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Cocaine: Paradoxical Effects?

Kiosk

He Thinks He's People
Kiosk
Joined
Oct 1, 2007
Messages
349
I don't take cocaine. There are several reasons for this: firstly I find the "cocaine culture" boring and wasteful and so on. Secondly, I don't really spend time with cokey people, as they tend not to be very much fun. Thirdly, I can't afford it anyway, and even if I could, there'd be better things to spend that money on.

But there's also a fourth reason. It seems not to work properly on me. When I was in my early twenties I'd occasionally indulge (working in the music business, as I was at that time, it's hard not to, especially when you're young and foolish), and while I confess I sometimes enjoyed it, I always noticed a paradoxical effect, a sort of muggy fatigued feeling which would set in quite quickly once the initial rush had worn off, and got worse if I had some more. I wrote this off as the usual diminishing returns, and the effect of the dose fading (everyone knows that cocaine is a pretty short-acting drug, and like any stimulant, it leaves you weary when the rush has gone). I just shrugged, and generally stopped bothering with the nasty stuff - no hardship, as I saw far too many nice people turn into not-so-nice people under its influence.

But it gets weirder. In the decade since then, I took it maybe three times, in party situations, on a "what the hell" basis, just a single small line. Each time, something really strange happened. That extreme tiredness was the only thing I experienced, and I felt it straight away. This was not because the drug itself was poor quality, or cut with something else - everyone else in the room was jabbering away and running around, while I collapsed on a sofa and felt my eyes closing and my breathing growing shallow. There was never a sense that I was going to die or pass out or anything - it just felt like I'd not slept for several days. Edgy, slightly anxious, and very very tired. This happened all three times, and the feeling dragged on for several hours.... and then I'd suddenly feel rather perky, and not be able to get to sleep. It put me off ever bothering with the stuff again, which is good - but it made me very curious as to what was going on.

Of course, everyone has a different metabolism and responds to drugs (and medicines) in a slightly different way. But how is it possible to respond to a stimulant drug like this? I'm aware that people with ADD can be affected "differently" by certain stimulants - I don't have ADD - and I'm also aware that drugs can have unpredictable effects on people taking certain medicines. I'm not currently on any medication, and wasn't at the time of these weird experiences with coke. Does anyone have any idea what could have been going on here? It doesn't bother me in the sense of wanting to do cocaine (because I don't, as I explained earlier) but I find it quite interesting in terms of biology. Is there any particular medical condition or predisposition which could make stimulants have a paradoxical wearying effect on someone who is otherwise relatively healthy... then have a mild stimulant effect hours after they should have worn off? Interestingly, I get something similar with coffee and sugar, both of which make me feel rather tired, rather quickly, while still inducing insomnia if I partake too close to bedtime.

Not looking for any kind of diagnosis here (nor a lecture on drug-taking, which I don't need at my advanced age, especially as I've explained I'm not really into drugs anyway). But if anyone has an opinion, I'd be really interested.
 
Normally I would say that after a high comes a low. You just got high quickly and then crashed.

However if you still felt exhausted even after taking more cocaine that is kind of odd...
 
Yeah, that's the thing - there was no high, just a crash. And it would get worse after taking more - immediately.
 
Ritalin has a somewhat opposite effect in people that aren't in need of it. Great enough to disregard the placebo effect. As with your experience with cocaine, that too isn't as uncommon as you would think. In the few cases I've seen, naturally outgoing and talkative people become quiet and lethargic. I've observed the same reverse effects with pot. I'm guessing, but I think the social aspect of recreational use plays a huge part it in. Perhaps it's body chemistry during these periods combined with a placebo effect that overrides the drugs intended outcome.
 
There seems to be a pattern of psychoactive drugs having their own opposite effect whenever they don't have the main expected effect. The main tranquilizer that wildlife biologists use on wild mammals, for example, is PCP.
 
Kiosk said:
firstly I find the "cocaine culture" boring and wasteful and so on.
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You said it! Boring, wasteful, and phony. Cranksters are so much more interesting, and they really appreciate the importance of frugality, too. For the same money that would buy just a couple hours worth of cocaine thrills, an experienced crankster can buy enough central nervous system stimulant to get through the dismantling of an entire automobile engine with enough energy left over to spend the next 36 hours polishing the hubcaps. With a toothbrush. But mostly, they're just so much more real, ya know? Being crazy isn't just something they play at on weekends.

Not looking for any kind of diagnosis here
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Wherever you get it, I'd say your best bet at a robust explanation is probably going to be something along those lines. There are quite a few possibilities. TIA (transient ischemic attack) is one that comes to mind. Have you ever had a cardiac workup?
 
One thing to consider is that there may not be a readily available explanation. As you said yourself, everyone responds differently to drugs. I know a fair number of people who experience unusual or opposite side effects from medicines, and they don't have any particular disease that would explain it.

For example, I know people for whom taking sudafed has a sedating effect, instead of the normal "up" or "somewhat wired" feeling. I know people for whom taking benedryl makes them extremely hyper. I know other people for whom Ambien and other sleep inducing medications acts instead like downing 3 pots of super strong coffee.

And then there are people who experience weird side effects from medications that aren't listed anywhere, and that some doctors have never heard of occurring. Myself, neurontin made my hair fall out in clumps (whole handfuls mind you) -- something that my doctor was rather incredulous of (as was I, actually, which is why I called him in a panic), but he took me off it anyway, and as soon as I stopped taking it, my hair stopped dropping off my head.

So. People can have a wide variety of reactions to various substances, without any real explanation. Perhaps you're just one of those people who don't tolerate stimulants well.
 
Kiosk said:
Yeah, that's the thing - there was no high, just a crash. And it would get worse after taking more - immediately.
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Well cocaine is a weird one, if I recall correctly it blocks a cleanup enzyme in the postsynaptic cleft. So it does not act like many stimulants which effect a specific system.(Acetyl choline? Epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine.)

It causes an increase in the neurotransmitter in most of your brain, and I assume body. So each person will have a different response, it sounds as though your parasympathetic system responds rather than your sympathetic system. Unless it is an out right allergy or something.
 
I've been thinking about this some more today. Beats working.

It's not an allergy, unless the allergy has appeared out of nowhere, relatively recently. Ten years ago, this effect was not remotely as pronounced as it has been more recently. TIA is also unlikely, I'd say, as the symptoms don't match up. I'm thinking it might have something to do with the fact that I've been slightly messed up for some years now (physically) since coming off SSRIs, which seem not to have agreed with me in the long term (to say the least). I'm functional now, unlike when I first stopped taking them, but there have been several odd symptoms persisting since then, over and above the mood issues. Of course, we're almost entirely in the dark about what specific long term effects SSRIs might have, but something that would aggravate a naturally poor reaction to cocaine is certainly not outside the realms of possibility.

Another possible explanation is that I have pretty poor circulation, which has been getting worse for a few years. I have no idea how realistic this is, but might it not be that a stimulant which increases heartrate might put a certain amount of pressure on the circulatory system, which might in turn cause something of a minor shutdown if the system can't handle it properly? Or am I way off track here?

My conclusion, I suppose, is that the stuff just doesn't agree with me. Which is no big deal, as I don't really agree with it. It could be that a combination of minor factors (like the ones I mentioned above), which have been getting worse as time goes on, have contributed to the increasingly weird response. I still find it very strange though.
 
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Dancing David said:
Well cocaine is a weird one, if I recall correctly it blocks a cleanup enzyme in the postsynaptic cleft. So it does not act like many stimulants which effect a specific system.(Acetyl choline? Epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine.)
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It blocks mainly dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake, which is responsible for the stimulant effect. But it also blocks serotonin reuptake, normally less than dopamine and norepinephrine.

High levels of serotonin might explain drowsiness & tiredness. The inability to sleep afterwards would then be due to the exhaustion of the accumulated serotonin after the drug is cleared up from his system.

From what he describes, he may have a mutation affecting his serotonin reuptake system which makes it much more sensitive to cocaine than normal.
 
krazyKemist said:
From what he describes, he may have a mutation affecting his serotonin reuptake system which makes it much more sensitive to cocaine than normal.
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OK, this would seem to swing the spotlight back onto years of SSRI use.
 
Kiosk said:
I've been thinking about this some more today. Beats working.

It's not an allergy, unless the allergy has appeared out of nowhere, relatively recently. Ten years ago, this effect was not remotely as pronounced as it has been more recently. TIA is also unlikely, I'd say, as the symptoms don't match up. I'm thinking it might have something to do with the fact that I've been slightly messed up for some years now (physically) since coming off SSRIs, which seem not to have agreed with me in the long term (to say the least). I'm functional now, unlike when I first stopped taking them, but there have been several odd symptoms persisting since then, over and above the mood issues. Of course, we're almost entirely in the dark about what specific long term effects SSRIs might have, but something that would aggravate a naturally poor reaction to cocaine is certainly not outside the realms of possibility.
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I wrote that last post before seeing yours.

It would make even more sense now that it's a serotonin pathway issue. People who take SSRIs long term generally en up having lower serotonin levels, and this is not corrected after the medication is stopped.

Cocaine isn't a SSRI, but it's still a SRI. Having lower serotonin levels after being on SSRIs has probably made you more sensitive to serotonin (you will have more serotonin receptors than normal because your brain has adapted to low levels of serotonin - feedback).

Therefore, contrarily to most people, the main effect of cocaine for you is serotonin-oriented, ie, it makes you drowsy instead of stimulated. After the drug is evacuated, your serotonin supplies are exhausted, even lower than they were at the start, and you'll be unable to sleep, and generally stimulated.
 
I used cocaine once many years ago. Didn't do much of anything. Last time I used pot - many years ago - it just made me feel terrible. Last time I drank enough to get buzzed, it made me feel terrible. It is one of my great disappointments in life that I can't drink alcohol and get pleasure from it, aside from the taste. If I drink more than two beers it makes me feel like crap. I can remember being 23 and working at a dinner theater. Every night we went down to the bar and drank 3 or 4 beers, went to bed, slept like a rock and woke up feeling great. Not no more, I tell ya.
 
billydkid said:
I used cocaine once many years ago. Didn't do much of anything. Last time I used pot - many years ago - it just made me feel terrible. Last time I drank enough to get buzzed, it made me feel terrible. It is one of my great disappointments in life that I can't drink alcohol and get pleasure from it, aside from the taste. If I drink more than two beers it makes me feel like crap. I can remember being 23 and working at a dinner theater. Every night we went down to the bar and drank 3 or 4 beers, went to bed, slept like a rock and woke up feeling great. Not no more, I tell ya.
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Welcome to my world :D

Actually, I have it even worse : I've never been able to get drunk. Alcohol gives me migraines, either very painful ones or what are called vestibular migraines, migraines of the inner ear, which give you disareeable bouts of vertigo. Sometimes it's the two of them at the same time. They're accompanied by nausea, weakness and extreme sensitivity to light, sounds and smells. When they're bad they last up to 3 days.

It doesn't always happens, and most of the time I get warning signs while drinking. I don't know how to describe it, but alcohol becomes very disagreeable to the taste just before it starts.

And for some reason, it always happens without fault if I drink wine (just one glass will do it), but I can tolerate a little beer, vodka or rum.

So I've just abandonned the idea of drinking wine. I don't know if anybody else has a similar intolerance to it.
 
krazyKemist said:
Having lower serotonin levels after being on SSRIs has probably made you more sensitive to serotonin (you will have more serotonin receptors than normal because your brain has adapted to low levels of serotonin - feedback).
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Wait. This seems a bit tricky, but I'd like to understand it. When reuptake is inhibited, the increase in serotonin levels triggers a throttling back on natural serotonin production (similar to the way use of anabolic steroids leads to a decline in natural testosterone production). Plus, the body adapts to the increased serotonin levels in two other ways: a reduction in both the number of receptors and in their sensitivity. So when you stop, there is a deficiency, at least for a while. Right? So you're saying that the body adapts to that by increasing the number of receptors, but that natural production is never fully restored?
 
I'd chalk it up to different people reacting differently. Long story short, it simply put me in a good mood. I never felt any sort of addiction, as well, even when it was very obtainable. I also remember once describing to a friend who shared the experience about as often, that it just 'put me in a good mood' and he had no idea what I was talking about.
 
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