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Jay1

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Id say I'm pretty much recovered at this point. More or less. I havent gotten any sign of DP in a while. Every now and then I feel a little off, or a little down. But its small, and negligible. Around this time last year was when it was at its worst. I suffer from slight tinnitus, starbursting, and slight trailing now. Thats really it.

 

Drugs dont seem to make it any worse, as long as im careful. Drinking is pretty fine for me now.

 

I dont know. I still wish I could say I felt like my old self, but after all this its impossible to tell how close or far away I am from it.

 

Sometimes I feel exactly like I used to, and that is becoming more and more frequent. I think about it less and less, as a result of being occupied with living a fairly normal life, which also helps.

 

And so, as many of us have often concluded, it seems time is the only cure.

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recovery is subjective.. i mean physically we can never be the person we were before becoming the way we are. just by virtue of the constant changing off the cells/particles/memories/stomach contents/brain chemistry/synaptic connections/environmental factors.... the me of this second is never going to be the same as the me of even 5 minutes ago.

 

I'd count a full recovery for myself is being able to perceive the color black again. to not know what it means to see the colors redblue and greenorange and cosmic purple all the time. (if you know what i mean then you know... you know...) everything else i take as consequence for my actions and are part of who i am today whether i like it or not. at least if i could see black again and not have a 100% always on electric current running through my visual field... maybe i could sleep.. maybe i wouldnt suffer as many headaches.. maybe my stress levels would decrease and my stomach would calm down.... so if i can recover black at least.. i could call myself a success story

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Hello,

 

I'm recovered for 90-95% of this illness, I've suffered with HPPD for a period of 5-6 years .

 

The only thing I suffer from now is chaotic thinking. A good night sleep makes this symptom relative obsolete though.

 

So what did I do, right?

HPPD really started to fade when I stopped all the drugs. This includes even smoking and probally drinking coffee.

And to eat healthy, and to sport frequently. I think sporting as much as possible is even better.

Also thinking postive is important too, try to go on with your life. Try to hit the hard but "good-for-u" roads frequently.

 

What I also personally came across, that the cause of increased anxiety is not related to HPPD. HPPD only makes anxiety worse.

Before HPPD kicked in I already had semi social anxiety. Focusing on such pre-existing anxieties is much better then on:"anxiety is from HPPD".

 

A extra tip:

I know it's really hard to step out your friend group. I think most friend groups who uses drugs frequently posses this strong loyal or tight band thingies. Specially when you're young, this youth culture kinda is your entire world. I think I'm lucky I converted to christianity in that period of time.

 

I want to say some things about stepping out of such groups. I'm now in my 20's, and now with a more mature mind. I'm really thankfull I'm not in that place anymore. To be frank, I'm attending a good education and hang arround with the good people(I also used to hang arround plain thugs/hoodlums). I know almost certain, If I've stayed in this group I still have HPPD; and I'd be still in that dark corner of society.

 

 

Some health boosts:

I was quite desperate in the times of suffering of HPPD. So I played a bit with anti-oxidants.

I discovered that some anti-oxidants helped with HPPD. Which are: L-carnosine, r-fraction alpa lipoic acid and astaxanthine.

This above anti-oxidants has the rare behaviour that it acces the brain. Anti-oxidants, simply said, cleans the body of "waste/dump".

 

If you're non-functional withouth coffee, you could try as substitute: Acetyl L-carnitine. It's a natural energizer.

If you're having a hard time to stop smoking, ask your doctor if he/she can prescribe champix.

 

 

Ps: sorry for my spelling & grammar, I'm dutch. 

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Ive only stopped once (1 and 1/2 days about 2 years ago)...not by choice. The detox was so rough physically that i had no more energy to devote to anything pshycological or visual. So, yah, i really cant answe

 

If you're still on tramadol, I wouldnt call that a 'true' recovery. 

I guess a pill a day for the rest of your life isnt so bad if there is no long-term effect or tolerance buildup. 

I did read that trams withdrawal is pretty serious stuff. 

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  • 1 month later...

How long did you have HPPD for, what were your symptoms and their severity, and what contributed to their remission?

 

Great to hear that at least the HPPD-related problems in your life have subsided. I guess it's impossible to know whether some of those "feeling like a mess" symptoms are residual but that kind of stuff is definitely much easier to deal with.

 

Thanks for sharing man, and best of luck!

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Hey odysseus, great to hear on your significant recovery/cure. if you dont mind could you be a bit more specific on your recovery? 11 years of hppd I cant even imagine. 

 

What was the timeline of your symptoms like?

Did you ever at a point in time notice that your symptoms were improving daily/weekly/monthly or were they so minutely gradual that you couldn't notice them improving until you realize that it was less intense then a year ago etc.

 

Did you ever have tinnitus and is that gone as well?

Did you have starbursting/halos/floaters and recovered from that as well?

I dont know why but i have this belief that existing vision distortions ex/ distion of light --> starbursting, floaters, halos, the harder it will be for it to go away versus things like fractals, geometrics, cevs. maybe its vice versa. thoughts? 

 

Are the visuals actually 100% gone or is it more close to the 90%+ gone range? 

 

Although you say that your remission of symptoms were irrelevant to medication you took, do you mind listing some of them? What is the last medicine you took before getting cured? timeframe wise? I mean with things like keppra it takes 3 month of to see some effects in some people, i can only hope that some medicines have that effect and is an actual cure? :\ ha. 

 

 

Thanks for reinforcing hope in many of us. Hopefully you get the last of the brain problems cured. 

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Thanks, folks.

 

I could´nt notice anything from day to day untill it was gone. So gradually it improved. Never had tinnitus. I did´nt have starbursting/halos but maybe some floaters, if I get what that means. My visuals are gone completely.

 

My medication: Zyprexa, Cissordinol, Risperidone, Lamictal, Keppra, Remeron, Wellbutrin and some others I can´t remember. Cissordinol is the last one I have taken. I don´t think medication has helped me much since I always had HPPD symptoms while on them. I think time, and staying away from pot and psychedelics has done it for me. I smoke seldom sometimes, but it does´nt affect me at all.

 

I have one symptom left though, and that is the plastic-head-shell that I´ve been rambling about. It feels like a piece of plastic inside my head that I can dig/break through. It´s really terrible but I´ve learned to live with it. One other member reported having it. Don´t know if it´s HPPD related. Other than that, I consider myself symptom free.

 

All in all, it shows that HPPD can be overcome and I had it pretty severe sometimes. Hope you guys get better soon!

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I'm hoping for success in wondering about the severity of my hppd. Does or did anyone get stretching lines like from the t.v. Coming out of it. Kind of like when ur driving in the rain and the light from a street post or another car gets exaggerated by the rain across ur wind shield?? I see after images like crazy from anything remotely bright. I see tracers from cars going by me at night like a fluorescent blue color. I have ringing in my ears or head can't differentiate which one. My hearing is acute where I pick up every tone or frequency. Dp/dr its crazy.. I first got this when I was 16 I'm now 41 that's 24 years but I will honesty say it went away for like 4 years where it was totally reduced. Then it worked its way back I never done any drugs either including pot BC it brought back my trip. I did start drinking coffee colors started getting bright again then dp/dr hit the fast forward button and it started getting worse then when I first got it. I didn't think coffee was the culprit so I drank it for 8 years shit got compounded over the years til I couldn't stop trying to figure shit out. Needless to say I stopped drinking it but things haven't changed I unfortunately feel stuck in destitute of distillation. I practice law of attraction in the remembrance of clear crystallization in conscious. Hopefully I will become obscured from these clouds.

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I'm hoping for success in wondering about the severity of my hppd. Does or did anyone get stretching lines like from the t.v. Coming out of it. Kind of like when ur driving in the rain and the light from a street post or another car gets exaggerated by the rain across ur wind shield?? I see after images like crazy from anything remotely bright. I see tracers from cars going by me at night like a fluorescent blue color. I have ringing in my ears or head can't differentiate which one. My hearing is acute where I pick up every tone or frequency. Dp/dr its crazy.. I first got this when I was 16 I'm now 41 that's 24 years but I will honesty say it went away for like 4 years where it was totally reduced. Then it worked its way back I never done any drugs either including pot BC it brought back my trip. I did start drinking coffee colors started getting bright again then dp/dr hit the fast forward button and it started getting worse then when I first got it. I didn't think coffee was the culprit so I drank it for 8 years shit got compounded over the years til I couldn't stop trying to figure shit out. Needless to say I stopped drinking it but things haven't changed I unfortunately feel stuck in destitute of distillation. I practice law of attraction in the remembrance of clear crystallization in conscious. Hopefully I will become obscured from these clouds.

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^I think time is the cure for everyone, if you were doing better and caffeine made it worse, then you exaggerated it for 8 years, which is a long time. I think only time will heal it and after 8 years of exaggerating it, it could take many months to who knows, maybe a few years. I honestly think being 100% clean and time will heal it. Medicine just helps us get through it but it could in the long run make it worse for some of us or make some of us unable to get off the medicine. I would avoid caffeine because there is that possibility that caffeine effects you, give it time stay away from caffeine and other drugs, 24 years is a long time to have this crap I wish you the best sir!

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  • 1 month later...

Several months ago I mentioned in the introduction forum that I had dealt with HPPD since about 1974 and have for the most part come through it all successfully, though not unscathed by any means.  I said I'd share the list of thing that I feel helped me, with the hope that others can find some help too.

 

----

* Intro: My HPPD started after I'd taken many acid and other hallucinogen trips, smoked a ton of weed, and done lots of other regrettable things over the course of a few years starting at age 14 or 15.  This was way before hppd was on anyone's radar.  We heard stories of people who tripped and never came down, but didn't believe them.  A couple weeks after a particularly unpleasant, anxious acid trip, I started to feel like I was tripping, had visual snow, trails, a feeling of impending disaster, depersonlization, all the classic symptoms.  My HPPD had started.

 

* First stop, psychiatrist: I was prescribed antipsychotics, possibly Thorazine at first, then finally settled on Stelzine, with Artane to prevent tardive dyskenisia.  For the next several weeks to couple of months, I suffered terribly with the symptoms, which the drugs did nothing to alleviate, as well as the effects of the drugs themselves.  Then, on a followup visit to the Dr., he cruelly and dismissively said words to the effect that I was way more fucked up than I thought I was.

 

* Second, fighting back: That catalyzed me - I was going to beat this!  THIS WAS THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS HEALING.  I vowed that I was going to clean up, get off the antipsychotics, and get my act together.  I started with all the usual "good lifestyle" choices: eat right!  rest!  exercise!  And I think this cannot be overemphasized.

 

* Third, refusing to give in:  So now I started a long process of simply forcing myself back to normalcy as best I could.  I tried various supplements and so forth: even put eggshells in my omelettes because I thought the calcium would help.  I don't think anything really did, outside the fundamentals - again: eat right, rest, exercise.  I found that walking, hiking, biking was excellent therapy.  These basic motor skills are unharmed by the drug effects, unlike things like reading and driving, so were a good basic fallback.  Plus the release of endorphins is helpful.  Do it.  Do it as much as you can.  When I would have bad acid trips, walking was about all that I could do, and it was helpful dealing with the HPPD.

 

* Fourth, getting involved: As difficult as it was, I forced myself to be in the world.  I went to junior college.  I got a girlfriend.  The intellectual activity, and the emotional attachment were really helpful.  I eventually felt that I was recovering, even though I still felt depersonalization, and still had visual artifacts, and I was able to function quite highly.  I had simply given myself no other choice.  There weren't any other treatment options, so I determined that if I was going to be on my own with this, I was going to just plug and plug away.

 

* Fifth, staying clean: All this time, I assiduously stayed away from any sort of substances.  I have to emphasize this to fellow HPPD sufferers: you cannot afford to put any more psychoactive material in your system.  When I got too overconfident in my recovery, I started doing cocaine ... and relapsed.  After a night of partying, I looked down at my hand and it had the far-away look of depersonalization, the dawn sky was fully speckled with snow, and I cried my eyes out when I crashed into bed.  It was back.  DON'T DO ANY SUBSTANCES.  I had to regroup, get back with my program, go clean again, and work really damned hard to regain my lost ground.

 

* Sixth, valium when it got bad: Eventjually developed a type of vertigo somewhere along the line, which may or may not have been related to the HPPD.  It was like my peripheral vision was out of synch with my body, and it was a chronic feeling of being off balance and of the world moving.  It was particularly horrible.  So, I saw a vision perception specialist, and took valium - the only drug that ever helped any of my HPPD symptoms.  I mention it here because even if the vertigo was not related, I assumed it meant that together with the HPPD it meant I was brain damaged.  The valium definitely helped calm the panic about that.  Still and all, through this I was able to complete college and live a quite reasonable existence in New York City.

 

* Seventh, vision therapy: because the vertigo seemed vision related I went to a vision therapy specialist, but I think it was helpful with taking my focus away from HPPD visual symptoms.  Search on the web for vision therapy modalities; I just briefly looked at http://www.visiontherapyrocks.com, and it looked like it had some good links.

 

* BREAKDOWN * Then I had a psychotic depression.  I have no doubt that the HPPD had made me susceptible.  But the short version is that I ended up hospitalized, then underwent ECT and was put on an antidepressant.

 

* Eighth, recovering all over again, antidepressant therapy: I believe the ECT helped, as well as the medications.  I have been taking carbamzepine and SSRI's (Prozac and Zoloft), and for the most part have been completely unbothered by my HPPD for many years now.  Coming out of the depression was a slow road, and I'm sure it was related, but once recovered, my symptoms of HPPD no longer bother me, even when I am aware of trails, afterimages, or snow.  The vertigo disappeared too!

 

* Ninth, PTSD treatment: after several trying years, and some unrelated traumas, I decided to look into PTSD treatment.  The treatment modality was hypnosis plus EMDR (look it up).  In treatment, I realized how traumatic the experience of the drug use and the resulting HPPD had been.  The trauma treament I underwent made a huge difference for me in reducing the intensity of my memories of the horror of those times, and helping me integrate more fully.

 

* Tenth, ongoing work on my Self: I continue to work all the time on understanding my mind and feelings.  My current work is around Focusing (http://www.focusing.org/newcomers.htm) and it is a useful tool for opening up to exploration of feeling impressions,  and guiding one's travel through one's experience.  We have worked on my history of HPPD symptoms and it has really helped me feel relief from some of the superstitious and irrational thoughts that were an unconscious burden I carried after all those years of trauma.

-----
 

So that's my success story - I never got totally over the HPPD, and I continue to have personality difficulties that I think are related to all the drug use at such a young age.  I still can see more prominent after-images than I like, I see visual snow, I can see faint trails.  But I am free of the feelings of dread, free from the depersonalization, have had several long-lasting relationships, have several kids, a BA degree, six-figure income, and am here if I can help any of you!

 

Recap:

1. Antipsychotics, probably not useful.

2. Fight Back! Make a committment that you are going to beat this.

3. Refuse to give up, stay on a program of eat right, rest, exercise, exercise, exercise.  I found that sugary crap made symptoms worse.  Do veggies!  Lots.

4. Get involved.  Even though you are in a bad state, try to force yourself to engage in any way you can.  Chat up the grocery clerk if nothing else.  Try to read, study, do things you (used to) enjoy.

5. Stay clean.  Don't even think about doing a little of this or that.  Even though coke is not a hallucinagen, doing it set me back years.

6. Try diazepam and related.  I found no shame in relief through valium.  Do it through your doctor.

7. Try various vision therapies.  You can learn to change the focus of your attention, and a sympathetic vision therapist could be really helpful.

8. I underwent hard-core depression therapy, it's not something you can ask for at your Dr.'s office.  But I wonder if ECT helped my HPPD!  It's possible that the SSRI's and the Tegretol have helped.  I just don't have clean data here, for obvious reasons.

9. Try PTSD/EMDR treatment.  You are undergoing a traumatic experience, and the trauma just reinforces the HPPD as well.  I believe that the PTSD nad EMDR treatments could be excellent help.  If you contact me, I will provide a link to a specific practitioner who has MP3 recordings you can buy which may be helpful to you as they have been to me.  If there is enough interest, I would contact this person and request a series of custom-made recordings for alleviating the stress, anxiety, and traumatic feelings that go with HPPD.

10. Try Focusing.  "Clear a Space.  Feel the feelings.  See how you would characterise, describe the feeling.  Find resonance with how you describe it.  Ask yourself what makes it feel the way it does?  What does the answer say about it?  What does it need, and what is in the way of it feeling better?"  This is somewhat like the line of thought that goes into a focusing session, but check the website at focusing.org

 

I hope this helps, even a little.  Please let me know if you have any other questions, if you want to find out about the MP3's, or Focusing.

 

Hang in there.  Don't Give Up!

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I have literally never taken any conventional medication for this disorder. Tell u the truth I'm fucking completely petrified to say the least. I really do believe the degree of my symptoms are very pronounced and emphasized beyond belief this makes me mentally deranged where I can't make the choice. It's just to risky if this deficiency Elevates any higher I think I will sentence myself to eternal shut eye where I find my most comfort in tranquility of complete harmonization. I just dread the thought of waking up just knowing I want to go back into sleep where when I dream hppd is gone I don't see or feel it. Fuck its my only escape my tinnitus vanishes as well. Like believe this or not I have seriously recognized I was dreaming in my dream I looked at objects and shifted my eyes away and NOTHING. I looked at brighter objects no trails, no ghostly gloom's, no streamers, I even said out loud in reality "fuck I don't want to wake up" the feeling that went through me was gratifyingly grateful. My G-friend said to me "Jamie u screamed out"... "I DONT WANT TO WAKE UP" I totally recollected saying that in my dream. I don't feel chronic fatigue, dp/dr, intrusive thoughts, depression or anything like that when I'm dreaming. U know its so fucking ironic that I'm chasing normalization now and not mind alternating drugs or highs. Anyways this is y I like to dream and u have to go to sleep to get there. I ask myself every day is it so bad to go into r.e.m. Forever?? Talk about R.I.P. Hppd24years and into 25 consecutively. Thanks man!!

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I have literally never taken any conventional medication for this disorder. Tell u the truth I'm fucking completely petrified to say the least. I really do believe the degree of my symptoms are very pronounced and emphasized beyond belief this makes me mentally deranged where I can't make the choice. It's just to risky if this deficiency Elevates any higher I think I will sentence myself to eternal shut eye where I find my most comfort in tranquility of complete harmonization. I just dread the thought of waking up just knowing I want to go back into sleep where when I dream hppd is gone I don't see or feel it. Fuck its my only escape my tinnitus vanishes as well. Like believe this or not I have seriously recognized I was dreaming in my dream I looked at objects and shifted my eyes away and NOTHING. I looked at brighter objects no trails, no ghostly gloom's, no streamers, I even said out loud in reality "fuck I don't want to wake up" the feeling that went through me was gratifyingly grateful. My G-friend said to me "Jamie u screamed out"... "I DONT WANT TO WAKE UP" I totally recollected saying that in my dream. I don't feel chronic fatigue, dp/dr, intrusive thoughts, depression or anything like that when I'm dreaming. U know its so fucking ironic that I'm chasing normalization now and not mind alternating drugs or highs. Anyways this is y I like to dream and u have to go to sleep to get there. I ask myself every day is it so bad to go into r.e.m. Forever?? Talk about R.I.P. Hppd24years and into 25 consecutively. Thanks man!!

I know it's hard.  24 years into it, I could still feel it too.  You have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Walk, eat well, rest.  Try the valium.  Try the PTSD treatments, etc.  Keep trying!

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  • 1 month later...

Mine is not a full success story but its still great. I was a huge mental wreck depersonalization anxiety visuals panic attacks depression. All I have is visuals I'm so happy that all the other shit went away that I'm actually happier than before hppd. I love my life now

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