As early as 2005, study results were published that suggested increased mortality with galantamine in patients suffering from mild dementia. How is this to be classified? As lucid dreamers, do we need to stay away from galantamine?
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Source? Best to not post such information without sources. It can easily become misinformation.
What I found was this . . . .
Conclusion: Long-term treatment with galantamine significantly reduced mortality and the decline in cognition and daily living activities, in mild to moderate AD patients.
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There are many references in German. That was the reason I didnât share. In Germany you get galantamine only as a prescription. It is restricted for alzheimers patients. So it is difficult to get. If you go to a doctor, saying that you are a lucid dreamr, they often refer to this studies and say that they cannot recommend it. Thatâs very unsetteling.
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Thank you for this reference. Sounds better to me.
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My mom experienced something similar when she went to the doctors in USA. She told them it was for sleeping and said it helped with her daytime memory. The doctor told her the potential side effects of the medication was not worth the benefit she was hoping to gain from it and refused to prescribe the medicine for her.
That being said I have a well documented history of sleep disorders and when I talked to my doctor about it I explained what Galantamine did for me. I had very good dream recall at the time and remembered the majority of my dreams. When I started taking Galantamine I went from having short fragmented REM cycles in a high quantity to long REM cycles with less quantity. Galantamine allowed me to have healthier REM cycles.
Sorry to hear it is difficult to get there. It is a great medicine for dreaming.
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I gave several galantamine pills to a fellow retreat person from Germany, at Menla last summer because she couldnât get them at home. Iâve been to retreats where Andrew gave them to participants and my personal experience over the past five years with it has been similar to @mbreadyâs. I am able to get it from Medicare (for over 65 people in America), through my personal physician, at no cost. All one has to do is to tell their doc itâs for memory problems and they wonât object.
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I think that is a really important question to ask.
The red spider lily that it is typically derrived from is highly toxic if prepared incorrectly.
I have no doubt that there are most likely medications or suppliments that could interact with Galantamine in a negative, or toxic way as well.
Charlie Morely had a dream that advised him to stay away from this drug.
I think Europes standard for protecting the public from harmful substances is far better than the USAs, so that German study is well worth taking note of. Many food products that are banned in europe, are legal in the USA for some reason, I wonder why?
Full disclaimer:
I take the suppliment format of it, not sure what the long term consequences are, but have not had any bad side effects short term.
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interesting finding:
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I got a prescription from my doctor. I take 4mg about once a week or 2 weeks. It has very often resulted in incredibly intense lucid dreams. I do not want to miss it. But when a friend asked her doctor about it, he pointed to the studies and said he couldnât imagine anyone would take it voluntarily. This is a real turn off. I always thought it was pretty harmless, a drug with few side effects, but of course I donât want to endanger my health.
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Andrew and others have been using it for years and I have used it regularly for about five years. It is approved by the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) and is routinely prescribed for early Alzheimerâs patients. Lucid dreaming is considered an off-brand use. I remember living in Europe and not being able to get meds used in the US such as Erythromycin. On the other hand, drugs such as Ozempic that my wife needs for diabetes, expensive and hard to get, can be found in cheap pill form outside the US, and in certain places in the US. I think questioning is a good thing and not relying on one source can be a useful way to tease out what one should do when faced with conflicting âofficialâ opinions.
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The fact that you take it so rarely, and in such low dosages, and that it is perscription grade, makes me think you are safe.
Keep in mind for the Dementia and Alzheimers studies, patients were taking close to 5 to 10 times the amount you take, and were doing so I believe on a daily basis.
Have you considered the fact your friend may just be jealous, and trying to rain on your parade? Or the doctor incompetent? Or both? 
This would definitely be a good question to bring up with Andrew. I think hes got a really good âbladeâ to cut through the crap, and figure out if there really is something to these German studies, or if they are not reliable.
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Thereâs no way my girlfriend is jealous. I donât think the doctor is bad either. He believes what he says. But he scared her, made her sign that she bore the risk alone and then gave her a prescription in the end. But her anticipation of the experiment with galantamine is completely ruined.
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Sorry to hear this. I did a private experiment with the medicine and recorded my results in this post.
Hopefully this will ease the worries a little about the medication and she can see the potential benefits of taking galantamine.
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Sometimes we need to be reminded that drugs are not toys to be played with lightly. A healthy amount of fear can sometimes be a blessing in disguise.
For now maybe, hopefully Andrews response can talk some sense into her.
Might be helpful to remind her there are traces of poison in almost everything we consume these days (arsenic, lead, aluminum, mercury, etc). Fast food, Alcohol, sugar, tabacco, and caffeine all are very toxic and dangerous if over consumed as well, but if used sparingly once in a blue moon, I think risk of harm basically drops to zero.
It would not shock me if the doctor is required by the hospital for liability reasons to use the âFear of Godâ script when writing prescriptions for ârecreationalâ drugs (drugs not treating a specific disease). This would also explain why he made her sign a waver, not because the specific drug is highly dangerous, but because the hospital is legally covering its ass, and protecting itself from petty lawsuits.
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The leaves of a tomato plant, Deadly Nightshade is poisonous. Best not to eat it.
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I ran the German article through Google translate and here it is:
Increased mortality in galantamine studies
Cholinesterase inhibitors are being used more and more every year to treat dementia. The prescription figures in 2003 compared to 2002 were: donezepil +23.4%, galantamine +61%, rivastigmine +5.8% (1). The costs for a daily dose are remarkably high (4.66, 4.58 and 6.26 EUR), so that the 18.4 million daily doses that were prescribed in total have placed a considerable burden on the drug budget. The AD 2000 study, which was carried out independently of the manufacturer, was unable to demonstrate any clinically relevant effectiveness of donezepil (AriceptÂź) (2). The company Johnson & Johnson is now drawing attention to the fact that in studies with galantamine (ReminylÂź), a significantly increased mortality was observed in the verum group (3). 2000 patients with mild memory impairment were randomized to double-blind treatment in 16 countries. During the two-year study period, 15 deaths were observed in the active group and five in the placebo group. Patients who left the study prematurely and were therefore not taken into account in the initial evaluation are now being searched for and followed up. Although interim results suggest that the significance of âexcess mortalityâ could disappear in this so-called intention-to-treat evaluation, no convincing evidence of effectiveness is presented. It is also unusual to change the evaluation methodology if the result is not correct. For once, there was even a detailed reference to this important issue in the daily press (4). As is well known, studies with negative outcomes are often not reported.
literature
Schwabe, U., and Paffrath, D: Drug Regulation Report 2004. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York.
Courtney, C., et al. (AD2000 Collaborative Group): Lancet 2004, 363, 2105; see also AMB 2004, 38, 76.
Press release Johnson & Johnson January 21, 2005.
The Tagesspiegel from January 21, 2005: âDangerous little bellsâ.
Keywords: dementia, galantamine
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Typical dosage for Alzhemiers is 16-24 mg a day, as compared to 4 mg. for lucid dreaming. Iâve been taking 4 mg on a very regular basis and havenât noticed any ill effects. Iâm in my late 60âs and my âsenior momentsâ also seem to be lower, but hard to say. I donât notice a huge increase in lucid dreams but it does seem to help dream recall.
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Seriously, Alzheimarâs patients often have many risk factors, and out of a randomized sample of 1000 patients per group, given that they were randomly assigned and assuming the groups were equal in number, you expect to learn if any other comorbidity factors (age, obesity, other diseases . . . ) were present as well, but in this translation, none were given. Patients can easily take up to 32 mg. daily. Just looking for more rigor in the reporting or the research, since so much of todayâs research is just dressed up gobbledegook, masquerading as âobjective scientific study.â
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Yes I have heard 4mg is the sweet spot for most lucid dreamers, but for more sensitive people 2mg is I think a better starting point, based my numbers off of this 2mg- 4mg dosage.
I agree with you @_Barry , there seem to be some serious flaws with the study, as you hae mentiond.
The biggest flaw in my opinion is that not all the participants were accounted for. It highly likely those who dropped out of the study did so becuase they were dying. It seems very irresponsible release this partial data, without having first followed up to make sure those who dropped out of the study were still alive.
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