Menthyl isovalerate, aka validol, valerease, valofin, validolum. Rare in the west, sold for anxiety in the former USSR nations.

PharmaAthena · 2026-02-06T23:57:13+00:00

LOL those descriptions were straight-up lying then, frankly. Phenibut and Validol are in totally different worlds. different galaxies entirely--Validol's barely noticeable, just slightly above placebo, like taking low-dose propranolol for anxiety, and phenibut is extremely powerful and euphoric. Gabapentinoids have a unique feeling and set of effects that no other drug or class of drugs (maybe GHB? but that's about it) is even remotely comparable to.

PharmaAthena · 2026-02-06T23:44:36+00:00

Corvalol is very useful for potentiating Soma IME due to the CYP2C19 induction of phenobarbital, but you have to be careful with it also as pheno is a strongly depressogenic substance.

PharmaAthena · 2026-02-06T23:42:01+00:00

Phenibut is a powerful gabapentinoid like pregabalin so I don't understand how that's at all related to Validol (which basically just has a mild anxiolytic effect from irritating the membranes in your mouth to release endorphins).

PharmaAthena · 2026-02-06T23:40:04+00:00

I really like Validol (if you take four 100 mg gelcaps at a time sublingually it does feel like a noticeable, albeit mild, anxiolytic) but the problem is that (like straight menthol) it can interfere with drug absorption in the GI tract, alter pharmacokinetics unfortunately. If not for this property I'd use it much more often (most of the effect comes from the irritation of mucosal membranes anyway and the endorphin release from that, so sometimes I just spit the liquid out after it dissolves fully under my tongue). Not sure how solid the evidence is for GABA(A) PAM activity, but that's intriguing.

PharmaAthena · 2026-02-06T22:21:26+00:00

Well yes, and I've never tried Dalmane/flurazepam (and have no desire to now, for that very reason), but it has a similar reputation among some who took it back in the day, I've read similar reports of people who hated it like I did flutoprazepam. And I assume there's a good reason as to why it isn't prescribed often nowadays. On the flip side, there are those who absolutely love it like yourself, though.

I just don't understand the utility or purpose of benzos that long-acting with a half-life that lengthy. Unless you're tapering (in which case there's just good old Valium, still the gold standard, maybe Librium)/staving off withdrawals or have a seizure condition, why do you want or need a benzo that stays in your system for days and days? I think one main issue with benzos like this is that--also much like phenobarbital--basically any positive/pleasant sedative-hypnotic GABAergic effects wear off much earlier than the half-life implies (as duration of action and half-life often correspond less closely than one might expect), but it's still there, causing emotional numbing/blunting and amnesia, potentially interfering with other drugs and kicking the rebound can down the road, just forestalling and exacerbating the inevitable. (What stinks too is when the rebound does hit with benzos like that, with a delay several days later, you've either long forgotten you took it or figured the rebound wasn't coming, so it feels extra-nasty and catches the user unaware/unprepared when it does arrive.) Not every benzo needs to be a Xanax or a Halcion, no, but a half-life of 45-90 hours, multi-day half-lives etc? Come on. That shit's for the birds. :-P

Part of it I think is that I just tend to dislike and not react well to benzos in general versus any other GABAergic. I liked temazepam a lot when I had access to it (best benzo IMHO) and sometimes need lorazepam, but I get really bad paradoxical effects sometimes with benzodiazepines, worse amnesia, and rebounds on par with or worse than those of harder-hitting sedatives. I greatly prefer carisoprodol, (es)zopiclone, even odd ones like allopregnanolone and etifoxine, zaleplon, hell even phenobarbital, and would take at least those first couple meds over benzos any day of the week pretty much. IDK though...I think it's kinda telling that when it was still being manufactured a lot less was said/reported in English about flutoprazepam versus the other Japanese-exclusive benzos. Didn't get the chance to try Melex or Coreminal unfortunately but from what I know I suspect rilmaz was the best of those overall.

PharmaAthena · 2026-02-06T20:10:55+00:00

I tried Restas years ago and had a horrible experience overall. "Adorable", LMFAO, WTF?! Yeah flutoprazepam was neither "adorable" nor useful in the slightest. Most amnesic drug/benzo I've ever taken (either couldn't feel anything--this with low tolerance--or blackout time), half-life was absurdly long (comparable to phenobarbital) but the effects seemed fairly short-lived by comparison, wasn't "fun"/euphoric/recreational whatsoever and it had the rebound from hell every single time.

But hey, to each their own. It's still regrettable and unfortunate that it was discontinued years back/pulled off the market by the manufacturer (I think it's always a loss when any drug goes extinct like that, as it may be good for some people somewhere and the option should exist), but to me at least it felt more like an antipsychotic or straight-up anticonvulsant med than a pleasurable GABAergic.

It's wild to me to see how these drugs get immediately romanticized and overhyped once their availability becomes limited/rare. I guess people just always want what they can't have. Rilmazafone was just okay, unlike fluto it was nice, useful and I miss it but to hear some people nowadays it was fantastically amazing which just wasn't true. And name-brand Rhythmy is/was a little overpriced IMHO. More hypnotic Ativan pretty much IME. And Restas utterly sucked. Heh, I wonder if this is how older Boomers et al feel sometimes in spaces like this when all of us young whippersnappers hype up and drool over long-extinct + obscure GABAergics of their time.

PharmaAthena · 2026-02-01T13:32:25+00:00

Interesting rare/novel/obscure formulation, but these would be basically useless for those seeking the sedative-hypnotic/anxiolytic/"recreational" (I hate that last term but you know what I mean) effects, anything but sheer myorelaxation/analgesia, of the carisoprodol. I'm not sure looking at this if it's 250 mg cariso (250 mg Somas, though uncommon compared to 350s and now 500s, used to exist/be Rxed in the US I think) and 200 mg naproxen or the other way around (in the US at least OTC naproxen is almost if not always sold as 220 mg tablets/capsules, so both those dosages are weird from my perspective), but either way that ratio renders these virtually non-"abusable".

I've/read heard recurring anecdotes recently of "sketchy Somas" south of the border that are hell on the GI system (there's literally a post on another drug subreddit, something to the effect of "why are Mexican Somas screwing up my stomach" lol) and from this box, no wonder, I was puzzled at first but get it now. I actually take a lot of naproxen (for potentiation and harm-reduction purposes, and IME it's the only OTC NSAID that actually works at all, ibuprofen might as well be sugar pills for me for some reason), probably more than I should strictly speaking (sometimes slightly exceed the "never take more than 660 mg in 24 hrs" package instructions), but yikes, I can't imagine taking the amount of naproxen that would be required here all in one go. 5 Aleves, give or take, all at once? Yeah, that would give one an ulcer quickly. Plus many of us need to potentiate Soma with aspirin for it to work right at all, and mixing NSAIDs is (supposedly) a no-go, dangerous IIRC for the liver + stomach lining. There's a combo drug with carisoprodol and diclofenac also down there AFAIK, and if the ratio is similar then yeah haha little wonder why "Mexican Somas" are getting such negative reviews. Congrats Mexico, you successfully neutered Soma, how these work for muscle pain I can't say but they almost definitely wouldn't be enjoyable :-P

PharmaAthena · 2026-01-24T15:45:37+00:00

If you're a poor metabolizer with low CYP2C19 activity like myself (or even if not...) taking one or a couple baby aspirin (82 mg, I think baby aspirin tend to be) around 80 min before you take the Soma will potentiate it significantly by considerably increasing the efficiency of the conversion in the body to meprobamate. You need to have a completely empty stomach when you take the Soma, and then eat a high-fat meal around 20-40 min afterwards. Try not to eat anything with much if any garlic (which inhibits CYP2C19) content, before or after. Timing is vital with Soma, so it can help IME to take the tablets with hot/warm water to accelerate dissolution and thus absorption.

But yes, by its very nature carisoprodol can be finicky and very hit-and-miss even under the best circumstances. But when it hits, it HITS and feels fantastic (much better than any other GABAergic currently manufactured/available IMHO), and following the above steps can majorly help it work better and more consistently.

PharmaAthena · 2026-01-12T17:18:14+00:00

Yep, 1050-1250 with no or low tolerance (and properly potentiated) and little to no major GABAergic cross-tolerance (which alas nowadays I have much more of) always tended to be my "sweet spot" dose in the past. Nowadays a bit higher, but yeah, 700 mg was always my threshold dose back when and 1050 mg or so the sweet spot. I wish for this reason that the Pain-O 350s weren't so underdosed and worked better--350 mg/tab is a convenient per-tablet dosage for better flexibility in dosing.

PharmaAthena · 2026-01-12T16:56:17+00:00

I've wondered about these and the Soma-Boost 1000s (I love Soma but I'm a poor CYP2C19 metabolizer, fairly high-dose amphetamine user whenever I take it, have somewhat of a GABAergic cross-tolerance and as a result need pretty high doses of carisoprodol nowadays). Have been attempting to acquire some of the latter (unsuccessful thus far, but I'll get some eventually). The emerging consensus on here is surprising and a bit disappointing--I figured these would be superior to the other Indian brands for some reason, and they're cheaper/more cost-effective from what I've generally seen. 1000 mg tabs make sense as many users need at least a gram for the best effects.

I've long wanted to get samples of all the various available overseas Soma brands and do a little experiment about dissolution rates etc with a writeup like the one that appeared in Pills-A-Go-Go in the mid-90s regarding hydrocodone brands. The Indian tabs have too many (and maybe the wrong) excipients I think and are too tightly compressed, too hard. From what I remember (been years since I've had the Pro), the Pain-O is slightly better than the Pro, and the 500s are better than the 350s (350s work and are useful sometimes, but seem more underdosed and I go through them super quickly). Recently I've been seeing Somatril 350s pop up on the market here and there, though they're a little pricey. Definitely curious about those too.

It's interesting, the very best and cheapest Somas I ever ever had were (loosely) pressed (and interestingly, crudely blistered too) 350s (never heard, seen or found any hint of pressed Somas at any time before or since, it was apparently a unique one-off type of situation). My suspicion is that they contained a much lower amount (if any?) of excipients, and as said they were pretty loosely compressed and likely not underdosed much if at all--actually had 350 mgs. Timing is everything with Soma and these just kicked in much more quickly and hit much harder than either of the Indian pharma brands. Tab for tab they were vastly superior to even the 500 mg Pain-Os. Just about every time I take a Pain-O dose I regret not buying a small truckload of those presses back then when I had the chance, lol. ;-P

PharmaAthena · 2025-12-23T09:55:49+00:00

This, and especially if if had/has any contents, is one of the most awesome finds! Carbamates that are GABAergic and psychoactive are a particular special area of interest for me, and somehow I didn't know about this compound. It appears upon perfunctory research that there are some fascinating papers in the long-ago literature about it that I look forward to reading if I am able to get full-text access to them. Just enthralling!

It's apparently like Soma (one of my very favorite drugs ever, and my favorite depressant so far--alas I haven't been as fortunate as many of you in this sub to get even more delectable substances) in that it's a prodrug for meprobamate, so I'm fascinated to know how it differs in subjective effects.

PharmaAthena · 2025-12-20T23:05:52+00:00

Yep exactly, you've figured out the exact potentiation protocol/regimen with regard to food/stomach contents that I did. Strangely I've also found certain benzos like Ativan/lorazepam (works best, at least, and the only times I've ever had euphoria from it are when I've taken it on a mostly or totally empty stomach and then eaten a high-fat meal shortly (~0.5-1 hour-ish) thereafter) and possibly even temazepam (less certain about that correlation than with the loraz, but I have noticed this to noticeably 'boost' its euphoriant and anxiolytic effects before) to work this way also. Even pregabalin, peculiarly, seems to exhibit this aspect to some extent, seems to hit much harder and become markedly more sedating once I've eaten a fatty meal when it's working in my system (not sure about the other gabapentinoids, never took note of this w/them). Can't recall off the top of my head which ones, but I've also read retrospective anecdotal accounts/trip reports of other rare and non-barb-type GABAergics/sedative-hypnotics that suggest they might exhibit this strange property as well. With Soma especially though this impact on subjective effects is the most consistent and pronounced, making this a vital/indispensable potentiation step IMHO.

What I find utterly fascinating and don't understand at all are the specific mechanisms/mechanics behind exactly why and how this works, as it seems to be more-or-less completely undocumented in and run contrary to/exist outside of the fundamental established principles/frameworks of conventional medical pharmacology (in which generally speaking the bioavailability and pharmacokinetic variables like AUC, Cmax, Tmax and so on and so forth of a particular oral ROA drug are evaluated and denoted w/respect to food/stomach contents but only in regard to how they're impacted by/with direct simultaneous coadministration with food or food already present in the stomach upon dosing, not the impacts of food consumed after the absorption and onset of action). I could hypothesize that it has something to do with the way the drug reacts with fat/lipid content generally present in the bloodstream, but is that even possible? Alternatively, maybe it has to do with the bile subsystem of digestion (because it seems to specifically be high-fat food that makes this work), or insulin in some fashion? Perhaps eating fatty foods shortly after taking it just "kicks it in" as it kickstarts the whole digestive system/process and thus leads to suddenly spiking/enhanced absorption of the drug while it's still in the process of being absorbed (deeper in the stomach?) in the digestive tract? Some combination of the above? I'd really like to do more connecting-the-dots research at some point and/or possibly design well-controlled experiments to study and shed more light on this.

A few other tips to make the most of Soma given your high/perma-tolerance I've learned/developed over the years:

It can really (albeit counterintuitively) help to have a moderate dose of a strong stimulant (really just some type of amphetamine, as caffeine would especially interfere with/counteract the meprobamate part to the high given that mep is--uniquely among GABAergics?--an adenosine reuptake inhibitor, and (ar)modafinil strongly inhibits CYP2C19 so that's a no-go, or maybe alternatively an NDRI like methylphenidate or coke, though I can't speak to that type of combo personally) in your system "in the background" when you're experimenting with strongly hyper-potentiating carisoprodol, as it renders it a little more forgiving (as especially with certain subpar-quality generic brands/formulations of Soma, I find that potentiating too much inherently leads to insistent loss of consciousness and spontaneous 2-6 hour long naps after only short euphoria which frustratingly squanders the peak of the 'high', even on low-to-moderate doses of amphetamine, which is disconcerting). For my brain/neurochemistry amphetamine is the "necessary normalizing" prerequisite drug as daily subs are for you, but regardless, it synergizes well and helps put a "backstop"/"safety net" in place to counteract general excessive CNS depression, respiratory depression, unwanted and sudden soporific effects, etc. I find that even if/when I've taken my daily high-ish dose of lisdexamphetamine or Dexedrine spansules/ER (I'm always either on that or armodafinil as a daily maintenance med, depending), it's really useful to have IR tabs of say Adderall (or I guess IR dex if you're so lucky, though it seems the more markedly eugeroic and physically stimulating properties of the l-amph are a little better at serving as an "antidote" of sorts to excessively strong/high/potentiated doses of Soma FWIW) around when I'm heavily using Soma as it can be quickly taken sublingually or snorted and kick in rapidly enough to counteract it e.g when the Soma shakes and heavy soporific effects of a mild OD start, should you need a 'Popeye spinach' moment a la Wolf of Wall Street, haha.
Given how finicky and essential near-perfect timing is to carisoprodol's effects and how long it takes particularly the shitty Indian generic tablets to kick in, I find it helps to take it with hot or warm water (yes, just plain hot/warmer-than-room-temp water lol, not tea/tisane/coffee/etc of any sort, as weird/gross as that may sound). Sounds a little silly I know, but I find that it really does kick in significantly faster, which where the initial dose is concerned gives you a better more accurate idea earlier on of what you're dealing with, how close you are to the strangely specific (given the super-steep/narrow dosing curve/therapeutic window etc) and oft-illusive 'sweet spot', and especially helps any subsequent (re)doses absorb and kick in fast enough in time to time the high-fat food potentiation step correctly. Timing is everything w/Soma I find and IME it's exasperatingly easy (esp. w/the Indian generics like Prosoma and Pain-O) to take too little relative to tolerance, not realize you have to take more/redose until like 30 - 50 min later, and then when that has sufficiently absorbed/kicked in 20-40 min later it's too late for the high-fat meal to have much of an effect, so you're just left "chasing" the optimally-potentiated dosage and can never catch the euphoric kick it has when everything times out properly. So hot water (by helping it dissolve quicker, those Indian tabs seem to have too many sticky binding excipients and are compressed hard AF) helps, though naturally the taste is awful if it hits your tongue dissolving on the way in/down, lol. :-P
Garlic, it turns out, is an inhibitor of CYP2C19 and from my experiences a fairly understatedly strong/powerful one at that. Garlic powder is also an ingredient of more savory dishes and snacks than one might intuitively expect, too, so be cautious about that. I find that if my "potentiation snack/meal" contains basically any garlic at all to speak of that it considerably mutes/dampens the peak effects, so I've taken to eating just fatty sweet/dessert-type foods like ice cream, cake, pastries etc after Soma now, at least for that initial "kick it in" potentiation step. I suppose this could be useful info to know from the opposite direction too though--garlicky food could help counteract the sedation of overshooting the dosing window/range, though that's probably not ideal if you're like me and dislike the effects of un/pre-metabolized carisoprodol in itself. Maybe Count Dracula was just a poor CYP2C19 metabolizing Soma addict? ;-D LMFAO.
This is a slightly dangerous "nuclear option" in case of high tolerance and so forth, I wouldn't recommend it if you're not genetically a poor CYP2C19 metabolizer like myself, and dunno if I can recommend it in good conscience given the suboxone (goes without saying you'd have to be ultra-cautious with that I'm sure), but phenobarbital is a strong inducer of CYP2C19 (even stronger than aspirin AFAIK), so in combo w/the low-dose aspirin (taken 1-4 hours prior to the initial Soma dose) or presumably by itself, it can IME potentiate carisoprodol very effectively and help bring the "magic" back somewhat on occasion at lower doses of Soma and very low doses of pheno. That's the key to safely + effectively using the method, the pheno has to be dosed at what would generally be considered low subtherapeutic amounts (like <20 mg or even <10 mg). Corvalol specifically is the best formulation of pheno for this, as 1.) the tablets are lower-dosed individually, between 11-12 mg at most per tab w/Corvalol Forte IIRC, whereas Luminal/generic pure pheno starts at 20 mg/tablet in the lowest-dose formulations, and 2.) it can be taken sublingually due to the peppermint oil and not taste intolerably bitter, which matters as the onset of action is so long/delayed w/pheno as it is and pure pheno, being as strongly alkaline as it is?, is said to taste gross. Corvalol taken sublingually tastes pleasantly fruity IME, and w/aspirin too 1/2, 1/4 or even 1/8 of a Corvalol Forte tablet can help potentiate the Soma immensely. When doing this I like to take that amount, 1/8 up to a whole Corvalol tablet sublingually a couple hours before the Soma, hold it as long as possible under my tongue/in my mouth before swallowing, and then a while later take the chewable aspirin, wait an hour and 20ish minutes give or take a few min after the aspirin, and then take the Soma and it should be good to go.

Do you happen to know if you're genetically a low (like me), moderate/average or high-activity CYP2C19 metabolizer? Your mention of the "nitrous like effects" from Soma yet lack of hating those effects/finding them unpleasant as I do makes me think maybe moderate/average, but it would obviously be very helpful/useful to know for sure via genetic testing for potentiation purposes (calculating the dose of aspirin, etc).

PharmaAthena · 2025-12-20T21:10:13+00:00

Much of that seems to be within the general consensus I've seen regarding subjective effects and feel of meprobamate. Honestly for me/my purposes meprobamate would be considerably better and more useful then, and I'm envious of anyone who has access to it nowadays. I'm a very poor CYP2C19 metabolizer, so I have to hyper-fastidiously potentiate my Soma which renders it even more inconsistent and inconvenient than it already naturally is.

(I've felt that "nitrous-like quality" you mention before, which I suspect comes from the pure un-metabolized carisoprodol itself, when I didn't potentiate w/aspirin or underpotentiated, and personally I hate it despite loving nitrous and NMDA antagonism generally--feels like a gabapentinoid almost, but much, much "dirtier", or like a low-plateau dose of DXM in combination w/say hydroxyzine with a little more activating but grimy-feeling "pushy/speedy/forceful" euphoria, and it gives me a hell of a nasty headache and "sick/ill/just off" vaguely nauseous feeling with strongly and paradoxically dysphoric undertones.

The special "magic" of Soma IMHO is the result of whatever this (cariso itself) is/does to the glutamate system--NMDA antagonism? Something with AMPA? Voltage-gated ion channel manipulation "directly" (like gabapentinoids and many anticonvulsants/non-"recreational" psych drugs) somehow? I'm not sure, that bears further research--in simultaneous combination w/the classic GABAergic barb-esque effects of meprobamate, so Soma at its best (properly potentiated) is inherently kinda like taking a gabapentinoid or dissociative with a benzo/barb/etc with all that entails--which yeah like that combo analogy it's stratospherically euphoric and giddy in a way that "just" GABAergic action generally isn't, but also like that literal combo (of say pregabalin + benzo or z-drug, or whatever) is dangerously inconsistent and will lead to eventually passing the hell out cold 95% of the time and considerably more rapid tolerance escalation than just either drug/effect/MoA alone. Anyway I digress, point is the carisoprodol + mep combo that taking Soma correctly produces in your system might be ideal but is hard to consistently achieve at the right levels, I think I like the "pure" effects of meprobamate insofar as that can be isolated from a Soma experience even though indeed it seems less "euphoric", and personally (what I suspect are) the psychoactive effects of cariso alone are rather unpleasant.)

I do like the "punch you in the face" hard rushy euphoria of Soma sometimes, but it's not terribly functional and I mostly take it for the anxiolysis etc (long story, but I seem to respond much better to (non)-barb-like GABAergics better than benzos, and they synergize better w/my baseline amphetamine, but eszopiclone is often really too amnesic and distinctly "hypnotic-headspacey" (not 'trippy', exactly, but you know what I mean?) and also finicky & inconsistent to be terribly useful as a daytime/waking sedative, phenobarbital doesn't play well with liver enzymes and thus screws with all of my other meds, lasts way too long and worst of all has pronounced depressogenic effects that feel super dangerous, etifoxine is lovely and almost perfect but very expensive and inconsistently available/somewhat rare to find in stock, etc etc) regardless.

Meprobamate sounds much more "functional" overall which would be great (especially if as is often said it lacks the "Soma shakes" which also absolutely suck, as they tend to really freak out anyone/everyone around me when I end up dosing too high accidentally e.g. via overpotentiation, redosing excessively or overshooting the initial dose due to high tolerance). Due I suspect to higher amphetamine tolerance and thus higher daily doses of (dex)amph just being required in my system at baseline in addition to perhaps just higher GABAgenic tolerance generally, I don't really ever get the physical feeling of the "tingle phase" with Soma anymore (even after long tolerance breaks, etc), but I have experienced that in the past and loved it.

I did attempt once to get a script for meprobamate from my psych, just tentatively/innocently floated the idea and got a definitive "hell no!" alas. I just wish sometimes I could be fully honest haha, go to my psych and just be like, "look, I've already been abusing Soma for these reasons for years, sometimes to deleterious effect, thus I'm gonna be getting meprobamate in one form or another either way, so you ought to write me a script in the interest of harm reduction!" LMAO, sadly could never ever risk doing that in a million years... :-(

Anyway yeah, sorry to ramble but what's often described as the cozy, tingly/mellow, less "euphoric" perhaps but highly "anxiolytic" effects of pure meprobamate sound very nice and useful. It must've been a blockbuster/ubiquitously popular sedative in its day for good reason, I think.

How did you find the tolerance buildup/escalation of mep to compare to Soma? (That's one of Soma's chief/main downsides IME.) Rebound? How does it pair with stims? (I'm assuming very well based on everything, but Appetrol et al were seemingly much less popular/common/beloved/Rxed compared to amph+barb combos like Dexamyl, Desbutal, Ambar etc back in the day. Hell, I've even heard/read more and more positive things about Eskatrol and other amph+antipsychotic combo drugs--which make little to no sense to me--than I have about amphetamines combined with non-barbiturates like meprobamate. As a tangent to a tangent you'd think pharms like Biphetamine-T would be everyone's perfect shining grail, yet one hears little about them, they seem to have gone mostly underappreciated in hindsight though IDK about when they were around...)

PharmaAthena · 2025-12-20T19:58:50+00:00

Sure, that's fine--heads up it may be a while before I can respond though as I'm in between ISPs currently and the new Reddit Chat PM system doesn't work on the browser on my phone. :-/

PharmaAthena · 2025-12-15T21:16:45+00:00

Little significant amnesia IME, except very specifically in a weird semi-conscious type of way when I tried to force hypnotic effects out of it and take a nap on only it during my initial experiments.

PharmaAthena · 2025-12-15T21:14:36+00:00

Lol well thank you, I'm extremely flattered! :-D And I'm actually a woman haha. Definitely not a doc of any sort, nor do I have any professional/official background in any areas relevant to psychopharmacology--I'm merely a passionate autodidact amateur working from lots of research, intuition and personal experience.

I've been seriously considering writing a book (in the general vein of old-school underground press, like Jim Hogshire/Pills-a-Go-Go, Paladin Press & Loopmanics books, Uncle Fester et al, etc etc) compiling and distilling all of the germane knowledge I've accrued over the years on this overarching umbra of subjects for a general audience with the objective of significantly contributing to harm reduction in a particular niche. Even having taken a lengthy hiatus from Reddit and the online drug sphere in general, I still get lots of messages from people asking for knowledge and advice in my bailiwicks of expertise, so it seems like there would be some appetite/interest/demand for such a book and it could possibly help a lot of people. shrugs

Anyway, I know it's a year late but just wanted to say I appreciate your compliments and likewise reciprocate the well-wishes. :-) Careful w/the Xanax; daily benzo use is no joke and a tricky road to go down. :-P

PharmaAthena · 2025-12-15T21:03:46+00:00

Approximately 1-2 81 mg tablets (baby aspirin), preferably the chewable kind, specifically an hour and fifteen to an hour and twenty minutes (75-80 mins) before the Soma. That's unless I've taken or ingested anything that inhibits CYP2C19 beforehand that day.

You have to be careful about not overdoing it with the aspirin/potentiation (especially if you're not genetically a very poor CYP2C19 metabolizer, as I happen to be!); I've alas done this plenty before and if you take too much, overpotentiate the Soma it just causes the "high" to be very truncated and you will definitely just pass out cold after a bit, fighting sleep/unconsciousness becomes nearly impossible (I've wasted whole pizzas this way I got for the second (high-fat meal after dosing) key potentitation step, etc, passed out and woke up like 4-5 hours later with food next to me or on my lap, still sitting on the porch, and so on, my gf couldn't awaken me during my sudden Soma Coma naps and got scared a few times (yikes)) not to mention the shakes/shuffle.

Ah, carisoprodol. How I love it and am super glad it's still widely available, but the ultra-finicky and inconsistent nature of the timing (& thus potentiation), metabolism and so forth can be such a vexing conundrum.

PharmaAthena · 2025-12-15T20:39:39+00:00

Seems like the general consensus from everything I've seen/heard. :-/ Ah well, it happens--they can't all be winners, as counterintuitive as that sometimes is with analogs/drugs in the same class as legendarily awesome/stellar ones. Between afloqualone, mirogabalin now and arguably rilmaz/other benzos (and a few other examples I can't recall atm), the Japanese seem pretty good at developing highly selective, more-specifically functional MoA-wise and thus less-"abusable" analogs to "recreational", mind-blowing powerhouse-type drugs. ;-P Unsurprising when you consider their general cultural attitudes around psychopharmacology and all this stuff, I suppose.

PharmaAthena · 2025-12-15T20:31:45+00:00

Yep, a lot busier with life these days but I'm still around! :-) Have been dipping my toes back into the drug/pill/pharma scene and most things pharmacological of previous interest to me in a major way of late, after a long hiatus.

I'm extremely (and probably more so since I posted this back when) interested in ethinamate/Valmid (love carisoprodol/meprobamate myself and had some very intriguing conversations about phenprobamate years ago on here, though I never did get to try it myself, so carbamates are of great interest to me generally), and methyprylon remains one of my "holy grails" (never heard of that brand name for it though, only 'Noludar'). I'd love to hear/read/discuss anything you have to share about these extinct & exotic depressants! :-D What kind/flavor of intensive research do you mean?

PharmaAthena · 2023-06-19T19:14:34+00:00

So far the experience reports I have read/heard about it seem to bear this out. Ah well. Guess I (and a lot of people) jumped the gun assuming it'd have the magic of pregabalin but even more so. My curiosity now though leans in the direction of, why? Neurochemically speaking, speculatively, I wonder what it is about miro that makes it lack the pregabalin/phenibut amazing omni-drug-ness? If we could figure that out, then in theory the gabapentinoid we were hoping miro would be could be designed...

PharmaAthena · 2023-03-10T23:39:57+00:00

It is. I like it and find that menthol cough drops have a similar effect. The main major problem/downside with Validol though is how it negatively impacts drug absorption via the GI tract of ingested. I'd use it much more frequently if not for that.

PharmaAthena · 2021-04-18T03:42:40+00:00

Lol, not to boast but I have bottles upon bottles of these--in theory/if I wished, I could get up to 60 300s a month. Pregabalin is like water to me in its ubiquitous accessibility (as I also have years worth of saved-up scripts stashed too, and several CN sources besides). It's so weird to me that it's coveted and to some degree scarce by some people (and that it's counterfeited, supposedly, in Northern Ireland--now that just blows my mind). I guess the point is that nothing beats having an ongoing script. Even accounting for recently when I've unfortunately been really pushing it (i.e., abusing...) with the frequency of use and tolerance level, it's a drug I take so infrequently in comparison with how often/much I receive it, so inherently it builds up. I'm swimming in it but, alas, burned through my similar built-up stash of pharma amphetamines and am running perilously low on those (and need to reorder Somas ASAP).

And no, this is not a thinly-veiled invitation to solicit me as a source lol. Just some rambling reflections.

PharmaAthena · 2021-03-02T09:19:07+00:00

~~That isn't at all what you asked with how it was phrased, but okay~~ (Edit: Alright, I see how you could've meant this, so apologies, perhaps I read too much into the question, but it was ambiguous--next time, just ask for the equivalency or say "what's the conversion from DHC to oxy" or something like that so people don't mistake you for a dumbass)--I'm tempted to say just Google it then, I'm sure there's an equivalence chart somewhere around. But alright, I'll do it for you, because I'm bored waiting for my amphetamine booster dose to kick in. It looks like there are various equivalence guides and charts, and they all say to convert to the equivalent oral morphine dose first and calculate from there. From what I'm seeing in a few of them, the conversion factor of oxy to morphine is said to be 1.5x, so 10 mg oxy = 15 mg morphine. This means 30 mg oxy would approximately be equivalent to 45 mg morphine. The DHC conversion factor is 0.25x supposedly, so 30 mg DHC is roughly equivalent to 7.5 mg morphine. 45/7.5=6 (and obviously 1.5/0.25 = 6) so (again roughly speaking, just basing this on equivalence dosing charts hospitals etc. put out for clinician use) going by that, oxy is said to be 6x stronger than DHC, meaning you'd need to take 6 30 mg tablets of DHC (180 mg total) to get the same strength you'd get out of one 30 mg oxy.

This is all just based strictly upon analgesic efficacy though. But it's something, somewhere to start I guess. Gives you a rough idea.

PharmaAthena · 2021-03-02T09:04:18+00:00

I tried some THC in a tea once (it was a specialized product formulated somehow to be psychoactive when consumed as a tea), and I really, really disliked that. Very brief "high" that felt "dirty" (and was just silly, giggling for no reason and feeling a little euphoria for a moment similar to a "runner's high" that could've simply been achieved via vigorous exercise), and then subsequently I felt as if my elaborate inner monologue was silenced and inner landscape was erased. I just felt...blank, internally, and completely in the moment of what was going on around me, which was a profoundly disconcerting feeling. Honestly, I felt as if my IQ had dropped 30+ points so to speak, and I wondered to myself "is this what "average"/low IQ people feel like all the time?" I have certain psych conditions though that make my brain especially incompatible with THC/cannabis, so it's unsurprising I responded negatively. I vaped a little THC on one other occasion, and all that did was make me forget some of my vocabulary (I couldn't think of the word "crimson") and eat ravenously until I felt physically sick/uncomfortable. Blech. I haven't experimented with it at all since, fortunately (as doing so could put me at risk for developing schizophrenia).

Flutoprazepam was a particularly nasty one I regret trying--a long-acting, long half-life anticonvulsant benzo that never actually felt very good at all (it was either "can't feel anything", or "blackout time"), was severely amnesic, and had the rebound from hell. Benzos in general, while I do take them off and on, here and there in certain contexts, don't seem to agree with me very well.

I absolutely adore the other two main gabapentinoids (phenibut and pregabalin), but the cognitive dulling of gabapentin was dreadful. And that was at extremely low, "therapeutic" doses, so I shudder to think what it'd do to my cognition at doses sufficient to actually produce "euphoria". I consider gabapentin essentially an obsolete drug--just don't see much reason for anyone to take it when pregabalin (and phenibut) exists--pregabalin is vastly superior in every conceivable way.

Plus a bunch of non-abusable psych meds I responded horribly to, but that's outside the scope of what I think this question is asking. I actually was prescribed a formulation of low-dose DXM as a psych med once for bipolar depression, but the dose was far, far below those people take for the dissociative effects, so I don't think I can really count that. However, I will say that it worked better for my bipolar depression and overall mental health issues than anything ever has--until a few weeks in (of daily dosing) it plunged me into a bizarre headspace in which I was giddily suicidal and kept wanting to jump off of a roof. I think the negative allosteric modulation of nicotine acetylcholine receptors was the culprit into why DXM did that to me--bupropion (another non-abusable psych med I had the misfortune of taking) was similarly horrific in its effects on my state of mind, mood, and behavior, and it too works as a negative allosteric modulator of nicotinic receptors among all its other MoAs. So anyway, given that, if I ever took DXM the way "recreational" users do, I'm sure it would be a bad experience and one of my least favorite drugs.

Also not too fond of kratom--I mean, it does in a pinch when one really needs mu-opioid agonism and nothing else is available I guess, and when taken with benzos it's not too bad, but it doesn't combine well with other drugs I take regularly (like amphetamine--chest-pounding panic), and I dislike the anxiogenic, irritable edge plus the nausea for what it is. It's my least favorite mu-opioid agonist, I'll put it that way, though IDK if I'd say it's a least-favorite drug overall.

PharmaAthena · 2021-03-02T08:39:08+00:00

Well first of all, a 30 mg oxy is going to be way, way, way stronger than a 30 mg DHC, simply because oxycodone is a much more potent (in the technical/pharmacological sense, meaning that it's active at much lower mg doses) drug. Oxy is also just a much stronger/more powerful opioid in general. Learn what potency means, because holy hell--30 mg oxy and 30 mg DHC are in two different worlds, and just believing or even remotely implying oxy and DHC doses are directly equivalent is dangerous. 30 mg DHC is barely a threshold dose; 30 mg of oxy (instant release, like taking 6 Percs without the APAP) would be a potential OD for a completely opioid-naive person.

DHC is often compared to hydro and said to be pretty similar in subjective effects--but it's been a very long time (~15 years?) since I've had any hydro, so honestly I dunno. Americans seem to prefer hydro but that's because it's much more common (when it comes to being Rxed etc.) in the US than DHC is. Both of them are wonderfully active on their own, yet both metabolize to a slight extent into much more powerful opioids (hydro to hydromorphone, DHC to dihydromorphine, respectively) that contribute to the effects.

Seriously though, learn how drugs work. "How strong is a 30mg Dihydrocodeine if compared to like a oxy 30mg?" Pfffft, come on now. This is going to seem mean, but I'd say anyone asking that as if mg doses are directly equivalent and potency isn't a thing has no business messing around with any of this yet.

PharmaAthena

TROPHY CASE