It came to my atention that the sticky post about harmalas has a link that leads to a 404 not found page, the second list link to be precise. perhaps woukd be wise for someone to update that?
Also, since I'm a new member and cannot writte in most places, and I saw that there is that disclaimer about MAOI right in the beginning of the page, I might as well ask some questions about the topic which for most would move much more interesting than what's my favourite colr, music and other presentation things hehe:

So, about the MAOI themselves, All in all, what I got to understand from a bit of research: only take MAOI by themselves or with a DMT containing substance, and not earlier than 3 days after taking ANY other type of drug ( speed, coke, MDMA, valium, anti-psycotics, 2cb, 2c-whatever, hash and anything that is not paracet-ibux, I'm not sure about LSD and mushrooms but to be on the safe side, not those either) and the dose of sirian rye would be between 2-4 g of seeds, 3.5 seems to be the sweet spot for many, and, Also, MAOI by themselves ( as antidepressant or as a relaxant, can cause addiction after some time, although they might be referring as over the counter medication with MAOI, use as antidepressant, not about the original, straight from the plant form, anyway, not take it more than 5 days in a row by itself.
This is what I have in my head about it, now, I really wonder about how right or wrong I'm I?
Also it came to my attention that one MUST check their diet, and I quote:
" "
Also:

So, after this to excerps from Wikipedia, I'm thinking, are we talking about "fatal"as in "just give a baguette of pork with avocado and blue cheese together with raspberries and melted chocolate as a dessert and then give a glass of ayawaska for the perfect murder" ?
Way is the real level of concern with the diet?
If the concern is that real, wouldn't webpages like this one should be more clear to state that is an actual RISK not a "deharmonizing" or "bad trip inducing" factor only?
Now sorry for such a long post, I just wonder

Also, if we could avoid answers that begin with " In my opinion...", "I believe/think/imagine/have read in the internet/someone told me..." and just those with first hand experience answer here below since I see that MAOIs are something to be serious about enough that deserves a sticky post and the word "fatal" sprinkled on the sources of information
Thanks in advance guys!

In my opinion I believe that sensitivity ranges between people, the one person has to seriously take care while the other person can eat at will.

How much % of people is so sensitive? I dunno, but I suspect a minority, enough to launch a 'debunking of the serotonin syndrome hoax' by some well experienced people.
Guidelines are usually to protect the odd case of (super) sensitive persons.

I also think that serotonin syndrome can come in various degrees and manifestations. I for one have deliberately consumed tyramine rich food before a session. I did not suffer headache at all but boy that session was seriously screwed very negatively, it turned into a bad experience, extremely restless, sweating hot + cold at same time, no bueno señor, I was just sitting it out.

So my conclusion is that it can downplay a session, and that alone is enough for me to avoid it even at lower consumption rates.

Hope that helps.

hehehe...

Wouldn't be fair to say that you willingly consumed tryptamine as an experiment and therefore, the pure insecurity of the outcome itself, screwed your experience? I mean, if I read somewhere that smoking tobbaco before DMT might cause death, and I try, knowing this alone might definitely screw anyone's trip... what do you think? Would you think that if you wouldn't have known that it would have affected you the same?

There is no serotonin syndrome or hypertensive crisis or tyramine interactions with Harmalas/Rue. I've taken heavy dosages of Rue/Harmalas regularly (daily/near daily) since 2012 with some off time here and there. Harmalas/reversible MAO-A inhibition is actually quite safe, nothing at all to worry about, just simply don't mix certain drugs with it, that's it.

As for what Jeez said "extremely restless, sweating hot + cold at same time" - That's just some of the side-effects of Harmalas, i get them too, regardless. Harmalas do have side-effects ya know, but people wanna blame the tyramine lol. As for headaches, can be caused by a great number of other things which are more likely to cause a headache than tyramine.

I suggest people look more into the other properties of Harmalas before thinking it's all MAO-A inhibition and tyramine interactions lol.

Also when it comes to drug interactions, not everyone interacts with MAO-A inhibition, and even some things that are contraindicated with irreversible and non-selective MAOI's, can be safely mixed with reversible MAO-A inhibition, however, things like SSRI's/anti-depressants, amphetamines/mdma and a few other things, shouldn't be mixed with them. I've mixed quite a few things with Harmalas so far, haven't had any issues.

Also Cannabis, Caffeine, mushrooms, 4-ACO-DMT, all fine to mix with Harmalas, however Caffeine is metabolized by CYP1A2 and Harmalas inhibit CYP1A2 quite potently so with a large dosage of Harmalas, a few small sips of Caffeinated soda is more than like 2 to 3 cups of Coffee's worth of Caffeine imo, it's potentiated pretty well. Just keep an eye out for things metabolized by CYP1A2 or CYP2D6, both of which Harmalas inhibit. But as far as the MAO-A inhibition goes, pretty safe.

Also Harmalas have a reverse tolerance, so the more regularly they're consumed, the stronger and cleaner they get, and they are NOT addictive. You try taking heavy dosages of Rue/Harmalas and see if you think it's addictive hahahaha.

Also, if you're worried about tyramine, simply don't eat a few hours before and after the Harmalas, and there ya go. The gut's MAO-A inhibition only lasts a max of about 2 hours, after that gut MAO-A is back to normal and will metabolize out tyramine as normal, just like it would then metabolize out DMT, so if you take DMT after the gut's MAO-A inhibition has moved on, DMT will be broken down, so too will tyramine. Also Harmalas only inhibit MAO-A, leaving MAO-B uninhibited and free to metabolize out tyramine while MAO-A is inhibited. Selective and reversible MAO-A inhibitors do not require tyramine restrictions.

Wow, mister, Thank You! that was what I was hoping to find in this forum, thank you both!

No problem, you learn a lot when you work with this stuff regularly, especially once you build up the reverse tolerance enough that the side-effects go away, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, the body load cleans up and some of the other side-effects go away while leaving the more desirable effects in place. And once things clean up, you can more fully and noticeably determine if there's anything like dietary interactions going on, which ime, there's not, and i've worked with heavy dosages even daily for months and years at a time. Also if you get ahold of some Lemon Balm, and make a tea from 3 to 4 grams of the dried Lemon Balm leaf (or use 1 to 2 to 3 tea bags if using the tea bags) and consume it with the Harmalas/Rue it'll clean up how things feel, very well, it'll also help reduce anxiety/panic and intensity of the oral DMT come up, without affecting the quality of the experience, ime, but does flavor it in a pretty cool way.

If I wanted to be sure I had to do more experiments but I did not feel up to repeat the process. In short, yes, it could be a wrong conclusion. But my test was done under the impuls of debunking the tyramine/serotonin syndrome, my prejudice was all set to not getting any trouble at all.

***

ShamansStamen, the shivers of normal harmala effects is very well known to me, just as the normal hearth beat rise under pharma but that test case was different. I made sure to follow my very traditional doses. This excerpt is meant for migraine sensitive patients but all what it said (except for the headache/blood pressure) is correct with what I felt:
I guess I did not get the headache because I was not a migraine patient to start with and the harmalas could very well compensated for a blood pressure rise.
This is my original text from 2014 and see how much it matches:
I find the resemblance strikingly.

***

I think it is wrong to extrapolate personal trajectories into full blown generalizations, for myself but especially if one's plant diet had become extremely acquainted like yours ShanensStamen, what you did is out of the ordinary imho.
You can say this is for migraine people and not for us. But that was not my point, just want to illustrate how people can react 180 degrees differently to each other. A minority but enough to not generalize I suppose.

Related: The controversial ayahuasca diet

Have you perhaps tried it with just the Harmalas/Rue and no DMT, and preferably with the reverse tolerance built up? I find it's overall cleaner with the reverse tolerance built up and more noticeable if anything out of the ordinary should happen, whereas with DMT in the mix and especially without the Harmala reverse tolerance built up, it'd be a bit difficult to tell what is what.

Also, were you taking anything else around that time, like Coffee/Caffeine, Nicotine/Tobacco, Cannabis, supplements, other herbals? I've noticed some things tend to increase or decrease certain side-effects, or contribute to certain side-effects, or conflict with something the Harmalas or DMT is doing which can sometimes cause me some shoulder/neck/upper back pain and a bit of a headache, or Cannabis can increase the shivering for me i think, Nicotine can increase the sweaty palms and such, Caffeine can increase heart rate and probably blood pressure (but DMT also can as well), Coffee drank sometime close to taking Harmalas/Rue sometimes gave me some confliction whereas pure Caffeine didn't seem to cause any conflict.

Also keep in mind that there's a few properties of the Harmalas/Rue that can cause headaches, like the Acetylcholinesterase inhibition, or the vasodilation, or possibly some other properties of Harmalas, i think it's also been said that headache can be a transient side-effect of MAO-A inhibition in general. Can also be due to a bit of dehydration.

But yeah taking the Harmalas/Rue daily/near daily for a few weeks, or a few months, will build up the reverse tolerance and do away with a lot of the side-effects which allows you to more easily notice/tell if there's any odd interactions. But yeah Harmaline itself can generate anxiety, also inhibits COMT iirc and could potentiate one's catecholamine's producing more of an increase in heart rate which i've noticed sometimes while taking Mucuna extract while also taking Rue. Confusion can happen i think due to the Harmaline. Sweating could happen from Harmaline's Acetylcholinesterase inhibition. Have you ever gotten this from pure Harmine? I personally find pure Harmine to be a lot cleaner physically compared to Harmaline, but i still love my Harmaline and can clean it up with Lemon Balm so it's not a big deal to me. Also i generally get the shivers/cold feeling from Harmalas/Rue for about the first 2 hours or so, then sometime after that it goes away.

Also, what was your Harmala dosage for the pharma experience you noticed this on?

Thanks for the heads up, I will update my stickies and see if I can dig up a more persistent link to replace that with.

There is quite a bit of banter in this thread, and I'm not inclined to deconstruct it, so I'll just hit the main points.

The FAQ has a good explanation of why food interactions are not a significant issue with reversible inhibitors of MAO-A, and which medications are important to avoid.

In general harmalas combine safely with cannabis, mushrooms, salvia, DMT, and LSD (mind there is synergy/potentiation with all these substances). Hundreds of members have combined them with cactus without issue, but it's still wise to tread a bit cautious with this combo.

While harmalas have been reported to combine safely with most synthetic tryptamines, it's generally a good rule of thumb to avoid combining them with research chemicals/novel psychoactive substances.

Another general rule of thumb is to avoid combining them with pharmaceutical medications unless you have discussed potential MAOI interactions with your prescribing physician.

Avoid mixing them "hard drugs" like cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin/opiates, and alcohol.

Avoid mixing them with over-the-counter medicines and other herbal supplements.

Leave a minimum of 72 hours between taking any of the above contraindicated substances and harmalas and between taking harmalas and of said substances.

One last point of clarification: Serotonin syndrome is absolutely a real risk with harmalas, do not combine them with SSRI medications under any circumstances.

Edit: Disclaimer posts have been updated.

Well said dreamer. Although i would like to add that - "Avoid mixing them with over-the-counter medicines and other herbal supplements." - Generally you probably wouldn't wanna mix over the counter medicines and certain herbal supplements with Harmalas, but that doesn't mean others can't be mixed with Harmalas, basically all you gotta worry about is like something that increases say Serotonin or Noradrenaline, but moreso Serotonin (Harmalas don't seem to do much for Dopamine, ime, hence why i'm taking Mucuna, though Harmaline through COMT inhibition could perhaps be useful for Dopamine but pure Harmine or Moclobemide ime don't do much for Dopamine) and thus could potentially cause an issue with the MAO-A inhibition and excess levels of Serotonin (Serotonin Syndrome), or substances that are metabolized out by CYP1A2 or CYP2D6 which Harmalas potently inhibit which can potentiate substrates for those enzymes. I've had success mixing certain 1A2 substrates with the Harmalas, just gotta lower the dosage of the substrate, same with the 2D6 substrates. But yeah there's quite a lot of things that can be mixed safely with Harmalas, just educate yourself and be safe/cautious in one's experimentation, and know it's not without some potential risk in case you mess up somehow lol. Also as far as RC's go, i agree, however ime 4-ACO-DMT definitely turns into Psilocin, i've had it with Rue/Harmalas, i've had it with Moclobemide, same thing with mushrooms, and i can most certainly feel the Psilocin, so that should be safe, some others are probably safe, but it's unknown territory when it comes to RC's so it's probably best not to mix RC's with MAO-A inhibition unless, once again, you really know what you're doing lol.

Thanks for the replies I will begin with my personal experiences soon. I've read in another post that 3-3,5 grams to be a nice beginning I'm I right?
Also, a question you might find cilly, do the harmala seeds have a psychedelic effect by themselves?
Also, I'm thinking about try to begin 2 Yopo seeds together with 3g harmala seeds, crushed and build for a long time. I expect not to have much vomiting as I usually don't vomit when taking snuff, but again, never took harmala so it might be a ticket to the toilet, anyway, Yopo seeds have reached me well to embrace and endure the discomfort as just one more vital part of the experience.
Would anyone recommend any other ingredient such as lemon, vinager, sodium bicarbonate? And would you database the seeds prior to the boiling with sodium carbonate? What are your thoughts? Possible to make bufotenine drinkable?

Thanks ShamensStamen for looking into it.

I've not tried the deliberate tyramine food with harmalas alone and tbh not planning to.

Thinking back to 2014 is a long time, I cannot confirm. You do have a good point.

For that I relied on my personal experience that this would not have been the effects I was experiencing.

It's 4 years back but I generally took 200mg freebase unseparated rue extract. Too little for tracers and just enough to potentiate "the light". More importantly it gives me a very practical time frame of work. Always able to re-dose, never been necessary.

I have no trouble accepting to potentially belong into that 7%-ish margin in 2014, and that means 93% is not in line with my experience. But I will never know as I'm not going to find out, I simply avoid tyramine from then on. In the afterglow things seem different though.
Note: I simply ate much of it!! But this style of exaggerating was able to show something magnified if any and it did for me I guess. Eating lesser tyramines would have been less noticeable but even 5% of that counter productive feeling is simply not welcome in my sessions.

If I came to a wrong 'conclusion' somehow, it be that.

.

Yeah i would say people need to try it out with just the Harmalas and see how that goes. Because ime there's a lot of stuff that can manifest after taking this stuff, it's not as cut and dry as some think it may be. Which is why i recommend people avoid drawing conclusions too early without really putting things to the test, we need to know for sure but sadly people aren't very experimental.

But yeah, anyone wondering if there's any tyramine reactions, which there isn't but if you wanna make sure, try the Harmalas on their own, and maybe work with the Harmalas on their own for a bit and see how that goes, because that's the best way to make sure imo.

These are to be taken as general rules of thumb, of course there are plenty of otc meds and supplements that are fine to mix with harmalas, and then there are some that will land you in the ER (DXM, St. John's Wort). Harm reduction dictates the general rule of thumb is to simply try to avoid mixing with otc meds and supplements in general. It should go without saying to always do your due diligence and research any substances you are considering combining with harmalas/MAOI's. The (now updated, thanks OP!) disclaimer links provide a pretty thorough overview of which medications are not safe to mix with harmala/MAOI, and why, for that very reason.

With my seeds, 2.5g is already strong.


One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is harmalas have caused fatalities in combination with 5-MeO-DMT. Yopo seeds contain 5-MeO-DMT among other tryptamines. I would also be wary about combining harmalas with Yopo's other alkaloid bufotenin, another 5-substituted tryptamine. I have no idea what dose would be dangerous, but personally, knowing the potential dangers, it's not a combination I feel the call to explore. Yopo is a very powerful medicine without additions. Traditionally it's used as a snuff, even by tribes that are no strangers to Ayahuasca; there must be a reason for that.


You want to boil your seeds in an acidic solution. Vinegar is the most common choice for acidification and its advantage over lemon juice is that it evaporates.
Basing your soup prior to the boiling would result in poor extraction as the alkaloids within the seeds would turn solid and stay in there.

Right on

I find this all extremely confusing, this excerpt comes from an article that actually tries to debunk false alerts around the tyramine syndrome, check it out please:

I looked at it, but that appears to be more about irreversible inhibition, or reversible inhibition of both MAO-A and MAO-B. Put simply, if you reversibly and selectively inhibit MAO-A, and MAO-B remains uninhibited, there are no Tyramine interactions, but if both enzymes are inhibited, whether reversibly or irreversibly, Tyramine can't be broken down, although reversible inhibition is still not as much of an issue as irreversible inhibition. Harmalas, as well as Moclobemide, only seem to inhibit MAO-A. I've consumed Harmalas a lot, and even in heavy dosages i can't feel any MAO-B inhibition, in fact i have to mix some Mucuna extract in the mix to balance out the Serotonin and Noradrenaline with some Dopamine, feels a lot better then, as far as i can tell MAO-A inhibition doesn't do much of anything with Dopamine, only Serotonin and probably Noradrenaline. Though Harmaline has been reported to inhibit COMT though i'm not sure to what extent, so potentiation of Dopamine/Noradrenaline could perhaps come from there, but as far as i can tell, there's no MAO-B inhibition even a heavy dosages.

And as i said, one can take Harmalas regularly, build up the reverse tolerance, do away with the side-effects, and then put the diet thing to the test, and you won't notice any dietary interactions with the MAO-A inhibition. It's also been shown that Moclobemide doesn't have dietary interactions, and Aya is also used by people who don't follow dietary restrictions and no issues have been reported. It's pretty easy to tell that there's no Tyramine reactions, you just need good discernment and the ability to observe and reproduce one's observations and really scientific-mindedly put it to the test and see for oneself. People jump to conclusions far too quickly and blame Tyramine when chances are it's not Tyramine causing the issues, it's merely some side-effect of the Harmalas themselves, which ime with the reverse tolerance, the side-effects go away, including the headaches, and no matter what i eat, no more headaches, no nausea or vomiting, no weird issues, i've even eaten right after taking heavy dosages of Harmalas with the reverse tolerance built up with gut MAO-A inhibition at it's peak, and no issues were noticed.

If Harmalas did inhibit MAO-B, one could technically activate oral PEA, which would be interesting to test out i think, maybe i'll get around to it in the next few months, i've already been taking the Rue at 3.5 grams a night for 2 weeks now, reverse tolerance is definitely building up, though things feel clean because i include 3 to 4 grams of Lemon Balm in the mix.

Also it should once again be mentioned, that if one is really that concerned, merely don't eat Tyramine-containing foods a few hours before and after the Harmalas, and you'll be just fine. The gut's MAO-A inhibition only lasts maybe about an hour to an hour and a half to two hours, that i've noticed, so it doesn't last long at all and plus most people wouldn't wanna eat after taking Harmalas anyways, at least not during the first few hours lol, but even though there's no Tyramine interactions, just don't eat Tyramine-containing foods like maybe 3 to 4 to 6 hours before and within the first 2 hours of the Harmalas, and it's no big deal. You don't have to fast for 3 days or a week or whatever, or even 24 hours, just simply have a meal earlier on in the day if you must, or wait till the experience is over, and you'll be just fine.