# Piracetam log, wow



## Andreth (Oct 31, 2011)

Warning: long post. Summary at bottom.

Background: Been depressed for awhile due to SA acting up really bad, stressing out about getting a job/functioning in a job environment when I'm so anxious.

A few weeks back I had tried taking phenibut for SA and it was great...but it only really worked that one time. I had tried it again a week later at twice the dose but it had a much weaker effect and then a few weeks after that it made me just feel uncomfortable with kind of a pitiful effect, so I was looking for a way to reduce phenibut tolerance and read that piracetam helped with it and I ordered some. I haven't tried taking it with phenibut yet but I've been taking piracetam by itself and all I can say is it's amazing. Here's my experience so far:

Saturday:
Got my piracetam 800mg caps, and alpha-GPC 300mgs in the mail. (I ordered the alpha-gpc since I read you're supposed to take a choline source with the piracetam). I took 800mg of piracetam with 300mg of alpha-GPC. After maybe 20-30minutes I start getting this odd tunnel-vision effect and it seems like my focus might be a little better but overall it's odd. Then I start feeling really tired and foggy brained.

Sunday:
I'm about to chalk up the whole piracetam thing as being total crap but then I figure I might as well try it without the choline and see if things are any different (and I figure if I get a headache from choline-deficiency then I can just take the alpha-GPC afterwards).

So I take 800mg of piracetam in the afternoon. I don't feel much so I take two more caps over the next hour. I go on with the rest of my day and sometime around 8 or 9 pm I notice that somethings different. Usually on Sunday night's I get anxious about going to school/work on Monday and it's not that pleasant for me. But I notice that I don't even care for some reason and I'm able to enjoy sunday night like everythings fine. At this point I don't even attribute it to piracetam because it seemed so subtle.

Monday:
When I wake up I'm feeling anxious and kinda depressed as usual but I notice it's totally different from the previous night. So I start to wonder if it was the piracetam so I take 3 caps (2400mg) in the morning. During my commute I start feeling...happier. It's weird, and when I had to interact with people I actually felt a lot less drained emotionally. There was still anxiety but it was more like my brain had a constant energy boost and it wasn't as overwhelmed with the anxiety. And there was some feeling where I felt other people's activities were trivial, like there would be no point in judging myself vs. what other people were doing (confidence? or some kind of disconnected confidence? It was interesting). The feelings wore off about 5-6hours but I did feel kinda "healed" a bit emotionally but not enough.

When I got home I decided I'd see how much piracetam I could comfortably take since the effects were amazing. I basically took a whole lot like 4-5grams in a dose and experimented with a few different doses. Too much and it made me feel tired and irritable.

Tuesday:
Tried taking 5 caps (4grams) in the morning. It was too much, felt mentally tired and then I started getting irritable which was weird. Eventually after enough of it had left my system I started getting the happier feelings back.

Wednesday:
Debated on trying 3 or 4 caps but I just settled on 3 caps since that probably wouldn't push me over into getting tired/irritable. And yeah, that seems like a sweetspot since I felt all the mood benefits and also anxiety really didn't get to me as much (still did but it's like I had more brain energy to cope against it without wearing me out). Only thing is it seems I have to dose it pretty regularly to keep the effects up, like every 5 hours or so.

One of the really nice things is that I've always had this kind of emotional feeling in my chest/upper back that feels worse if I'm depressed or anxious or whatever. After taking the piracetam that feeling started to feel like it was healing. It's been increasing my mood more and more each day I take it, and the depression I've had is starting to fade from memory. Even when the effects wear off I don't feel as bad as I used to since it's like I've had a break from the depression. It's even given me some other interesting effects, like colors look brighter and more vivid. I was playing a video game the other day and things looked totally surreal, was pretty interesting. And with higher doses it felt like going into a hypomanic state. Though honestly it doesn't bother me too much considering that compared to depression being that kind of happy is nice. Overall things would just be more enjoyable and it seemed like it was somewhat independent of the activity, whereas I remember with phenibut I would get that drunken kind of enjoyability kick to activities but it felt like the activity was more fun, but with piracetam it's like the enjoyment is coming from me less from the activity(I wonder if that helps with confidence). It also seems to help with talking conversationally with people. Words just flow better.

I've read that there isn't really a tolerance that builds up with this. So I'm hoping that holds true since I find this stuff to be fantastic as a mood-elevator while helping with fighting against anxiety.


Summary:
Piracetam has been making me a ton less depressed (additive effect each day I've been on it), brain feels like it has more energy, anxiety is less of a drain. Makes colors/imagery more vivid. Causes irritability/mental fatigue if taking too much. Been on it for 4 days, will update with developments.


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## Andreth (Oct 31, 2011)

I also ordered some aniracetam and pramiractam powder to test them out after seeing the positive results from piracetam. Tried both of them today. The powder is absolutely horrible tasting (pramiracetam is the worst substance I've ever tasted, the memories of the taste haunted me hours afterwards lol) so I guess I'll have to put them in caps or something.

I took around 750mg of aniracetam first. That was interesting. It's like the world got quieter and I was able to focus more on things. I also got this huge sedative kind of feeling, like a benzo. I had read aniracetam was good for anxiety so I guess that was why, but I still preferred piracetam since that didn't sedate me. It gave me nausea after a half hour to an hour from the dose which was a turnoff.

A few hours later I then tried about 200mg of pramiracetam. Now this stuff is no joke, I heard about how strong this stuff is and now I see why. It gave me an eerily crystal clear focus on things. I say eerily because it felt like I was some kind of robot. I think I see why other people say it blunts emotions. For me it basically just made it so that interest in something was no longer a factor in being able to focus. I could just start doing something and there'd be no resistance in focusing. Even if it was the boringest thing in the world I'd still be able to focus on it because it didn't matter if I was interested in it or not. In a way it did feel like emotion was less of a factor and I felt more robotic. I wasn't swayed anymore by emotions dictating my actions, it was this clear calculating logic where I could decide to do something and my total focus would zone in on that. From this one time experience I wonder if it impacts creativity, because I was talking to my friend on the phone during this time and I noticed I was a lot less animated in the conversation, like the goal was just to talk and my mind didn't wander to random or as interesting topics, I would just decide to talk based on what logically seemed reasonable. I wouldn't be surprised if I'd come off as more boring on pramiracetam (though maybe if you logically decided to act more "exciting" it'd work? I wonder)

Despite the whole robotifying effect of pram, it was pretty ridiculous in terms of studying or remembering things. It's like nothing else distracts you when you're doing something so it's really easy to remember what you were focusing on since it's like laser focus. I'm interested in trying pram more often to see if this effect stays or fades...just have to find a way to avoid the horrible taste of it. As for aniracetam I'm still put off with the nausea it gave me, made things uncomfortable for a few hours. I also ordered some oxiracetam powder to try out too, will post experiences with that.


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## bigcat1967 (Apr 20, 2010)

Interesting. Please keep up this case study.


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## Andreth (Oct 31, 2011)

bigcat1967 said:


> Interesting. Please keep up this case study.


Thanks. I haven't had this much of success (so far) with a medication for SA so I thought I'd write out all my experience to see if it actually does have a long-term effect or it just wears out like a lot of things (meds or other nondrug therapy) I've done in the past.

So here's an update on what's been going on. Loong post so I'll split it up into two posts with a summary of both at the end of the next post.

*Thursday:*

Aniracetam:
Had woken up pretty early, maybe around 3am and was worrying about school stuff later in the day (I'm a pharmacy student doing rotations at a hospital and we have to go on rounds. We just got a new attending on Wednesday who asks the pharmacy students a lot of questions and I had to present on something to the whole rounding team today. I can normally do presentations alright in terms of saying what needs to be said but in terms of my subjective experience it just takes so much out of me, the anxiety and everything just makes me feel so uncomfortable leading up to it etc.). So I remembered about the aniracetam kinda being superrelaxing so I figured I'd take some and give it a shot. I didn't measure the amount since I'd have to get out my scale and everything so I took around what the previous dose looked like, maybe around 700mg-1g. Once again I got that huge rush of relaxation and I felt more relaxed about the rest of the day. But one thing aniracetam always seemed to work on my anxiety from the "outside", and it'd be really potent at doing that, but it didn't feel like it did anything to cause of the anxiety so I'd still feel like a small something was "still there" about my anxiety that wasn't being touched by aniracetam. It seemed like a superficial kind of anxiety relief, but really really potent/good at it. Whereas piracetam seemed to work from the inside and it took care of that small something (also giving relief my depression) but didn't create the exaggerated sense of calm from aniracetam.

Pramiracetam/Piracetam/Aniracetam:
So I decided I'd take the combo of pramiractam/piracetam around 7am and see if it would help my learning ability during rounds from pramiracetam. Took my normal dose of 2400mg Piracetam, and then about 400-500mg of pramiracetam. Things did not go as expected. During my commute there I noticed I wasn't getting that nice feeling of depression/anxiety relief from the piracteam, instead I was feeling tired like I had taken too much. However I was able to get some of that better focus from the pramiracetam and while I was reading up a bit on my presentation topic it was really easy to keep my mind on the task and retain the information better. During rounds while I was able to take notes and retain information about what was being discussed much better, my anxiety/normal uncomfortableness in this social situation wasn't being touched so I still felt uncomfortable. Presentation went alright but the social anxiety was still there so I probably came off a bit nervous and it was still uncomfortable. I also noticed at times I'd start getting irritated (which seems to happen whenever I take too much piracetam) Later on at around 1:00 I took 800mg of piracetam but I could barely get any effects from that, I'm guessing because I took too much pramiracetam not sure, so still no anxiety/depression relief at that point.

About an hour later another student was presenting on a topic and the effects on my whole social/confidence perspective from this combo was pretty odd/interesting/conflicting. So on one hand while listening to the presentation I was able to focus really well on the topic being discussed and at the same time I thought of asking a good question at the end since it'd be an interesting discussion point. It was strange because it was like I had this very strong logic-based confidence from the pramiracetam. I was going to ask an interesting question because it would be interesting, that was it, nothing else (like anxiety reasons) made sense to deter me from that. However at the same time I still felt uncomfortable being in this social situation, I felt uncomfortable making eye contact or making non-logic based conversation. I asked the question at the end easily, and there was interesting discussion about it. It's like the anxiety was still floating all around but the pramiracetam just had me go through it to my logical decision despite it still being uncomfortable.

Later, around 5pm when I got home I was still wondering why it was like the piracetam effects had been nullified. So I thought it might be choline depletion that I've heard about with the racetams and I took about 900mg of alpha-GPC (first took 300mg and things felt better then took more). And...wow a ton of effects began to come back. The pramiracetam focus felt like it had the day before, being able to totally zone into things as opposed to the more subdued feeling I had been getting earlier in the day, and colors started looking more vibrant and I also noticed some relaxation similar to what I'd get from aniracetam (I guess since I had taken it really early it was still affecting me). So yeah, it seemed like with adding on all that pramiracetam I needed a choline source if I didn't want to feel tired/like I'd taken too much. Or so I thought...

*Friday:*
Okay, so I had a new plan. I'd take the normal dose of 2400mg piracetam, and then a smaller amount (100mg pramiracetam), ~500mg aniracetam, along with 600mg alpha-gpc as a choline source. So would this work? Nope... Again I took this in the morning. During my commute I noticed how pretty the grass looked in the sunlight and I could tell things looked a lot more vibrant. However again I noticed I wasn't getting the relief I usually get from piracetam. Again it was being nullified somehow. I also wasn't really getting much of the benefits from the pramiracetam, it was like my focus was turned inward, I was uncomfortable with social situations and my mind felt tired on top of that. Only really good thing was that I could focus on one thing pretty well but overall things were just too uncomfortable feeling.

On getting home several hours later I tried taking the alpha-GPC, didn't really cure the whole mental tiredness thing. So after these two days on having the piracetam effect nullifed I decided to cut out the pramiracetam. (though looking back on this log now maybe the solution is to reduce my piracetam dose when I'm taking a combo? hmm). And then on Friday I realized that my shipment of piracetam powder never came, and I only had a few caps left of piracetam...not enough for the weekend :shock. Bummer. But the oxiracetam I ordered did come (After noticing the different effects of pram/ani I wanted to try out all 4 racetams lol). So I figured I'd give it a try on Friday afternoon.

Oxiracetam:
I'd read a bunch of things about this one, that it could increase anxiety, but that it was really good for focus, and made music sound better. I took about 800mg of it (similar to how much aniracetam I had taken before). I put on some music after I had started to feel something. And yeah, it's like the kind of focus aniracetam gave me with say reading something, oxiracetam gave me that kind of focus with listening. Music was much more enjoyable. Infact a lot of things felt a lot more enjoyable, I had had a bit of anhedonia for awhile due to the depression and it's like oxiracetam charged up the part of the brain responsible for enjoying external stimuli and kept that "active". Only thing is it started making me anxious, like really anxious, like I felt I shouldn't feel so open to enjoying everything like that and anxiety started building up. So yeah I probably won't be trying oxiracetam again anytime soon (the increased anxiety seemed to last over a day), probably need to resolve whatevers making me depressed/anxious inside before I'd want to even try that another time.


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## Andreth (Oct 31, 2011)

*Saturday/Sunday (Aniracetam):*
So since my piracetam supply was very low I figured I'd experiment with taking aniracetam just by itself during the weekend and see if it helped any with SA (I'd read another person's experience with aniracetam who said he felt calmer in social situations even after stopping taking it for a month+). Taking it throughout the weekend it kind of gave me the feeling of having dopamine agonist like effects but also with strong relaxation. Libido increased, I'd be able to enjoy things again except for the fact that I still had that nagging feeling about something not being right (like the whole thing about aniracetam only working on the outside-in for anxiety) and that limited me from feeling like thing's were "ok" with me. It kinda felt like it was just a bandaid, a very strong bandaid at that though. And also the effects would seem pretty erratic. About a halfhour to 1 hour after taking it I'd get that huge rush of relaxation similar to a benzo, then after another hour that would die down a bit and I'd get a totally different kind of feeling where it'd feel like I was hmm...I don't know like I was in warm water and things were just more relaxed. (I'm guessing these different effects are from what I've read about aniracetam itself having a short half-life of ~2 hours but also there being active metabolites that have anxiolytic effects) But I don't know all of it would seem so variable in terms of the effects...not sure if I'm a fan of taking it when it seems to be doing random things to me and changing in effect nearly hour to hour.

I tried to spread out my last few capsules of piracetam lol to try and get that relief. Half a cap or 1 cap every few hours was way too low a dose and the depression/anxiety was back (though it was nice to think back to the few days earlier in the week when I had taken the right piracetam doses and things were happy). After seeing that my piracetam delivery would only get here on Wednesday I really wanted to see if I could get some sooner. I checked if I ordered some more caps with one-day shipping it'd arrive on Monday. Extra money but honestly thinking of the difference between having to endure my crappy life in comparison to the relief on piracetam I ordered some for monday.

*Monday:*
Early in the morning look my last halfcap (400mg) of piracetam. Small effect, but not much. 11:00 came and so did my piracetam capsules (thank god lol). Took my usual dose of 2400mg alone. After an hour I start feeling so much better again, and theres also the increase in visual effects, lol I just noticed playing video games is enhanced with more vibrant colors again I guess that's a bonus to everything else. In fact I hadn't even felt like coming back on here to post due to feeling down/anxious like my usual self as of late. But now (monday afternoon) I feel more capable of things again...phew. I notice no decrease in effects whatsoever, hopefully things hold up for me in terms of tolerance not developing as I've read thats the case for a number of people, hope it's true.

So here's my thoughts from the past few days on all of this. I think I'm just going to go with piracetam for the next days and not try to mess with adding the other racetams. I haven't found some correct dosage of the combos where I don't take too much and end up cancelling out the piracetam effects. And piracetam's the only one of these that actually makes me feel better as time goes on, like my body is able to use this time out of the depression to start to relax inside and be less in terror about the world. It still stands out in my mind early last week when I was on it (and didnt take too much) and was out of the depression...like those were happy times that it feels like forever since things have been like that. I'll probably be refining my doses this week to find out when/how much is good to take. Been thinking of trying 3200mg in one dose instead of 2400mg just to see if that doesn't push me over into the no-effect/tiredness zone and let me go longer between doses (I've also read elsewhere about this inverse U-shaped curve where apparently you don't get effects at too low of a dose or too high of one..holds true for me).

*Summary (divided by -racetam):*

Combos:
Adding pramiracetam/aniracetam to my normal piracetam dosing schedule nullified piracetam's effects. Adding a choline source: debatable whether this helps. Possibly need to decrease piracetam dose when adding other racetams, not sure but because of losing piracetam's effect each time I've combo'd I'm going to stick with piracetam alone for awhile. More experimenting with combos will have to wait.

Pramiracetam: I'd take this whenever I could if I didn't get the negative side effects. Gives a ridiculously strong logic-based confidence which lets me power through to get to a goal that makes logical sense (e.g. asking someone for the time because you want to know what time it is, nothing else comes into the equation), but I still feel all the anxiety/uncomfortableness associated with the situation. Easy to remember information, it sticks in memory, as if there's nothing to distract me from my mind getting the information stored in my memory on first exposure.
New ideas don't spontaneous pop up like usual, it's only if I'm thinking e.g. "Okay I need to go pick up some groceries tomorrow" then I'll start thinking of different ways to fit that into my schedule, but all those ideas only pop up because I have a goal. Life on pramiracetam is very A -> B, makes me feel like I've become a cyborg lol and that's not even a joke. Talking to people it seems like I'm less exciting since it makes me so goal-oriented and talking say to a friend there's not really any goal, it's just talking kinda spontaneously. Though I imagine it'd be pretty ridiculous to use when just needing to get something done e.g. work straight for 8 hours on something.

Aniracetam: Very variable effects, strong relaxation. Seems to last into the next day, albeit with a different effect, like things are more peaceful. The "peacefulness" and overall effect from aniracetam doesn't feel deep, just like a very potent bandaid.

Oxiracetam: External stimuli became more enjoyable, enjoyment from external things became focused on more, zoned into music/sounds which sounded clearer and more "upfront". The increased enjoyment came at a price: increased anxiety, fear about being so "open" to enjoying things.

Piracetam: Still getting the same effects as before when taking it alone at the same 2400mg per dose. It's like it increases my mental reserves to help deliver whatever it is my body is demanding for my depression. I feel better the longer I'm in this "relief mode" from the depression. Increased mental reserves also lead to some form of stronger coping ability with anxiety, like the anxiety isn't draining more than I have anymore? I'll have to see with longer-term use. And then there's all the other bonus effects, like subtle memory enhancement, words flowing during conversation easier, more vibrant colors. I think my confidence is also increasing as I get used to not expecting anxiety bringing down my mood as much...though I'll have to see if that's real over time.


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## Andreth (Oct 31, 2011)

Alright so I used Monday to see how often I could take 2400mg piracetam (3 of my 800mg caps) so I could maintain the effects of it without going over. It came out to around every 4-4.5hours dosing. Kinda more frequent than I would like but I guess that fits the stated half-life (4-5hours).

As for the experience, I definitely notice that the longer I'm on it and my dose isn't too low or too high my mood steadily builds up. On monday that was the case, though in the evening while I was figuring out the best dosing interval I waited a bit too long before a dose and noticed the effects went away and my depression came back. Not a good experience, the contrast seemed so extreme since piracetam somehow boosts my mood pretty nicely. After that I wanted to see if I could maintain therapeutic levels of piracetam in my body so that I could keep the depression away long enough for me to "heal".

*Tuesday:*
Had to go to a group interview at my school later in the day. In the morning when I woke up, wasn't feeling as great as Monday so I took 2400mg piracetam right away. Overall my mood kept getting better as the day went on however the anxiety when I had to talk to people was still there and kept "draining" my mood. It's too bad that piracetam doesn't seem to work directly on the anxiety, it just seems like it gives me more of a mood buffer with it so far: I get less unhappy from anxiety/potential rejection from people since my mood is strengthened. Anyways what I did notice was that while I didn't see any difference in me initiating talking with someone or whatever (I still hesitated before I'd want to talk because of being anxious), when I actually did say something my speaking was very fluid and well-formed. It actually surprised me.

Another interesting thing is that monday and tuesday I was talking to my friend on the phone and usually I let my friend do a lot of the talking but on piracetam I was able to switch conversation threads and think of things to say much easier. I think that's a pretty nice effect, words come a lot easier on this.

Also on Tuesday I noticed the mood-uplift started getting a little distracting. Like it brought my mood up to a level where I was content but then it kept going up, it felt like hypomanic at a point.

*Wednesday:*
The mood lift effect pretty much stabilized, like my mood couldn't raise any more. But then things started to seem boring mixed in with being slightly irritable about the boredom. I couldn't really pinpoint why, but I think maybe I needed choline. I had a few eggs later in the day to see if that was it since they're a pretty good source of choline, and I started to have a bit more interest in things but still not as much as usual. I'm not that interested in trying a choline supplement though like Alpha-GPC since reading a few other people's experience it sounded like tolerance was more likely if too much choline was taken so I'm thinking of seeing if I'll adapt and get out of this "bored" feeling with things maybe after a few days.

I was studying and I noticed how much more I could memorize before needing to take a break. Basically I was able to memorize 3x the amount of information as usual before taking a break which was surprising. Unfortunately though my desire to study or focus I guess wasn't affected at all so it's not like I went into a studying spree, but my memory became improved.

I tried some caffeine in the evening since I remembered last week caffeine was really potentiated when I was on piracetam. And yeah, somehow piracetam makes caffeine work to crazy levels. It's like I'm super "on" without the negatives of feeling jittery or wired. I don't know though...if it's a good idea to start taking caffeine regularly with this considering how much it's potentiated by piracetam. But the caffeine did take away the bored feeling I was getting on Wed.

*Thursday:*
The only part of depression that had been bothering me was the fear of dropping back into how I'd feel off the piracetam. Piracetam had some way of taking out all the lows and raising my mood, but I was still afraid of going back into the pit. But sometime later in the day it's like the fear didn't bother me as much because it had been so long since I'd felt depressed (3 days?). Almost like depression was starting to fade from my memory...ahhh. Also the bored uninterested feeling I'd had is lessening a lot so that's pretty good.

I've also been getting the urge to exercise more and have been the last few days which is awesome too.

My dreams have been amazing. Partly as I'm actually remembering my dreams now when I wake up which I haven't been able to do in a really long time. My dreams are happy too.

My plan now is to just keep taking the piracetam at regular ~4-4.5hour intervals to stay in that "sweet spot" range and continue getting that depression-destroying effect long enough so I'll feel better long-term. My 1kg of piracetam powder arrived so I guess I'll need to start figuring out how to dose that too.

I kinda miss pramiracetam though, I feel like I could get so much done with studying taking that since it gives such great robot-like focus/extreme memorizing capabilities at the cost of human emotion (seriously the effect on it is so weird...like being a robotized human lol). But pramiracetam gives me no anti-depressant effects so piracetam is more important to me right now.

*Summary:
*Piracetam continues to give me great anti-depressant effects taking it every ~4 hours. And the longer I'm not depressed the less "traumatized" I feel from having been depressed for so long. Only side effect is feeling bored/slight irritability at being bored, though that has been lessening. Also seems to make caffeine feel great. Dreams are happier/more vivid/easier to remember. Learning information becomes less difficult. Speech is more fluid/witty/etc if I decide to talk. Colors are still more vibrant though I'm getting used to it and it isn't as much "wow" anymore as just "cool". No effect on focus. It's mainly like it gives my brain more headroom to do all of its activities. I just wish I could find something else that would tackle anxiety directly without bad side effects.


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## kirbyisawesome (Jan 25, 2012)

Well I would like to update that I do not use a Cholinergic source for the time being. I'm giving myself specific test results with only racetam synergistic effects to determine effectiveness without the use of cholinergics. The two racetams I am only using now is Piracetam and Neuro Wave Aniracetam both sources from the same manufacturer here in the USA. These two racetams have given me reasons to have a relative sense of security and safety when I am ingesting either of them. Piracetam and Aniracetam have enough valid information stating the positive and neuroprotective effects given when used. I wasn't able to find as much information as I did when I was conducting extensive research on Piracetam. I was able to find this document though from a particular website - Human studies have established that Aniracetam is a powerful cognitive enhancer. Study participants improved their scores on a number of intelligence and memory tests (Saletu, 1980, 1984). Piracetam is relatively safe and harmless for anyone that is interested in experiencing the effects of any nootropic or one that is part of the racetam family. I did however find Oxiracetam harmless as well. It also has a similar effect to the Piracetam and Aniracetam synergy. I was not able to find much information on the source though... I am in further studies in Oxi- (stated to be the much stronger form of Piracetam and shares very similar chemical structure) as well as Prami- (this has been stated to be the "cousin" to Aniracetam as they are both lipid soluble sources and are simliar in chemical structure). I have not tested out Pramiracetam, so I can not speak on the substance stated. This will have to be further down the road. As for the claims of one being stronger than the other, I would have to agree in the slightest way. From my own personal usage, all have different effects and one is only more potent than the other when comparing racetams of similar chemical structure (This stating my use and comparison of Piracetam and Oxiracetam) The overall effects I experience from Aniracetam and Piracetam is concentration/meditative state of being and a sense of having confidence in social interactions. It cancels out the slightly "sweaty palms" issue I get when I am in public as well. Great journal by the way and thank you Andreth. I have a high respect for those who share their experiences with everyone. I'll be checking every so often to see how your experiences pan out. 

Does a cholinergic source need to be used with a racetam? The answer is to be determined by the individual who can determine and test the difference results when using or not using the two sources if you do share in the future! 

Sources where information was gathered:
Erowid - Aniracetam, Piracetam
Smart Drugs for Thought - What is Aniracetam? | What is Piracetam?
Drug-Forums - Nootropics - Racetams

"Makes colors/imagery more vivid. Causes irritability/mental fatigue if taking too much." Interesting to hear this. I have experienced a type of photosensitivity with a good amount of piracetam alone. It tends to make bright colors a little more intense and makes them more vibrant in a sense.


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## Andreth (Oct 31, 2011)

No problem for providing the log kirby. It's actually pretty good for me too since I can look back and see what kind of effects I had from each change I make and all that. I've also started trying some of the other racetams again, will get to that in the log. Log isn't as detailed this time around since I'm feeling a lot better now and now that my depression is seemingly tackled I just need to see what helps with my anxiety/motivation. Geez, didn't realize it's been nearly a week since my last post.


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## Andreth (Oct 31, 2011)

*Friday:*
Dreams continue to be pretty amazing/happy. In fact I had been wondering the previous day how I'd convert to using powder now for my piracetam doses instead of capsules, like getting the dosage right and all that since it's not all that convenient using the weighing scale I have. And then poof the answer came to me in a dream. Basically in the dream I was wondering the same thing, and then I just emptied out one of the 800mg caps into a measuring spoon and used that as a reference. So...lol when I woke up I was like umm why didn't I just think of that myself. But yeah so I did that and 800mg of the powder fit just right into one of the measuring spoons I had. Pretty simple solution but I'm still impressed how my dreams are so much improved now, even helping me figure things out.

Kept the same piracetam regimen going now with powder, 2400mg every 4-4.5hours and that kept me from any effects from it going away. Not much was going on Friday, spent most of my time watching a marathon of one of my fave tv series. I was taking caffeine every now and then to get rid of the bored/irritated feeling that I started getting...still hadn't added choline. But the caffeine seems to work only thing is that after awhile I feel hmm like being on a stimulant even though I'm not even taking all that much, like half a can of mountain dew is enough to make me feel like that while on piracetam. So...I was pretty into the marathon lol and I kept watching until I caught up on all the episodes which neatly ran into the next day and gave me about an hour to get ready for Saturday's activities. So yeah I pulled an allnighter. Interestingly enough it was actually pretty easy to stay up all night on piracetam, I didn't get any mood drop effect that I'd sometimes have when realizing that I'd be tired the next day not getting enough sleep.

*Saturday:*
I had to go to an all day board exam review at my school. I thought it'd also be interesting to see how I'd do running off of no sleep while being on piracetam since I decided to do that tv series marathon on Friday. Oh yeah and the day before I had realized I was just about out of my caps so I needed a way to be able to take the powder on the go. After looking up how stable piracetam was in water, I decided I'd try to dissolve a few doses in a water bottle and drink that during the day.

Went to class. Drank the "water bottle" every few hours. But man that stuff doesn't taste that great at all. Was kinda hard to get it all down, but it still worked at giving me the piracetam effects. In terms of being sleep-deprived on piracetam. It's like my mind wasn't slower at all. It was just my body feeling the sleep-deprivation but my mind was fine, I didn't even get any kind of mood decrease from the tiredness which was interesting. In class I didn't initiate conversations any more than usual, but when I did say something words came out much smoother and easier/fluid than off piracetam, it seems like this is one of piracetams effects that it keeps providing to me. Back at home my body was dead tired and I was feeling worn out both from the allnighter and also I couldn't take the bored/slightly irritable feeling I had so I figured I needed to try some choline. Took about 150mg with my next dose of piracetam and the bored feeling got better. But I was dead tired from the allnighter so I went to bed, slept for 10+ hours.

*Sunday:*
Had to go to school again for another day of board review. This time from the previous days events I decided to start adding choline since the allnighter made that "bored" feeling from regular piracetam dosing all the more prominent in my mind and it didn't seem to be going away on its own. Put the doses in a water bottle again, this time measuring so I'd get 150mg choline per 2400mg piracetam. So there was a significant decrease in the bored feeling seemingly from the choline, day went pretty good. The water was actually somewhat tolerable when it wasn't just piracetam in it, but now some choline. Still didn't initiate conversations more than usual, but again talking when someone spoke to me was pretty easy once my mouth started moving.

Got home and for my next dose of piracetam I took 300mg choline instead of 150mg. I think this was appropriate since the bored feeling all but went away, and I guess that's pretty close to the 1:10 ratio cholineiracetam that I see recommended a lot.

So for whatever reason after I took this dose I wanted to see how it'd feel stopping the piracetam. I think it got to the point that my mood had stabilized enough that the depression was pretty much gone from memory and I was content enough to not think I needed to take it anymore. Note that my anxiety was still there about things, just the depression gone. My last dose was probably around 6pm or so.

*Monday:*
Woke up. No amazing dreams. It felt like my "mood buffer" from the piracetam was slowly decreasing, but the depression wasn't coming back, it was just like the safety net wasn't there anymore to prevent me from going to the lows but for some reason my mood wasn't going low anyways. What was interesting is that a number of effects from the piracetam were still felt even though I'd been off it. I still wasn't depressed, colors were still more vibrant, and I still had what seemed like more "brainpower" for things. So since the depression wasn't coming back I started to think that what I really needed was motivation now. Despite all the good things piracetam was doing I was still unmotivated to do things. I don't know if it's just that the piracetam didn't work on the depression-related lack of motivation or whatever but I decided that it was time to try out pramiracetam since my mood was doing pretty good. I had another all-day board review class on Tuesday to go to so I thought I'd try out pramiracetam only the next morning.

*Tuesday:*
Woke up. Took 200mg pramiracetam. Also took 300mg choline to see how that worked. Pram tastes so bad, but at least I don't have to take much of it since its more potent than the others.
After about 10-20minutes I feel that familiar huge confidence boost that it gives and its easy to zone in with my focus. But then about an hour later I get what seems like a different sort of feeling where some of the effects diminish and my brain feels tired. I became more introverted and didn't want to make eye contact with anyone. Then it's like getting some kind of annoyance with things. So it seems pretty similar to how I'd feel when I took too much piracetam albeit a little different, so I'm thinking that maybe I need <200mg of pramiracetam per dose. This feeling lasts for maybe 40 minutes and goes away and I feel that confidence back again and the extreme introversion I had just been feeling went away too. Now I'm starting to think that the other time a week or two ago when I took pram and felt very introverted was maybe me taking too much of it. Not sure.

Anyways, so during the review class paying attention was awesome. I could easily zone into what was being talked about and be interested in it in a robot-like way. It was also really nice how a lot of things I tended to avoid doing due to being self-conscious I would just do because the logical part of my mind was like overriding any emotional concerns I'd have. But I'd still the anxiety...it's just I'd find myself doing things and it was like my brain wouldn't care that I'd get anxiety and I'd just do it. Like for instance I'd usually avoid making eye contact with people while I'm walking places but now I would just do it anyways because I didn't care...but the normal amount of anxiety would still be there if that makes any sense. The long class I found was actually a lot more tolerable than usual. I wasn't even phased by losing attention or my mind wandering. I wasn't getting restless or anything. Only thing was my body started feeling a bit...tired or something after a few hours, I was thinking it might be that I didn't take enough choline but I wasn't sure.

Once I got home I took another dose of pramiracetam (less, ~150mg) this time with 450mg of choline to see if I needed it. That seemed to be a good dose of choline to use. Then later I started to think of adding piracetam back since while I still retained effects from it, they weren't as strong as they used to be when I was talking it and I kinda missed the "mood buffer" and other things. So learning from my previous mistake I took a much lower dose since I was doing a combo, 800mg of piracetam and 150mg choline. That actually worked pretty well, maybe I don't need that high of a dose when I'm using these in combination. A few hours later I started thinking, you know what if these medications actually give long term improvement I might as well add aniracetam and see what happens. I used a small amount (since I'm taking all of these around the same time), 170mg of aniracetam and 150mg choline. Well, I felt a nice rush of anxiety-relief but then I got extremely sleepy. I had only gotten about 3-4hours of sleep the night before so I don't know if that contributed but I became so drowsy that I figured I'd just go to bed, it was around 8pm (usually go to bed around 11 or midnight). Might've been I took too much choline too not totally sure.

*Summary:*
Stopped piracetam for ~2 days. Depression didn't come back, effects (though not at the same intensity) were retained. With my focus off of the depression, decided I needed some motivation to do things so started on pramiracetam. Then figured I'd try combo'ing piracetam/aniracetam/pramiracetam again since I no longer needed the constant dosing of piracetam for depression-relief. I'm going to be trying out/tinkering with this combo starting Wednesday.


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## Andreth (Oct 31, 2011)

*Wednesday-Thursday:*
So I've still been experimenting with the aniracetam/pramiracetam/piracetam combo. Getting the doses right is completely trial+error, especially considering I'm still not totally sure on the dose of choline to use in addition to the doses of the 3.

At first I was trying 800 mg piracetam, 170mg aniracetam, 100mg pramiracetam every 4 hours. But I felt like the piracetam "mood buffer" effect was wearing off.

I started adding choline half a teaspoon of choline bitartrate in the mornings in case I needed it.

Starting Wed I changed to 1600 mg piracetam, 170 mg aniracetam, 100 mg pramiracetam every 4 hours. Looks like a good enough dose to keep piracetam's effects going. On Thursday I noticed a few main things about this combo:

1. I really shouldn't of given up on aniracetam so quickly. Taking it regularly is really nice for decreasing my anxiety directly. Taking it with pram seems to counteract the "spacey" effect I get from the ani, providing me with anxiety relief while also not feeling unfocused.

2. Late in the evening thursday I experienced a completely strange effect. Right before I was about to take my next dose, it's like my memory was shot down completely. It was difficult to remember what I had just been doing without a bit of effort...it's like my brain was on overdrive and was running out of fuel? Going to have to see what's going on.

3. Also later Thursday I thought I'd see what caffeine would do with this combo. Bad idea. Apparently my brain was already stimulated enough with these 3 racetams, and caffeine just made everything a mess. Less focus, more anxious, etc.

4. Might be the perfect combo however if I can the doses right with everything. The piracetam prevents depression. The pramiracetam allows me to do things I normally would avoid. The aniracetam decreases my anxiety with doing these things. Not to mention the pramiracetam also adds focus (no spacey feeling from aniracetam), and huge memory increase.

Overall though Thursday was pretty good. Was able to get a bunch of studying in and also found I was able to enjoy activities I like e.g. watching TV without any negative self-talk occuring or anhedonia. Oh yeah and even exercised for a bit.

*Friday:
*Decided I'd double my pramiracetam dose to see if that would take care of the weird memory drop effect I experienced transiently on Thursday. Also I'd noticed that the superfocus etc. effects from pramiracetam would only last for 2 hours. First it'd take an hour to kick in, then the effect would last for 2 hours, then it'd slowly fade for the last hour before my next dose. So I wanted to see if I could get a longer duration of action with a higher dose.

In the morning I took 1600mg piracetam, 170mg aniracetam, and ~200mg pramiracetam with a half tsp of choline bitartrate. Decided I'd go to the movies since I had a day off and see the Avengers by myself. Well the movie was obviously awesome, but I have to say this combo was amazing. My anxiety was down 30-70% (less reduction when I was talking to people which is where I'm the most anxious) through the whole thing of driving and then going to the movies myself, talking to the movie theatre ppl etc. Normally I'd get pretty anxious about driving and then being by myself in the theatre but I was actually much less anxious. Really liking the combo.

About 4 hours later took my next dose, still with the doubled pramiracetam (except the choline was only taken in the morning). After about an hour which is usually how long these things take to fully kick in...I get extremely drowsy and I take a nap for a few hours. For the next 4 hour dosing time I take the same dose of all 3 of them. While my memory is totally fine this entire time, I can tell this is too much of something. It's not so much of a tired brain effect but moreso it's like my brain keeps on going strong but my body is tired.
So 4 hours later I decide I'd reduce the pramiracetam back to my usual 100mg, and instead double my aniracetam dose to see if I can get even better anxiety reduction. Dose this time is 1600 mg piracetam, 340 mg aniracetam, ~100 mg pramiracetam. After it all kicks in...wow. Start feeling very carefree, but also like I'm a little too relaxed. But at the same time I can't even feel any anxiety. Bit of a spacey feeling, though I can think about anything just fine, and memory is fine as well. I'm starting to wonder if my issues with memory had a lot to do with my anxiety, because in this state it's so much easier to think and remember with anxiety ~90% gone. Spacey feeling is kinda weird though, but I'm going to stick with experimenting with this to see if I can get some long-term improvements. Maybe I'll try increasing my pramiracetam dose again and see if it's alright this time.

*Summary:
*Pramiracetam/aniracetam/piracetam combo is great, but still need to work out some of the kinks with dosing to see how it works over time. Aniracetam is great for SA, only thing is that it feels a bit sedating at higher doses without enough pramiracetam. Still not totally sure about the needing or not needing choline situation.


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## HippieChick (Aug 6, 2011)

Thanks for the information. Right now I am taking aniracetam with a choline source and haven't tried the other racetams yet. Aniracetam for me helps with anxiety, depression and fatigue. I don't get a "spacey" feeling from it .


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## Andreth (Oct 31, 2011)

HippieChick said:


> Thanks for the information. Right now I am taking aniracetam with a choline source and haven't tried the other racetams yet. Aniracetam for me helps with anxiety, depression and fatigue. I don't get a "spacey" feeling from it .


No problem. Yeah I noticed I only seem to get that spacey kind of feeling when I increase the dose, it's kinda weird though. It's like feeling extremely carefree and the spaciness doesn't actually mess with my ability to think it's like I'm just really free to do whatever I want. But the lack of direction in that state kinda errs me.

*Saturday:
*More experimenting with the dosages today. Taking it around every 4 hours again.

Woke up and decided I'd go without choline bitartrate and see if it had any effect. 
First dose: 1600 mg piracetam, 510 mg aniracetam, ~100 pramiracetam.
I increased the dose of aniracetam by 170mg, from the 340mg the previously which had given me some nice anxiety-relief but pretty strong relaxation. Wanted to see if I could get even more anxiety relief.
After about 40 minutes or so I could tell that this was too much aniracetam. I could feel the "blocked out" effect which tended to happen if I took too much of one of the racetams where it's like the effects from all of them temporarily just feel blocked. Took about an hour for this to wear off and then the anxiety-relief and all the other stuff came back.

Second dose: 1600 mg piracetam, 340 mg aniracetam, ~200 mg pramiracetam
So I went back to the 340mg of aniracetam and now doubled the pramiracetam dose to see if I could get both the anxiety-relief of the higher aniracetam dose, but also try to reduce the spaciness of it. After about an hour I became noticeably irritable and also drowsy, felt like taking a nap. When I became irritable it's like I lost all interest in things and became irritated instead, like my brain was low on gas for emotions. It reminded me a bit of what was happening when I was taking 2400 mg piracetam every 4 hours over a few days without any choline source.

Third dose: 1600 mg piracetam, 340 mg aniracetam, 100mg pramiracetam
Dropped down the pramiracetam dose, and used what I had taken on my last dose in the previous day. I felt totally apathetic. No anxiety relief, not even much increased focus and there was still some slight irritability. This was totally different than on Friday night. Thought that the main difference had been I didn't take a half tsp of choline bitartrate in the morning today vs. yesterday, so based on that I think I need to add choline with all this. After about an hour from the dose when I realized I wasn't getting like any of the effects like usual, I took a quarter tsp or so of choline bitartrate. Gradually the effects came back, over a few hours and my brain stopped feeling as out of gas.
*
Summary:
*Did some more experimenting with dosages for the piracetam/aniracetam/pramiracetam combo, this time without any choline bitartrate for most of the day. The day was basically a wash, looks like I need to take choline if I'm taking all 3 of these. Still not sure how to get the increased anxiety relief from the 340 mg aniracetam dose without the spacy/lack of direction feel(vs. the 170mg aniracetam dose which still gives anxiety relief and but not as much, and no spaciness) . Was trying to increase the pramiracetam dose to do that but seems like 200 mg a dose is too much, maybe I should try 150 mg though I'll need to figure out how to measure that accurately.


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## HippieChick (Aug 6, 2011)

Andreth said:


> No problem. Yeah I noticed I only seem to get that spacey kind of feeling when I increase the dose, it's kinda weird though. It's like feeling extremely carefree and the spaciness doesn't actually mess with my ability to think it's like I'm just really free to do whatever I want. But the lack of direction in that state kinda errs me.


I wish I could get that kind of carefree feeling at least sometimes. It would be good for doing creative projects. I already take 2200 mg of aniracetam every day and increasing the dose doesn't change anything. I wonder if piracetam would be better for creativity?


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## Andreth (Oct 31, 2011)

HippieChick said:


> I wish I could get that kind of carefree feeling at least sometimes. It would be good for doing creative projects. I already take 2200 mg of aniracetam every day and increasing the dose doesn't change anything. I wonder if piracetam would be better for creativity?


 Piracetam seems to be really great at least with verbal/written kind of creativity for me. Verbally words flow so much easier and though I haven't really done much serious writing or anything lately, it seems like it aids with that as well.

As for the carefree feeling well I don't know it was accompanied by the spaciness which made me way too unfocused IMO. Because of that and other things I've since reduced my aniracetam dose.

Been a bit busy with things, will post a log update in the future.


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## AxlSlash (May 10, 2012)

Damn andreth! must be going through a ton of money on these supplements  but if it's working for you more power to you


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## Andreth (Oct 31, 2011)

So it's one week since my last log entry. I'll just summarize what's been going on since it's kinda more of the same.

*Sunday/Monday: *Kept up the 1600 mg piracetam, 340 mg aniracetam, 100mg pramiracetam dose every 4 hours. I wanted to see if I'd get some long-term anxiety improvements and just deal with the spaciness for then. Those two days just seemed to go by really fast. IMO if anything I was getting more anxious because I felt unfocused and like time was just passing by, but it was really relaxing too. Overall, not really how I like to feel. Also on Monday I think this stack was too much for me, I started feeling worn out like previously when I had been on piracetam every 4 hours for several days. And then it got to the point where I just felt exhausted.

For the rest of the days I tried going back down to just 170mg aniracetam with all the others. Still felt worn out. So I started taking a bunch of choline bitartrate. The choline helped with a lot of it. I ended up trying 1 teaspoon of choline bitartrate with each dose. Eventually I started doing 2.5 (!!) teaspoons of choline bitartrate with each dose just to feel like I wasn't choline depleted. Honestly I don't know if the choline I have is just low potency or that stacking 3 racetams together like this is just overload for the ACh system that I need to take so much.

I switched down to 1600mg piracetam, 100mg aniracetam, 100mg pramiracetam. That worked if I took 2tsp of choline bitartrate with it. No spaciness, but increased focus/memory and better mood/lessened anxiety.

*Thursday: *I took that stack in the morning but then went with just piracetam for the rest of the day since I was out doing some school things. It was actually nice being just on the piracetam again without the other two. It seems like when I take them all together some of the effects of each one go to the wayside while others are retained. E.g. when I was only taking piracetam on Thursday I noticed the nice kind of "feeling good" feeling it gives when I take it alone. With the others added on it's like that feeling isn't my main focus.

*Friday: *Didn't take any racetams today. I wanted to see if all of this stuff would give me any long-term improvements. Interestingly enough even without taking any of it I still felt pretty good. Focus was still good, anxiety slightly less and mood was good. Although over the course of the day I kept thinking I might start getting depressed again...and at night I started feeling slightly depressed.

*Saturday: *Went back on the 3 racetam stack with the choline bitartrate. I don't know, even though I'm taking the same dose as before I keep feeling like I don't need it. Feels like some kind of reverse tolerance thing going on. Maybe I can start taking this a lot less often, or decrease the doses even more.


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## Andreth (Oct 31, 2011)

AxlSlash said:


> Damn andreth! must be going through a ton of money on these supplements  but if it's working for you more power to you


Yeah, at first I just wanted to experiment with each of these to see what they'd do. But like a week ago I started to think of how much this would actually cost me taking 3 racetams at the same time. Piracetam isn't too bad with cost but the others (especially pramiracetam)...yeah. Though I'm starting to notice that I seem to be able to keep reducing doses which is good to reduce costs. If anything I want to keep taking these 3 regularly to see if they give me improvements in the longterm but try to see what doses I can get away with without breaking the bank.

IMO though I'd have to say that the piracetam is by far and away the best one for mood improvements. If I could only take one it'd be that. I like pramiracetam a lot too but it would likely make me way too robot-like and unfeeling without the other two.


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## zans (Oct 29, 2012)

Hey Andreth, are you still taking the racetams? If yes, did you find an ideal dose/mix? And if you stopped taking them, why?

I'm super curious about this. Reading this thread was intriguing enough that I had to register.


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## samsonites (Apr 11, 2012)

Piracetam and its cousins were pretty mild IMO. They are inexpensive though so they are worth a try. Don't expect any miracles though, but everyone is different.


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## eyeofthetiger (Oct 25, 2004)

You guys should try Noopept i picked some powder up from http://www.advancenootropics.com about a week ago. Stuff i really powerful for me. Piracetam doesnt really give me an anti-anxiety effect but Noopept really does.

I had the same experience with Phenibut too you have to really be careful with that stuff it builds tolerance like crazy and DO NOT drink on it i learned that the hard way


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