My Experience With Clonidine So Far

[SQu]

I've had insomnia since low carb days. Years. Really bad. Multiple wakeups, nocturia (that got better pretty soon after starting Peating). I found that clonidine and cyproheptadine were available over the counter where I live so I tried them. Cyproheptadine first. My chronic slightly stuffy nose has been a thing of the past ever since. And my regular hay fever too. I have at times tried higher doses but I get a dry mouth. I will take more if I am sick or coming down with something (along with other favourites) and mostly it's gone the next day. I did find it a bit lowering moodwise, but not too much at 4mg (1 pill). If I take less or run out, I feel it immediately in terms of worse sleep.

Clonidine was even better. Especially for menopause, flushing, sweating. Especially in a hot climate. It's really helpful for a racing mind, whether at bedtime or in the early hours of the morning. Helps you get back to sleep. It's also good when stressed, I find it kind of similar to theanine. I take it occasionally for this purpose in daytime. I started with half or a quarter of a 25mcg pill. I was cautious.

I know Peat is not in favour of taking things like this (as opposed to food) too long, but really I find only good effects. I have recently added adamantane to my supplements and I think the dopamine, and especially the blood sugar assistance, have countered that mood lowering effect from cyproheptadine, and helped sleep even more. To the point where I think good sleep is mostly (like 99%!) about fixing your gut and your blood sugar. Weight loss, same thing. My two remaining major issues, improving now. I still have ups and downs with sleep, but like most things, the good patches get longer, the bad patches get shorter.

Foodwise - by far the most important aspect I find is the 3 hourly gap between eating to make sure blood sugar doesn't drop too much; fruit and juices; 2 litres of milk a day. Top nutrition to help heal the body, and lots of patience - it has taken years.

 

[ReSTART]

Thanks for sharing your experience @SQu, I’ll post my experience when I eventually get some.

I’ll probably start with 12.5mcg to be cautious. In terms of long-term use, it has been used for hypertension and ADHD treatment for decades.

 

[SQu]

Great. Seems safe, but as one can see from some of the posts here, it's the early days that can be a bit groggy or fuzzy. The same goes for cyproheptadine. Good luck!

 

[Velve921]

I've had insomnia since low carb days. Years. Really bad. Multiple wakeups, nocturia (that got better pretty soon after starting Peating). I found that clonidine and cyproheptadine were available over the counter where I live so I tried them. Cyproheptadine first. My chronic slightly stuffy nose has been a thing of the past ever since. And my regular hay fever too. I have at times tried higher doses but I get a dry mouth. I will take more if I am sick or coming down with something (along with other favourites) and mostly it's gone the next day. I did find it a bit lowering moodwise, but not too much at 4mg (1 pill). If I take less or run out, I feel it immediately in terms of worse sleep.

Clonidine was even better. Especially for menopause, flushing, sweating. Especially in a hot climate. It's really helpful for a racing mind, whether at bedtime or in the early hours of the morning. Helps you get back to sleep. It's also good when stressed, I find it kind of similar to theanine. I take it occasionally for this purpose in daytime. I started with half or a quarter of a 25mcg pill. I was cautious.

I know Peat is not in favour of taking things like this (as opposed to food) too long, but really I find only good effects. I have recently added adamantane to my supplements and I think the dopamine, and especially the blood sugar assistance, have countered that mood lowering effect from cyproheptadine, and helped sleep even more. To the point where I think good sleep is mostly (like 99%!) about fixing your gut and your blood sugar. Weight loss, same thing. My two remaining major issues, improving now. I still have ups and downs with sleep, but like most things, the good patches get longer, the bad patches get shorter.

Foodwise - by far the most important aspect I find is the 3 hourly gap between eating to make sure blood sugar doesn't drop too much; fruit and juices; 2 litres of milk a day. Top nutrition to help heal the body, and lots of patience - it has taken years.

thanks for sharing your experiences. I’ve noticed a lot of similarities in things you’ve noticed. Clonidine has been very helpful for the racing mind! Incredible actually.

im now trying it when I wake up to pee at night. Not quite helpful for sleep; doxylamine succinate seems to work the best for sleep for me.

haven’t tried adamantane. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on that.

 

[SQu]

thanks for sharing your experiences. I’ve noticed a lot of similarities in things you’ve noticed. Clonidine has been very helpful for the racing mind! Incredible actually.

It is amazing. Like nothing else - except maybe food. Something like sugared milk or some other snack can do this too, often. I think Ray may have said that it's no good lying there with your mind racing in the dark. Rather get up and try one of these things. I have found this to be true. I have orange juice without pulp, milk with honey, and a buttercream frosting that has coconut oil instead of butter, on hand. As you can guess, My sleep is in a bad patch. This was after a good patch in which some crazily unintuitive things gave me months of the best sleep in years. For example, no amino acids after noon, iced coffee at bedtime and during the night, and B3 and progesterone to counter the cortisol in the early hours. There were other things too, like my appetite vanished overnight in the first heatwave of summer about 5 months ago, and has not really come back. Fruit and juice and fat free milk were mostly what I lived on, still do.

im now trying it when I wake up to pee at night. Not quite helpful for sleep; doxylamine succinate seems to work the best for sleep for me.

The cyproheptadine and clonidine don't enitrely fix my sleep but without them I sleep much worse! And I have tweaked and tweaked. They still do better than anything else, mostly.

 

[Velve921]

It is amazing. Like nothing else - except maybe food. Something like sugared milk or some other snack can do this too, often. I think Ray may have said that it's no good lying there with your mind racing in the dark. Rather get up and try one of these things. I have found this to be true. I have orange juice without pulp, milk with honey, and a buttercream frosting that has coconut oil instead of butter, on hand. As you can guess, My sleep is in a bad patch. This was after a good patch in which some crazily unintuitive things gave me months of the best sleep in years. For example, no amino acids after noon, iced coffee at bedtime and during the night, and B3 and progesterone to counter the cortisol in the early hours. There were other things too, like my appetite vanished overnight in the first heatwave of summer about 5 months ago, and has not really come back. Fruit and juice and fat free milk were mostly what I lived on, still do.



The cyproheptadine and clonidine don't enitrely fix my sleep but without them I sleep much worse! And I have tweaked and tweaked. They still do better than anything else, mostly.

Thanks again for sharing, That's impressive you could sleep with B3 during the night. That stuff wires me up like nothing else.

What's the recipe for your buttercream frosting?

 

[SQu]

Thanks again for sharing, That's impressive you could sleep with B3 during the night. That stuff wires me up like nothing else.

What's the recipe for your buttercream frosting?

My ability to tolerate B3 has got a lot better. Until recently I couldn't take more than 100mg or I got heart palpitations. Suddenly that's changed. Ditto with T3. After about 7 years!

The butter cream recipe is this:

• 200g / 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• ▢ 300 g soft icing sugar / powdered sugar , sifted (Note 1)
• ▢ 35 g cocoa powder , unsweetened, preferably Dutch Processed, sifted(Note 3)
• ▢ 65 ml milk (any)
• ▢ 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

From this site: Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I just substitute coconut oil for the butter. If it was hard I'd soften it first. It makes a good sort of chocolate truffle but you might need a bit of fridge time depending on the season. I've just tried substituting the cocoa for more icing sugar, for a vanilla version. It's very sweet and could do with more flavour.

 

[Velve921]

My ability to tolerate B3 has got a lot better. Until recently I couldn't take more than 100mg or I got heart palpitations. Suddenly that's changed. Ditto with T3. After about 7 years!

The butter cream recipe is this:

• 200g / 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• ▢ 300 g soft icing sugar / powdered sugar , sifted (Note 1)
• ▢ 35 g cocoa powder , unsweetened, preferably Dutch Processed, sifted(Note 3)
• ▢ 65 ml milk (any)
• ▢ 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

From this site: Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I just substitute coconut oil for the butter. If it was hard I'd soften it first. It makes a good sort of chocolate truffle but you might need a bit of fridge time depending on the season. I've just tried substituting the cocoa for more icing sugar, for a vanilla version. It's very sweet and could do with more flavour.

Interesting thoughts about B3. Funny how initially I could do 300-500mg per day and I wouldn't feel wired. Now it's the opposite.

Thanks for sharing the recipe. Sounds tasty.

So how did you come across Dr. Peat's material and what lead you to start searching for new ideas?

 

[SQu]

Interesting thoughts about B3. Funny how initially I could do 300-500mg per day and I wouldn't feel wired. Now it's the opposite.

Thanks for sharing the recipe. Sounds tasty.

So how did you come across Dr. Peat's material and what lead you to start searching for new ideas?

I damaged my health through unnecessary dieting (because my eating disordered mother made me think I was fat). In this way I replaced an imaginary problem with a real one and, after decades of this, I finally made myself hypothyroid and incapable of avoiding weight creep unless I was starving myself to extremes in really damaging ways. I got chronic fatigue and spent too many weekends not leaving my bed. I was treated for chronic infection after a long long time of this, with antibiotics, and that helped a lot.

However I carried on with the dieting and finally I was trapped, didn't know what to do next, when my last extreme dieting phase (years of very low carb) after giving me a migraine problem and a lot of others (adrenaline, insomnia, constipation, hypothyroidism) finally started giving me vertigo and a sort of permanent prodromal migraine state. This was the state I was in all the time between migraines that now came about weekly (a similar pattern to how PMS expands to fill all the time in between periods, as described by Ray). What scared me out of it wasn’t even the chronic fatigue I had for about 15 years, or any of the other things I did to myself, but finally, the dizziness and vertigo.

I have always done a lot of reading and this had led me early to the low carb fad, the vegan and vegetarian fads (shortlived, hopeless for my liver, made me nauseous and practically comatose) and finally to Matt Stone, which led to me stopping the dieting and trying to eat normally. Not surprisingly after all that metabolic suppression, I put on a lot of weight. A lot. Accompanied by fun old person symptoms, massive aching, swelling, painful feet, not trusting myself to walk without falling (I didn’t fall but I felt like I might). My voice even dropped lower for a while (thyroid storm/inflammation I guess), lots and lots of lovely journey to the future stuff. It’s turned out to be helpful now, I value any kind of physical and mental functionality, I see things differently, I take steps to not feel this way ever again, not even when I’m 99.

I used to wonder if I could have avoided that crash. There are many things I think might help, have helped, but I am still not sure the backlash could be avoided. Not with what I know now. And this backlash, my fellow Peaters, is why I don’t think this approach will never catch on! Beyond a few people like us.

But for me, there was no going back. Or trying any other fad diet. I had to keep going.

Anyway the good thing is, Matt mentioned Ray Peat. So I looked him up. Now the one great thing about all that reading was, I knew enough by then not to dismiss Peat because of the sugar thing. You have to know enough to even ‘be admitted’ (by yourself) to the world of Peat. You have to be a long way already or you will completely dismiss this crazy sounding stuff about sugar.

Reading his articles was incredible. I loved how unpatronizing he was. I loved how I had to work at understanding what he said. I still love these things. I threw everything at it, but it took ages to get any results at all. Luckily migraines were an early success, I think because they were a late arrival in my life. Then almost nothing more for years, even with thyroid, progesterone and so on. For a while I had to get unreasonably excited by the state of my eyebrows, which had been white and now got their colour back and filled in on the outsides again. That was it. All I had.

Anyway, not having much option as I saw it (I was not going back or chasing some other weird fad) I stuck with it. When stuff didn’t work, I gave it a break then retried it, mixed it up, took it at different times of day, all that. I looked for the supplements locally, I learned to order from chemical companies. I learned to make my own supplements, and skin care followed. Stuff nobody else had heard about. When I told a great doctor I finally found who is happy to prescribe some things for me, she couldn’t believe my story and the stuff I know about now thanks to Peat (and Haidut).

As I mentioned, I couldn’t take more than 100mg of B3, or more that 30 mcg of (weak) T3 or I got heart palpitations. I kept retrying, and it kept happening, from 2014 until a few months ago when all of a sudden all was well and I could take more.

I joined the forum in the beginning of 2014, had been reading Peat’s work for about 6 months before that, had stopped dieting about 2 years before that. In 2018, quite spontaneously I felt I could count calories and restrict somewhat, and lost 17 kg on a low fat approach. Quite easily, but stress symptoms and hypothyroid symptoms were still there. So I stopped for a while. Regained some of that, but lost it all again this summer when again spontaneously, because heat lowered my appetite, I ate less.

I am proof that patience is needed and will pay off. What would have worked better? I was not kidding myself, I knew I had no other rational route to weight loss. With the huge bonus that I would be rebuilding health at the same time. I am also proof of what Peat says about milk, vitamin D, fruit juice and weight loss. All of it actually. No one wants to hear it but the way I see it is, it’s worth the wait. It’s worth turning things around even if they get worse, much worse, first.

So that's my story! How about you? I see you have been on this forum about the same amount of time.

 

[Velve921]

I damaged my health through unnecessary dieting (because my eating disordered mother made me think I was fat). In this way I replaced an imaginary problem with a real one and, after decades of this, I finally made myself hypothyroid and incapable of avoiding weight creep unless I was starving myself to extremes in really damaging ways. I got chronic fatigue and spent too many weekends not leaving my bed. I was treated for chronic infection after a long long time of this, with antibiotics, and that helped a lot.

However I carried on with the dieting and finally I was trapped, didn't know what to do next, when my last extreme dieting phase (years of very low carb) after giving me a migraine problem and a lot of others (adrenaline, insomnia, constipation, hypothyroidism) finally started giving me vertigo and a sort of permanent prodromal migraine state. This was the state I was in all the time between migraines that now came about weekly (a similar pattern to how PMS expands to fill all the time in between periods, as described by Ray). What scared me out of it wasn’t even the chronic fatigue I had for about 15 years, or any of the other things I did to myself, but finally, the dizziness and vertigo.

I have always done a lot of reading and this had led me early to the low carb fad, the vegan and vegetarian fads (shortlived, hopeless for my liver, made me nauseous and practically comatose) and finally to Matt Stone, which led to me stopping the dieting and trying to eat normally. Not surprisingly after all that metabolic suppression, I put on a lot of weight. A lot. Accompanied by fun old person symptoms, massive aching, swelling, painful feet, not trusting myself to walk without falling (I didn’t fall but I felt like I might). My voice even dropped lower for a while (thyroid storm/inflammation I guess), lots and lots of lovely journey to the future stuff. It’s turned out to be helpful now, I value any kind of physical and mental functionality, I see things differently, I take steps to not feel this way ever again, not even when I’m 99.

I used to wonder if I could have avoided that crash. There are many things I think might help, have helped, but I am still not sure the backlash could be avoided. Not with what I know now. And this backlash, my fellow Peaters, is why I don’t think this approach will never catch on! Beyond a few people like us.

But for me, there was no going back. Or trying any other fad diet. I had to keep going.

Anyway the good thing is, Matt mentioned Ray Peat. So I looked him up. Now the one great thing about all that reading was, I knew enough by then not to dismiss Peat because of the sugar thing. You have to know enough to even ‘be admitted’ (by yourself) to the world of Peat. You have to be a long way already or you will completely dismiss this crazy sounding stuff about sugar.

Reading his articles was incredible. I loved how unpatronizing he was. I loved how I had to work at understanding what he said. I still love these things. I threw everything at it, but it took ages to get any results at all. Luckily migraines were an early success, I think because they were a late arrival in my life. Then almost nothing more for years, even with thyroid, progesterone and so on. For a while I had to get unreasonably excited by the state of my eyebrows, which had been white and now got their colour back and filled in on the outsides again. That was it. All I had.

Anyway, not having much option as I saw it (I was not going back or chasing some other weird fad) I stuck with it. When stuff didn’t work, I gave it a break then retried it, mixed it up, took it at different times of day, all that. I looked for the supplements locally, I learned to order from chemical companies. I learned to make my own supplements, and skin care followed. Stuff nobody else had heard about. When I told a great doctor I finally found who is happy to prescribe some things for me, she couldn’t believe my story and the stuff I know about now thanks to Peat (and Haidut).

As I mentioned, I couldn’t take more than 100mg of B3, or more that 30 mcg of (weak) T3 or I got heart palpitations. I kept retrying, and it kept happening, from 2014 until a few months ago when all of a sudden all was well and I could take more.

I joined the forum in the beginning of 2014, had been reading Peat’s work for about 6 months before that, had stopped dieting about 2 years before that. In 2018, quite spontaneously I felt I could count calories and restrict somewhat, and lost 17 kg on a low fat approach. Quite easily, but stress symptoms and hypothyroid symptoms were still there. So I stopped for a while. Regained some of that, but lost it all again this summer when again spontaneously, because heat lowered my appetite, I ate less.

I am proof that patience is needed and will pay off. What would have worked better? I was not kidding myself, I knew I had no other rational route to weight loss. With the huge bonus that I would be rebuilding health at the same time. I am also proof of what Peat says about milk, vitamin D, fruit juice and weight loss. All of it actually. No one wants to hear it but the way I see it is, it’s worth the wait. It’s worth turning things around even if they get worse, much worse, first.

So that's my story! How about you? I see you have been on this forum about the same amount of time.

Thanks for willing to share your story my friend. You have quite the resolve.

The main area that drove me into the place that brought me to Peat started with physical image issues. From age 19-23 I got into the exercise field. Started as a crossfitter which lead me into the perfect storm of paleo/fasting with breathless training. Initially I felt pretty amazing but then there was one night that would change my life forever. Woke up 2x to urinate. That had never happened before. And before I knew it, I was urinating upto 70x a day and sleeping in a bathtub. Saw 15+ specialists and none of them had a clue.

After 3 years of searching for answers I came across someone who had been healing himself with copious amounts of OJ... along with other Peat things. After one terrible night of sleeping in the bath tub I woke up, called him and said, “whatever yuh want me to do, I’ll do it.”

Let’s just say I drank 1 gallon of OJ in the first day... it was heaven. I had been deprived of sugar since my pre-paleo days and I was insatiable. My urination started dropping instantly and sleep started improving rapidly.

Fast forward 7 years later, I’m a new man with a new type of energy. With respect to Peat’s knowledge and wisdom, my life is a strict as it can be at this point... with testing and experimenting like a madman, every minute, every hour.

And, no longer sleeping in a bath tub.

 

[SQu]

Thanks for willing to share your story my friend. You have quite the resolve.

The main area that drove me into the place that brought me to Peat started with physical image issues. From age 19-23 I got into the exercise field. Started as a crossfitter which lead me into the perfect storm of paleo/fasting with breathless training. Initially I felt pretty amazing but then there was one night that would change my life forever. Woke up 2x to urinate. That had never happened before. And before I knew it, I was urinating upto 70x a day and sleeping in a bathtub. Saw 15+ specialists and none of them had a clue.

After 3 years of searching for answers I came across someone who had been healing himself with copious amounts of OJ... along with other Peat things. After one terrible night of sleeping in the bath tub I woke up, called him and said, “whatever yuh want me to do, I’ll do it.”

Let’s just say I drank 1 gallon of OJ in the first day... it was heaven. I had been deprived of sugar since my pre-paleo days and I was insatiable. My urination started dropping instantly and sleep started improving rapidly.

Fast forward 7 years later, I’m a new man with a new type of energy. With respect to Peat’s knowledge and wisdom, my life is a strict as it can be at this point... with testing and experimenting like a madman, every minute, every hour.

And, no longer sleeping in a bath tub.

Wonderful that you found the right advice! I forgot to mention polyuria but I had it too. Not 70x a day which is about once every 20 minutes ... But could have been twice an hour, still very high. And up and down all night, I never counted. The polyuria improved quite fast, the nocturia took much longer.

I know people who in the time I have been with them have gone to the toilet 3 times an hour, in once case it was tricky as it involved a long car drive. I know how that feels, how restrictive it is.

I have only just read this post by yerrag, have you seen it? The whole thread actually. Really interesting:

Fixed My Frequent Urination that Disturbs Sleep, But Many Questions Remain

First of all, I had no problem before with frequent urination, but it's when I did something to fix my health - taking some substances - really plain harmless - that I would experience increased urination. To the point I would be urinating every 45 minutes during the day, and I would be waking...

raypeatforum.com

I have been using magnesium chloride. A breakthrough to learn that it might be playing a role.

I can believe the orange juice was amazing. I had the same experience with coconut water and I put that down to minerals. I strongly think that very abundant minerals have been key to regaining health. But maybe not the mag chloride!

 

[ReSTART]

Any clonidine updates @SQu?

 

[SQu]

Hi, I have just been doing a rather stressful job and my need for it has gone up from 1 to 2 a night. I've been aiming to lower cortisol at night and I take clonidine, cyproheptadine, and niacinamide and progesterone in the night and early morning.

I think that, plus a lot of fruit has done wonders this last summer and I easily lost 10kgs. Which I needed to. Looking and feeling so much better. I have also been sleeping much better. So I think the potassium has been helping my blood sugar. Unlike the other time I lost weight in the last few years, (low fat Peat approach) my skin looks better, my digestion is better, my energy is better, my stress from restricting some foods is less (eg no cravings). So I really do think that having very plentiful minerals, keeping blood sugar level, has been the key to weight loss.

This time I found myself just naturally doing moderate fat, no starch. Which I couldn't do before - I got cravings, stress. Not this time. Also I was able to tolerate more T3 and more B3, again I think it's the potassium. After this, I will always eat or drink a large amount of my daily calories as fruit. The benefits have been that good. Even little skin blemishes have faded. I juiced watermelon all summer, and now orange juice season is around the corner! And with a lot of fat free milk too, my teeth don't seem to mind the acidity, and they feel strong.

So the adrenalin lowering with clonidine has been one of the big aspects of all this.

 

[ReSTART]

Been taking some... very strong anti-stress, but definitely anticholinergic, gives me a dry mouth and other anticholinergic symptoms. Sedative, as is well-known, you can take it before bed and because the half-life is long, the effects persist into the next day.

 

[ReSTART]

Taking 25 mcg right now, seems ideal for helping sleep and other beneficial effects without dropping blood pressure too much or causing grogginess.

 

[cjm]

What do you think about clonidine versus guanfacine and their respective mechanisms of action? Clonidine seems to do... a lot of stuff while guanfacine is more selective but also a serotonin 5-HT2B agonist.

Sci-Hub | Guanfacine, But Not Clonidine, Improves Planning and Working Memory Performance in Humans. Neuropsychopharmacology, 20(5), 460–470 | 10.1016/S0893-133X(98)00127-4

"The present study compares, using a double-blind, placebo controlled design the effects of two a2-agonists, clonidine (0.5, 2, and 5 mcg/kg) and guanfacine (7 and 29 mcg/kg) on spatial working memory, planning and attentional setshifting, functions thought to be dependent on the “central executive” of the prefrontal cortex. Blood pressure and the subjective feeling of sedation were affected equally by clonidine and guanfacine. The 0.5 mcg/kg and 5 mcg/kg doses of clonidine disrupted spatial working memory, but the medium dose had no effect. The 0.5 and 2 mcg/kg doses of clonidine increased impulsive responding in the planning test. The 5 mcg/kg dose of clonidine slowed responding at effortful levels of planning and attentional set-shifting tests. The 29 mcg/kg dose of guanfacine improved spatial working memory and planning. Guanfacine had no effect on attentional set-shifting. These data indicate that guanfacine improved planning and spatial working memory, but clonidine dose-dependently disrupted performance. It is possible that the greater selectivity of guanfacine for a2Aadrenoceptor subtype may underlie its differences from clonidine."

 

[ReSTART]

I think guanfacine is probably safer due to less anticholinergic side effects as well.