Jay1

Thanks for checking in and letting us know the progress... Very happy to hear you are feeling better! I say this a lot, but it really does feel like most people who come to this forum tend to get a fair amount of the way back to a full recovery within 3 months of their first post. It gives a lot of hope for people. I hope you can stay away from smoking weed again... Trust me, there is nothing more boring than being mentally ill for years/decades. Hollywood makes it look interesting and glamorous , but that's so far from the truth. Not being able to do the simple things that people enjoy in life is very, very tedious.

the dream like feeling is known as derealisation and is part of a collective of disorders that are associated with HPPD. As for your last question, no one knows... not a single person. If you want to really get better, just forget about drugs.

I feel your pain, mate... I had the same feelings when I was put on Prozac... Such a horrible feeling that just further compounds the misery of HPPD. I'm sure most of us on here have thought about ending the pain, but also love our friends/family and can see that better days can come. Dealing with severe hppd reminds me a bit of the lyric from Bohemian Rhapsody "I don't wanna die, i sometimes wish i'd never been born at all"..... I don't want to inflict the misery of suicide on my family (and also know that the really bad times don't stay forever)... But I do sometimes literally wish i'd never been born, where my life of pain didn't exist and the concept of hurting my friends/family doesn't come into it. I hope you starting to see light at the end of the tunnel soon... Reach out any time.

Yep, it really can get hellish, at times. When I used to drink a lot (self medication) I really hit a darkness that I look back on now and am amazed I survived and even got a lot of shit done. I find that taking this condition day by day makes it a bit more palatable, that and klonopin! Keep fighting everyone, better days do come.

It was fine for me (though didn't help me). Everyone is different though, so get more feedback and if you want to go for it, just slowly taper up the dose with your doctor's recommendation

Seems Pimavanserin is not available in the UK, shame.

There is no known cure, as far as i'm aware... But meds like benzodiazepines can help dampen the issue (benzos have their own issues though, so always speak to a doctor first).

Alcohol deffo affects my hppd... If I get drunk, the spike for the next few days is horrendous , probably the worst I could ever feel, mentally. I try and balance it now... Where i have a few beers to feel sociable, but without going so far that I get a hangover.

The only two things that work for me are benzos or alcohol. Yea, propranolol is good for removing the physical feelings of anxiety, but not the mental side of it...

I think your best bet is to speak to the doctors about having panic attacks, that is probably the simplest way to get prescribed limited amounts of clonazepam to use as you described. In a perfect world, all GPs would know about HPPD, but that's far from the case. Using anxiety or panic attacks will bypass this (and isn't really lying, as hppd causes both). As for the driving aspect, I have no idea how the laws are around that, from country to country.

It did nothing for me, negative or positive, but everyone is different. For dosing, see something like Erowid I was taking into to try and find an alternative to benzos for anxiety relief.

Yea, i'd stop asap... but obviously consult your doctor and see if you need to taper

Mate, this is a very small community and sometimes posts go through the cracks. We all have our own problems and some times I don't have the mental energy to answer every post, i'm sure others are the same. I'll try and come back to this post when i have (hopefully) better energy tomorrow... But swearing at people is the worst possible way to try and communicate.

Prozac made my anxiety 100x worse and i wanted to end my life to stop the pain... I'll never touch another SSRI

I hope you are doing ok... Keep on fighting, mate... PM me if you need anything

Hey, is it possible to do a rough sketch of where to place the 2 points? I always struggle with the terminology

That's a great find! I look forward to hearing how you get on

Nick has summed it up perfectly. Keep on fighting and please let us know progress over the coming weeks and months.

Yea, was the brand name.

It did nothing for me, i went up to 2g per day... It also did nothing to hinder me though, so could be worth a try.

If i'm focused... Working or socialising, I'm good, not tired and don't notice any memory issues (at 2mg+ i do)... If I am watching tv, i will probably sleep though, even at 1mg... I've tried splitting the dose, but 2 x 0.5mg does nothing for me.

No probs! I'm glad there was a med there for you, when it was really needed. It's one of those cosmic jokes that we have found a med that actually works for HPPD, but comes with it's own set of problems!

I've used it long term, but not every day... I tend to do something like: Thu 1mg Fri 1mg Sat 1mg Sun 1mg (occasionally, if needed for a social event) 3-4 days off Then have 2 weeks off every 3 months to fully clean the system. If needed, I sometimes up the dose to 1.5mg for really anxiety inducing events. Likewise, I sometimes take 0.75mg is I need something, but know it will be easy enough to get through... 0.5mg doesn't really do anything and 2mg+ shows no significant improvements either (and just makes me sleep). One thing that took me a while to get my head around is it's best used it to treat anxiety, not the visuals and dpdr... When I first got my script, I would take 2mg as that was the dose that would really help my visuals (while also helping anxiety and dpdr)... After a while, I figured out that if I decrease the anxiety using 1mg, I didn't really care as much about the visuals, that were a little bit reduced, but not like the 2mg dose. This really helped to stay away from tolerance, imho. This approach has worked for me for about 15 years now, with little to no sign of tolerance or withdrawal (I had 6 weeks off during lockdown and didn't notice any issues other than my standard hppd/anxiety). I can't really begin to say how much this med has improved my life.... social events, work events etc have become so much easier and just knowing that I have the med on hand, if needed, actually reduces my anxiety. It just needs to be treated with a lot of respect.

I seem to stay just a few inches away from the edge of insanity... I can imagine that it wouldn't take very much to push me over that level, but so far, so good. Being able to work from home has really helped, as has having Clonazepam on hand for events that would really trip me out. Good, patient friends and family too. Keep on fighting.

Zopiclone is an odd one, in terms of visuals... I have very strong hppd visuals and zopiclone changes them... The visual snow and strobing stop almost completely , but the geometric patterns become more like spider webs, which is quite strange at first. So they do have potential to make you see things while on them. I've never had any prolonged visual changes though. The safer alternative (visually) would be a traditional benzo. They are also amazing for sleep (I have slept for 16 hours on a 2mg dose on klono!). If you treat them with full respect and only use them to try to break the cycle, I don't see any issue with them (as long as your doctor agrees, of course!).