Fluoextine & MDMA - a story and thoughts on acceptable times to wait

[theWilly]

I was recently told as story that I thought was interesting and would like some opinions from the folks here as the info found on some of the other more widely accessed forums comes off as pretty sketchy. This post is straddles the line between bioassy and harm reduction so may not be suitable for this category and should be moved if deemed necessary. It may get a bit long, I'd rather try to cover the details up front than leave questions hanging.

The dangers of MDMA & Fluoextine interaction are pretty well known but it takes some research for the lay person to get a good grasp on and to understand what time frames are involved.  It can be difficult to tell what an acceptable wait time between ceasing fluoextine doses and taking MDMA is.  The half life of fluoextine and norfluoextine leaves a fairly large window and I haven't personally seen what the acceptable max amount of norfluoextine in the system is before ingesting MDMA.

My friends, a guy and a gal, are in their 30s.  Neither are heavy drug users.  The guy had taken some "speedy" pressed pills a few times about 10 years ago. The girl had never tried MDMA or even any psychedelics for that matter, just weed and a little blow years ago. They're both on the heavy-ish side, he's probably 220ish and I'd put her at around 180-190lbs. They're not ravers or partiers and took MDMA together in a nice hotel room to relax and have a fun time together.

He has never taken any sort of antidepressant clinically or recreationally.  She had been on fluoextine for about 3 years before their experience but stopped taking it 1 month before their roll.  From what I've read up on this it sounds like it was probably too soon to be absolutely sure, but if you run he numbers on the short end of the scale it could have been okay. Her experiences seem to indicate that she should have waited longer.

They said they got their pills from the deep web from a well rated vendor. They received 10 pills advertised as 140mg, they were in dissolvable capsule form. They did not weigh or test the pills.

They started out by taking 1 pill each, administered as a suppository.  Within an hour they were both feeling it.  After a while he started to get a little bit of eye wiggles and jaw trembling, nothing extreme. She says she just felt very relaxed.

Their time line gets hazey from there on out but the gist of it is that probably around the 2-2.5 hour mark she wasn't feeling much and suggesting taking more. They each plugged another pill.  He was feeling great but noted that the experience was not what he was expecting.  He now realizes the pills he was getting a decade ago were dirty and adulterated. He speculated that they probably had amphetamines of some sort in them because he was not feeling the rush and the energy that he'd associated with MDMA.

After some more time, probably somewhere around the 4 hour mark she still wasn't impressed and didn't feel like she was getting what she should be from the experience. She even drank a beer at that point. He tried to have one with her but it made him sick. After that he says he was feeling great and just enjoying it for what it was.  She suggested taking the rest of the pills and he admitted thinking that shouldn't be necessary but got lost in the moment and went along for the ride.  The estimate is that in the first 4 hours they'd each ingested 240mg and then in one big shot each plugged another 3 pills, that's 420mg bringing them to a grand total of roughly 700mg each within 4 to maybe 6 hours.

He says he began to feel really really good and had slight OEVs and fractals reminiscent of mushroom and LSD trips he'd taken years back, though they were nowhere near as intense. He then also got the shakes and his jaw was chattering non-stop for quite some time.  He says he felt good but the shaking and jaw chattering became very intense and difficult to hold a conversation. 

She still was unimpressed by her results.  She felt very calm and relaxed but did not have any of the shaking, jaw clench, OEVs or even CEVs that she can recall, though she admits that as she has no reference point for visuals so she wasn't "looking for them."

After some 10 hours from their initial dose he had come down and was feeling calm and peaceful.  She never seemed to have reached liftoff and got tired. He had definitely gone space cadet there for a while. They both went to sleep without much issue and woke without noticeable ill affect the next morning. He noted being impressed by how easily he got to sleep. With the junky pills he was used to he'd feel strung out with back and jaw ache.

This was 3 months ago and neither report any particular ill affects that they can pin point.  She has not re-started taking fluoextine or any other prescription meds. She says she was a little turned off by the experience and wonders if there is something in her brain chemistry that makes her less susceptible to MDMA. Her boyfriend and I both agree that she probably had dulled effects due to the fluoextine, but maybe someone here would disagree?

At this point she has not taken fluoextine in 4 months.  From what I've looked up it seems to me that she should be in the clear to try again.  They'd like to give it another go. We all laughed about the huge dose and agreed they should not take any where near that much again and just enjoy it for what it is and maybe smoke a little herb if they want to intensify it any. There was also a little nervous type laughter about how they're lucky nothing bad happened and nobody seems to have been damaged.

Fluoextine has a half life of 3-6 days. Norfluoextine has a half life of 4-16 days.  The first time around they were counting on being on the shorter end of the scale but apparently were incorrect. She should have had less than 2% of the fluoextine in her system but could have had as much as 25% of the norfluoxetine at that time. After working the numbers out we were surprised that it would counteract the effects that strongly. Today even at the long end of the scale, after about 120 days of no use she should be down to under 1% of the norfluoextine, I didn't bother working out the tiny fraction of fluoextine still possible. I also didn't think to ask the prescription dose of fluoextine she was taking (we were more than a few beers deep into the night by that time) but I believe it was considered a fairly standard dose and not heavy.  She was dealing with some anxiety and depression but was never severely depressed.

From experiences and opinions would it be agreeable that they shouldn't have anything to worry about and this time around she should feel the magic?  I want to warn them if there is something we haven't considered. Or maybe her brain is just broken and MDMA doesn't work on her...I really hope that couldn't be the case, for both their sakes.

I've urged them to next time take no more than 2 pills each (240mg) and space them out, preferably take one and split the other in half for 2 maintenance doses. From what I can tell there isn't any reason they should want more to have a nice evening together and avoid the shakes and jitters that he got last time. Even then they're looking at 240mg which should be fairly heavy.

Thoughts?