Hola everybody,
I've just taken DMT for the first time in my life. I've been fascinated by DMT since many years, listening to my friend's reports. But I've never felt the urgency to take it having a lot of respect for psychedelics, as in the past I took a variety of it (including ayahuasca several times) and in all kind of context. Then 8 years ago I've been diagnosed bipolar and started therapy with lithium and tryptophan. I've then tried to stay in balance maximum possible, (considering i live in Ibiza! ) But I've always kept in mind that I had a date with DMT, sooner or later. Last year a friend gave me a gift of some doses of it (yellow crystals) I was very excited about it, but still kept postponing the intake. One month ago, finally I decided "now or never", I didn't want to be scared about it and felt it was very important to encounter with the spirit molecule. I had my call. Without any further preparation or getting any info about possible interactions with my medication, with the help of a friend I vaporized 0.6mg/Kg. laid down and flew off....In resume, as you all probably know, the experience has been trascendental, beautiful and scary. Psychologically, I didn't have any problems integrating it and I felt simply in awe and thankful to gaze at this other dimension, I've been writing for days about it. But half an hour after the intake, it started an oppressive headache of which I'm still suffering after a month. I've been investigating a lot on the net, also on this forum to gather information, talked to a friend psychiatrist who believed I had a serotonine syndrome (too much tryptamine), I stopped then taking the tryptophan, tried several analgesic (I can't take antiinflammatory with lithium), stopped smoking weed and drinking beer, and now I'm about to explain all this to my psychiatrist next week (which I really would like to avoid)....
I'm really scared that i provoked some kind of a damage to my brain, because of the combination of DMT with lithium+tryptophan.
My headache is continous and in waves, not pulsating like migraine but kind of a deaf pain, oppressive and located in the frontal area of the head. I'm also having mild photophobia and phonophobia. I feel more tired than normal and have difficulties to concentrate. It gets better when I sleep and with coffee >got the tip on this forum as I normally don't drink coffee, it makes me too nervous.
I would really appreciate if anybody has any kind of info/advice that could be useful. I feel very lonely in this....
Love and sunshine from Ibiza to you all

First of all let me say, I'm not a doctor and I think the first thing you should do is go see one. Any advice anyone on this forum can offer you is merely anecdotal without having some medical background and being able to see you in person. Don't take chances with your health!

Having given that disclaimer, it doesn't sound to me like serotonin syndrome and knowing what little I know about serotonin syndrome I don't think you would be doing as well as you are now if you had been suffering from it for a month! All of your symptoms could potentially be linked to your bi-polar condition, specifically a state of moderate depression. It seems probable that your experience, although seemingly a good one, could have triggered some kind of relapse into a depressive state. Stopping your medication may only have exacerbated the issue. So now I'm back to my original point, definitely go see a doctor, as soon as you can.

I wish you the best of luck, and try not to worry everything's going to be fine!

P.S. Coffee can act as an antidepressant, so the fact that it helped makes sense to me if what you're experiencing is in fact depression.

Thank you Humpty! In fact, by now I'm switching between depression and manic phases but not too intense as I'm still on lithium. I'll wait with the tryptophan because it's not vital. But I also don't believe in a serotonin overdose, because that has other serious sympthoms. I actually had been suffering from headaches when manic in the past and still not in theraphy, but in that case the headache was always located at the base of the neck, climbing up to the top, but it could be that it's just located differently. Only I was completely balanced with moods for the first 2 weeks after the DMT. Now of course I'm getting stressed by the constant strain of the pain and so I'm going off rails.
Anyways, you are possibly right and I AM going to see doctors, only they know very little about DMT in general and the psychiatrist will probably give me some stronger medication, as they always do when something is out of routine. And it's not fun to take them. That's why I'm trying to hear first if there's any bipolar here that had similar experience or anybody having any insights whatsoever.
I thank you from my heart for being close.

This sounds pretty bad.
First of all: I'd like you to understand, that any official medical conclusion about the state of any organ or immaterial thing like the psyche are in itself not statements which determine your reaction to it.

What you have to learn is to adapt to this healthy version of yourself and live it.

A doctor might give you a prescription for any given symptom, but I suggest finding the circumstance or idea/belief which causes this distraction of wellbeing and alter/remove it

You, my friend, got all the power!
In case of a constant headache, just pray it away.
I would not trust any medico regarding the human brain, since it is NOT understood to a level of certainity!

Thanks Kyrollima! I love your cat!!!

As my alter ego >Evagatta, I will pray to the Cat God to provide me with a nu brain, so that i can go into DMT world again with no fear
I'd love to....
I got the power!!
xxx

Better not take this serious.

The best advice is to seek medical attention. Even though we can relate to certain condition's it is very important that we cannot do the same examination as what a professional doctor can do in a face to face contact.

Be honest to your doctor and if you feel afterwards that your current doctor cannot relate to your problems, seek another doctor for a second opinion.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

Hello evagatta,

I see that you are on Lithium.

Lithium increases the effects of psychedelics that act on serotonin receptors (especially 5HT2A/5HT2C).
DMT is one of these psychedelics that binds to serotonin receptors, DMT is an 5HT1A 5HT2A 5HT2C agonist.

Lithiums pharmacology is quite complex:

Lithium interacts with the transport of monovalent and/or divalent cations in neurons but it's a weak substrate to the Na+ pump and can only sustain a small ion concentration gradient across the cell membrane.

Lithium as a cation (0,76A) is quite similar to Na cation (1,02A). Li+ can replace Na+ for production of a single action potential in neurons because the ion channel can accept them both because they are the same charge and differ only slightly in their radius.

Lithium is able to block the resetting of the "master clock" inside the brain by deactivation of the GSK3β enzyme; as a result, the body's natural cycle is disrupted. When the cycle is disrupted, the routine schedules of many functions (metabolism, sleep, body temperature) are disturbed.

There is also a possible involvement of NMDA receptor/NO signaling.
Chronic exposition to Li+ salts in rats produced a decrease in the serum NOX levels.

Lithium has been found to inhibit the enzyme inositol monophosphatase, leading to higher levels of inositol triphosphate.

Basically by some of these actions lithium increases serotoninergic neurotransmission (and serotonin synthesis).

When a psychedelic is used by a patient under lithium treatment the effects of the psychedelic compound is very strongly increased!

Mixing lithium salts with LSD, DMT, 2CX... can be dangerous.

If you are on lithium and you absolutely want to take a psychedelic stop taking lithium and wait at least two weeks for a complete wash-out.

By the way mixing Dextromethorphan (DXM blocks the serotonin reuptake transporter) and lithium can produce severe serotonin syndrome.

Best regards K.

Second this. No disrespect to you kyrolima, but to the OP I strongly recommend seeking medical advice. This is a physical world we live in, and we are subject to physical consequences for our actions.

I used to get cluster headaches which started just after smoking dmt for the first time, I eventually got some anti-migraine tryptamines from the doctor, which worked alright but not terribly well...

Even if it sounds counter-productive, look into taking ayahuasca... That's really what ended up getting rid of them for me.

Hello Special K,
I definitely need a nu brain to understand all this info! but thanks
it's very interesting to know what you are saying, but I already took DMT being on lithium, so if I've overdosed - it's done. I should have thought about getting all this useful information before, but I'm so used to take lithium that it's kind of my normal state, so I haven't thought it could be so dangerous. After the intake, i didn't have any of the sympthoms of serotonin syndrome though, I've read about it. In the mean time, I already got in contact with a friend psychiatrist specialized in psychedelics and he thinks that because of the intense stress of the experience, i'm now suffering from a tension headache - so involving the nerves. I have quite a lot of distress on the optical nerve in fact, noticing an increase in pain when i concentrate on reading, writing, computing, etc...I'm now taking diazepan(Valium)since a couple of days and it seems to work much better than analgesic. I'll stay with that for a while, see how it's going, I will also keep drinking a little coffee in the morning that helps clearing the head, even if it makes me nervous. I will keep posting on improvments, in case my experience can help other people.

i got a headache within a few hours of my first dmt experience. and it persisted for days. However i think mine was related to self induced stress around hoping DMT would change me, rather than a medical problem. but im not sure

The headache is now almost completely gone, yes!!! - it was a tension headache caused by the intense stress on the nerves, apparently. Lithium+tryptophan+DMT not being a proper cocktail, as Special K deeply explained about it.
Theraphy that has been effective in this case in my opinion, is in resume: Valium in the eve (I've took it for 6 nights by now and going on for some days more)- coffee in the morning, I've been also eating meat 3 times already (been vegetarian for the last year and a half) and took vitamine B complex - both things to feed the nervous system - also herbs to clean the liver from possible intoxication of residuals. Aaaaand I had nice sex, that relaxes a lot as we all know

I feel new! I hope it stays this way, but it feels like it.
I wouldn't want to repeat the experience in this way, it has been very stressful as I also had to deal with daily life involving working on computer, listening, djing and producing tons of music etc. - so if any bipolar is there listening, be careful!!

But I have to say that I would love to go back to DMT world in other circumstances
As now that I'm more calm, I can recall the state of my being at the peak of the experience >the silence<
and soft+warm wind dissolving my cells >my gaze in awe. Nothing else matters.
It has been worth the risk.

evagatta,

Thank you so much for listening to the input of the forum and of members with sound advice. I'm happy to hear you found the source of these headaches. Indeed, that cocktail sounds like it could cause some trouble!

DMT will be available to you again when the time is right. NO rush! Wait until you've properly cycled the medications out of your system and the Molecule will reward your efforts. I look forward to hearing your next steps.

Be well!

-a1pha

evagatta,

Thank you so much for listening to the input of the forum and of members with sound advice. I'm happy to hear you found the source of these headaches. Indeed, that cocktail sounds like it could cause some trouble!

DMT will be available to you again when the time is right. NO rush! Wait until you've properly cycled the medications out of your system and the Molecule will reward your efforts. I look forward to hearing your next steps.

Be well!

-a1pha[/quote]

thanx to the forum for advices+love!!
I'm now back to "normal" whatever that word means....
headache is completely gone - I've stopped already taking Valium - still following the rest of my therapy. But didn't went back on the tryptophan yet. Seems like I don't need it now, I'm sleeping perfectly. I feel much more calm and able to deal with things now.

About the time being right to take DMT again....it's a bit difficult, as I have to stay on lithium lifetime >and when I tried to stop taking it in the past it was not funny!.
According to Special K and my friend psychiatrist - lithium + dmt are really not a good cocktail! No chance to get it out of my system enough, I would need at least a month without.
What to do? I don't want to risk frying my brain anymore.....
I feel blessed that at least I have been to DMT world once and came back in one piece!
This experience will be with me forever.