple of years, eventually in desperation resorting to going on SSRIs for the sixth time, after not having had them for 5 years, swearing never again, but having no choice. This gave me a 2-3 day boost in mood and energy, as well as a calming effect. This quickly wore off, leaving just a zombified state and a higher level of motivation than usual, but nothing like enough to live life. I gave up on them and after some research, tried a combination of tyrosine and 5-HTP, which had only mild effects. Adding SJW to the mix barely kept me above water.

After more time I learn about ayahuasca, and its supposed magical healing properties. I dive into research, watching all the documentaries etc on YouTube, reading testomonials and forums, and decide that this is my last chance, I've tried everything, this has to work. I had to get off SJW and 5-HTP first, of course, which was painful because I had to go through much of the winter with nothing to prop me up. Dark times, but there was light at the end of the tunnel in the form of ayahuasca. That hope kept me going.

So now I've been experimenting with ayahuasca and rue with various light sources, and after many months, I can't honestly say I've been "healed" at all. In fact, I'm worse now that I relapsed on amphetamines at the weekend after 6 months of abstinence. Who knows how much of the delicate work done with ayahuasca has been destroyed by that one lapse. I've been dosing 100-150mg of full spectrum rue harmalas every day for 2-3 weeks now, after reading the amazing results some have achieved by doing this for depression. Again, I feel no improvement, although it still is early days.

So, despite almost everyone saying you shouldn't do this, I was wondering about adding SJW to the daily harmalas. Being without SJW has killed what little motivation I had - aya has not helped there at all. The argument against mixing it with any MAOI is that it acts as a mild reuptake inhibitor of serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, therefore introducing the risk of the dreaded serotonin syndrome. Well, maybe in people who have any serotonin in the first place. Is it not possible that the correct dosage of both harmalas and SJW could get better results than either one in isolation? At least enough to make life bearable?

 

[corpus callosum]

Heres a nice article looking at the (complicated) pharmacology of St Johns Wort; it has many constituents with active profiles including effects on the MAO system.

Department of Psychology

www.psych.yorku.ca

It strikes me as being risky to be taking harmalas regularly with it due to the plethora of the above mentioned ingredients and the effects on the cytochrome enzyme system, which are effected bhy both hypericum and harmalas.

The conventional wisdom on the combination of MAOIs (independent of cytochrome P450 effects) with SJW is 'avoid'; I agree with this at the present time.

 

[jamie]

I have said this elsewhere but I dont think simply taking harmalas daily is the answer to anything. You have to transform that energy in your daily life. I get better results by dosing once a week, or every few days or w/e you want and then finding time to get out and do things durring the week and try to integrate that energy and those lessons into my life. Go out and hike every day or go biking or go the beach etc..find things to do that keep you active, out in nature etc..and try to carry the messages you receive each week into the rest of your life.

Simply eating harmalas dialy does not = integration. I think daily dosing without integration activities is going to result in hitting a wall.

Your building new pathways but you have to exercise them or they atrophy like anything else and your old pathways just take over. Thats my experience anyway. Many people whoa re depressed and on anti depressants I have met in life are out of shape and dont seem to exercise much or anything..doing something even if its small every day could make a difference.

 

[alkan0id]

Nice to get an opinion from a real doctor on this, thanks. Can't be too many doctors out there who have ever even heard of harmalas.

It's got to the point for me now where any dose of rue harmalas is very dull and devoid of content, even doses that bring on significant nausea for several hours. It seems almost like a replacement for smoking weed - a quick dopamine hit. What insights I do get, even if they feel good and correct at the time, are not integrated the next day. Seems you're right about needing to space out the experiences more in time. I was hoping for at least some positive results from daily dosing. Very disappointing. I have invested a lot of time and effort into getting a decent scale rue extraction going. Seems like a total waste now. I guess depression is just incurable for some people.

 

[universecannon]

Yeah integration is key...Also-adding that tryptamine element into it i think can be vital in breaking a depression

theres a lot of good advice in this thread, if you haven't seen it yet caapi leaf tea for depression questions - Harmalas - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

 

[alkan0id]

I think what I really need is to use caapi instead of rue, the gulf is enormous. Rue has become so flat and boring to me it's hard to believe it's even rue. Caapi brings up so many more thoughts and insights, as it is I have almost nothing to integrate from the daily rue.

Thanks for the link, universecannon. I think I've seen it before but reading it again now there are things that I had missed/forgotten. There seem to be so many plants out there for depression besides ayahuasca/harmalas. Just frustrating that harmalas haven't resulted in any significant breakthroughs for me yet. Sceletium tortuosum looks interesting, the main alkaloid acting as a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. I am definitely interested in natural (S)SRIs from plants, hence me starting this thread. Seems mixing any such compound with harmalas is a bad idea though, sadly.

 

[embracethevoid]

As with all of what's been said, if by any chance you're referring to the amazing results in my own experience we've talked about in your other thread then be aware that in my case I'm actively practicing Chi Gong which basically moves the energy around and builds it up. You're not going to get much out of harmala with it passing in and out of your system, the magic is in the movements!


Keep the rue around, it'll be fruitful if you present a fertile ground for it. If you wish to heal from depression you need to throw EVERYTHING you got at it. It's not merely dosing harmala every day; the Big Pharma "1 pill a day keeps insanity away" doctrine is a load of pure horseshit. Depression is a condition that arises when to put it bluntly, your life/modus operandi sucks.

How to remove this condition... Get out more, learn to meditate, keep meditating and bit by bit chip away at all the negative conditioning and illusory beliefs embedded deep in your psyche, often so deep that you are not even aware it's there at first. The first mode of action should be to detox allergens, heavy metals and parasites from the body, all negative environmental stimuli. Then eat some good highly nutritious food which YOU and your body loves, and focus on actually channeling that food energy into a meaningful/wondrous life. When depressed it's either very hard to see awe in life or too easy if you're like me and enjoy the melancholy.

Keep cultivating and yes, add the harmalas bit by bit. Caapi would definitely go a lot further here. A little Caapi a day is good, 5-10g is more than enough. Happiness cannot be obtained as an object packaged from the store but with some love, you can grow your own.


Also, check if you are belly breathing all day long. This should be your GO-TO check for depressed/anxious moods. You would be surprised to find that over 80% of the depressive states you experience are a direct result of compression on the abdomen thereby hindering correct deep breathing!

 

[alkan0id]

I wasn't referring to you, no. You made it quite clear that you do/did a long list of very specific and extreme things in order to garner superpowers from harmalas, and it's not superpowers that I'm looking for, although I consider what most average people manage to do with their lives superpowers compared to what little I can do. I was referring in particular to this guy: Using caapi for severe depression - Help and Advice for Healing - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus . Takes x amount of harmalas before bed, severe depression gone in 6 months.

Having said that, I went into a very weird, almost shamanic state last night, at a point when usually the harmalas have worn off to a light mong. Started tripping and rushing quite hard to music, almost to the point where I forgot my pain and worldly desires. It was probably a resurgence of the dodgy RCs I had taken the other night which I am still coming down from hard now, prompting me to look into desperate measures such as mixing SJW with MAOIs. My life/MO do indeed suck bad - when you have no motivation or willpower it stays that way and gets steadily worse. When I was on SJW I had more motivation and control - at least until they ceased to be effective. I live with my parents, I can't imagine being strong enough to support myself enough to get my own place, and that's what I would need for full control over diet, etc. Sounds pathetic but that's how far behind I am.

As for belly breathing - is this something that should be manually overridden when I catch myself doing it? Or does it mean a straight back/better posture while sitting is required?

 

[embracethevoid]

It's a matter of correct spinal alignment which will automatically correct your breathing in the process. If you have anterior pelvic tilt (which is common for anyone who sits down a lot of the time) then correct that ASAP.


Let the breath sink to the pelvic floor and back up to the head/nose. This is the maximal breath you can take and a few minutes of this will leave your body tingling; keep it going as often as you can.


Look into exercising, especially weight lifting and HIIT (high intensity interval training) cardio. Essentially you need to boost BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor), something which slows down massively in depressed people. This is what produces the feeling of helplessness as the brain has lost its neuroplasticity and cannot change its state too easily.

Also, they aren't superpowers
Just maintaining silence and awareness of What Is

 

[Jees]

Daily Harmalas + St. John's Wort - absolutely not an option?

...The use of ayahuasca in conjunction with anti-depressants, substances like MDMA (XTC) or pharmaceuticals of botanical nature such as St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum), can potentially produce interactions, leading to adverse effects. Cardiac, hepatic, renal and neurologic pathologies, as well as the medications used to treat them, can also increase the probability of adverse reactions...

They talk about vine, not rue, but check your own guide in this.

 

[obliguhl]

Sceletium tortuosum

Do check that out. I produces a mood altering effect that's for sure. My experimentation was disrupted unfortunatly (lost my extract). A small pinch of 5x under my tongue would provide an effect. It is a tool to have in your box in fighting depression.

 

[alkan0id]

obliguhl: it definitely looks promising. I believe that there must be a workable combination of dosages of both MAOIs and SSRIs that give the synapses the jolt they need, but without the risk of serotonin syndrome. After all, harmine and harmaline are MAOIs, and tetrahdroharmine is a weak SSRI, and all three alkaloids occur together in ayahuasca.

Finally recovering from this horrific comedown from the weekend. Some 5-HTP and DLPA really jolted me out of it like never before - a real mood lift with optimism for life and relief of tension. I'm still crabby and lazy, but that rut of suicidal despair has been lifted for the time being. Seems the troika of harmalas, serotonin precursors and dopamine precursors are enough to keep me afloat for now.

embracethevoid: The Noopept and Choline should be helping with BDNF, and NGF as well. It seems I don't feel the effects of anything I try until the actual levels of key neurotransmitters are boosted. 5-HTP normally has the tiniest, most insignificant effect but today it really blasted me out of this nightmare comedown. I can only assume that it was what the harmalas had been looking for all this time. Inbihiting enzymes that breakdown neurotransmitters isn't going to do a whole lot if you don't have any neurotransmitters between the synapses in the first place.