Sarcosine Reduces Symptoms in Schizophrenia

Hello.I m very pessimist. I have been taking sarcosine for 1 and 1/2 month. There was benefit from the first day, better mood, better sleep, fewer isolation. 7 days ago, my mood is bad, I have a lot of ocd symptoms and more agitation. I take 2 grams a day. What should I do??

They (studies) say that a fair trial is 6 weeks.

I just want to sound a note of caution.
My medication, olanzapine works well and I keep seeing improvements in my condition.
I was thinking of trying sodium benzoate or sarcosine for additional benefits.
My therapist told me that these things might not interact well with my AP medication.
And she recommends against taking it.

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Sarcosine has been tested with risperidone, for sure. Not sure about olanzapine. Sodium benzoate has been tested with clozapine, and other meds.

Your therapist is probably not a doctor and will not have studied this stuff. You need to ask your psychiatrist. Even then, not all psychiatrists keep up on the latest in studies on supplements and drugs.

Risperidone is a ā– ā– ā– ā–  drug ziprexa rocks

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Iā€™m not suggesting he switch to risperidone. Just that it has been tested with atypical antipsychotics.

Probably someone here has been on olanzapine and either sodium benzoate or sarcosine, or both, and can report.

Yes - Iā€™ve seen studies using most of the major antipsychotics - and only clozapine use showed no additional benefit with sarcosine.

Here is the reference:

ā€œPatientsā€™ antipsychotic medication was as follows: 7 risperidone, 4 quetiapine, 4 IM zuclopenthixol depo, 3 olanzapine, 2 IM uphenazine , 2 paliperidone.ā€

and in this study:

it was focused on just risderdal / risperidone

Risperidone therapy was also initiated concurrently for all patients. The dose of this atypical antipsychotic agent was gradually titrated to the target dose of 6 mg/d (or lower in cases of treatment-emergent adverse effects) in the first week. The dose of risperidone could be adjusted on day 14 or on day 28 according to drug adverse effects and clinical assessments (see the ā€œAssessmentsā€ subsection). This dosing strategy for risperidone was based on recent studies.25,26 For acutely exacerbated individuals, the mean end-point dosages in most studies27- 31 were 8 to 12 mg/d; another study32 used a fixed dose of 6 mg/d. However, in previous studies25,26 in a similar population we found that the dosing strategy to minimize adverse effects can still yield favorable efficacy. Therefore, we applied the same dosing strategy to obtain the optimal response to risperidone treatment in this study.

Lorazepam treatment was allowed as needed for insomnia or agitation, and benztropine treatment was allowed for extrapyramidal adverse effects. No other centrally acting drugs or cytochrome P450 inducers (or inhibitors) that might interfere with risperidoneā€™s metabolism were used. Patient compliance and safety were closely monitored by the research psychiatrists and the inpatient nursing staff.

From here:

and in this study:

Full PDF of paper here:

http://sci-hub.cc/10.3109/15622975.2015.1117654

they had participants on all the major antipsychotic medications with no identified issues:

No. of patients using antipsychotics
Amisulpride
Aripiprazole
Olanzapine
Paliperidone
Quetiapine
Risperidone
Zotepine

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There ya go, @Chess24, @SzAdmin to the rescue - sarcosine and benzoate have been tested with olanzapine.

If you have concerns, print it and take it to your doc. But, therapists generally do not have medical or pharmacological training.

Hi @Marya

Sorry to have missed your post. I hope all is well with you.

I only experienced some reduced energy when taking sarcosine. Although I was already feeling isolated.
Though I was suuuper OCD so that was good for me. But no other side-effect.

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Hey @tyngerra thanks for your comment. Did you have low energy after taking Sarcosine?
You were super OCD ??? How that good for you? :thinking:
Btw I stopped Sarcosine because I didnā€™t feel it was for me.

I meant I was super ocd before hand. And it took the edge off

Hey guys, does Sarcosine works well with Curcumin?
Iā€™m trying out Curcumin to see if it helps my negative symptomsā€¦ now I took some time to read about Sarcosine, and this thread convinced me to try it.
Iā€™ve read that both of these nutritional supplements work on similar things in the brain, and Iā€™m not sure if it will be a good idea to take them both. Would appreciate some help :slight_smile:

Iā€™m going to order some now that I have money :laughing:

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I take sarcosine with curcumin and can testify they pair well together. Curcumin has the advantage if calming the Microglia Cells. Iā€™m theorizing it should slow brain shrinkage.

Best of Luck @anon76219695

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I wish I know where I can buy this

You can scroll to the top using the numbers on the side of the thread and one of the links to buy online.

I just bought some and I hope it helps

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just got my sarcosine from smartpowders going through brain vitamins next time took 2 weeks to arive keep u posted

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Iā€™m thinking of asking my doctor about sarcosine. Anyone doing well on it? Seen improvement?

I still wanna know when it is going to be tested as a monotherapy? I found an article dated December 2008 and the psychiatric times wanted this done back then? How will we ever know if they donā€™t try?

Many scientists believe that glutamate dysfunction or negative symptoms are the root cause of schizophrenia. I have also read that dopamine dysfunction may proceed or follow glutamate dysfunction. So Iā€™m wondering if itā€™s possible if you fix the problem at the roots if the dopamine dysfunction will go back on its own? Especially if dopamine dysfunction happens after glutamate dysfunction. Iā€™m not a scientist but I wonder.

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