Could DocT or some of the other well educated medical forumites tell me why this drug has not been approved for use in the US by the FDA? The research I have come across states that it is one of the safest drugs known to man and could benefit everyone from vacationers at high altitudes, to alzheimers patients, to me a dyselxic hopeing to go back to school and make something of myself. Not one single Nootropic drug has been approved by the FDA yet many of them are extremely safe and effective. Are any of you professionals out there familar with this class of drugs? It seems to me that they could be much more effective in treating people with LD, instead of misdiagnosing them and giving them anything from Prozac to Ritalin.
From other posts I have seen on other forums, this stuff isn’t worth the hype at all. One of those things that looks good on paper…yada yada yada.
I remember a few people I knew in high school (about 8 years ago) were big into this stuff. Piracetam was obtained through mail order from Europe. They were called “smart drugs” and people claimed to have noticeably increased mental function. These guys were into all kinds of other drugs too, though. I just assumed that the smart drugs were bringing them back to a normal level of functioning due to the fact that their brains were clogged with malted hops and bong resin. A guy I know actually used to snort L-dopa, a Parkinson’s drug. Brilliant. Never tried them myself, but most of what I read on them sounded promising. There was another one that I can’t remember the name, started with an e I think. I’ll get back to you in a couple days on this…
I like it, I take it with Alcar and other nootropics. It’s pretty easy to find of late, try it, you’ll like it.
Big Dave, why do you take it? Why do you take it with other nootropics? What have you experianced with it? If you are taking it just to give you an edge in cognitive function, yet you don’t really need it how can you tell it is doing anything to you?
Big Dave,
Have you taken Piracetam and ALCAR seperately? As I mentioned before, I have seen little positive feedback about Piracetam. ALCAR, is a different story though. I’ve seen quite a few people claim that their reaction times and eye-hand coordination have improved.
I take Piracetam and I like it. I would describe the effect as “waking up your brain”. I have no idea if it would affect dyslexia, but I am not an expert.
As far as FDA approval, the patents on Piracetam have expired (that’s why it is cheap, anyone can make it). To get FDA approval, it has to pass tests which are expensive to conduct. So no drug company thinks it is worth conducting expensive tests when there are no patents on the drug anymore (and anyone can make it). So there is no payoff for these drug companies. At least, that’s my understanding, again I am not an expert.
Piracetam is practically saving my career at this point. After a bad bout with antidepressants, my brain was left in a total fog that I thought I would never get out of. The drug has helped me tremendously in school, where I went from having no memory at all to being an grade-A premed student. Word of advice though, make sure you take plenty of choline and the B-vitamins with it. And yes, I have taken the choline and B vitamins alone for quite some time and saw no difference. Good luck with it.
First off I’d like to say that I did not do a search on the forums, concerning this drug, thiking it wouldn’t be of interest to T-Nation. I was wrong and once again surprised at the level of knowledge this group of people presents. All of you are exceptional human beings with varied and intelligent interests. Secondly, being dyslexic I have difficulty retaining what I read. I can read at an average pace and retain enough to get by, but to retain “enough”, going to school full time, is not going to cut it. I want to retain all of it, not just for grades but for my own self betterment. From the research I have gathered piracetam and a few other nootropics could help quite a bit for a dyslexic, possibly even for someone with ADD. I think I’m going to give it a try in conjunction with choline. I’ve found some cheap sources and since it has no known toxicity I think it’s worth it. I don’t expect an average individual may benefit much from nootropics but those with LD seem ideal canidates for these drugs. Thanks for all the excellent replys!
I’ve used piracetam, powerdrive, and Ravive (vincopetrine, but that’s probably a misspelling). Anyway, you’ll read that you need to load up on the first day with piracetam, and then you can go to a much lower dose… I had to really load up to see a difference… I figured that since the stuff wasn’t toxic except in insane doses, I could take my chances. Anyway, when it finally kicked in, my memory was humming along nicely, my moods evened out, and I found it a lot easier and more relaxing to get into difficult texts. I brought some with me to Italy to help with language acquisition, and it did seem to do me some good. Of course, none of this was a double-blind study obviously, so take it with a grain of salt.
Honestly, for a lot of people, the differences with nootropics are so subtle that it’s very difficult to know if it’s really doing you any good. The best way to tell, at least for me, is to try them for awhile and then go off… if after a week or two you are really noticing that you aren’t performing as well as you were before, then invest in more.
And hey, if it is just placebo, who cares (as long as it works)?