The head pressure... and my HPPD.

[Heyguys]

Hi guys,

 

So I have mild HPPD, had it 3 weeks now (I'm aware of the 6 month rule! But I deffo have it...) I'm mid twenties and live in the UK.

 

After 6 months of reading up on drugs, those that are dangerous and addictive. Those that cause the least harm etc. I learnt so much, and watched so many documentaries! I decided the government were trying to hide these hidden fruits from us and that I should investigate to see what they are all about! Drugs aren't all bad... I thought.

 

Took a small dose of mushrooms (most fun I'd had in years!) and after noticed I could move text on a computer screen at will. Thought nothing of it. (Shame really!) Second dose of mushrooms and it didn't get any worse (Again a very jolly and positive trip). 

 

Large 300mg MDMA dose 2 weeks later (my third drug encounter, damn this drug made me so happy, I just loved everyone and life itself for those 4 hours, will never forget it) and then 300mg of unknown a few hours after (Think  BZP/mCPP (Whoops...! These should never be mixed but I thought it was more MDMA and I just got caught up in it all *cries a little* This is a massive regret that I'm finding hard to deal with! I'm normally such a cautious person, to find myself buying drugs in a club from a random whilst thinking I can get that MDMA high back is just painful)

 

...and a couple of days later I got this head pressure. It's not gone since!

 

- Moves around my head

- Gets better after exercise (Increased blood flow)

- Goes away to a point I can almost ignore it if I try and forget about it (anxiety related)

- Accompanied by a numb feeling scalp!

- Reduces by a lot in the evening

 

HPPD:

-VS at night (turning bedroom light off, night vision is much worse than before) barely visible during the day, seen it perhaps twice

-Have after images a few times but very rare. (seen clearly twice)

-Headlights are brighter

-Have to concentrate reading text on phone, I find myself moving the text up and down to stop the static text making myself trip out! I can't read erowid at all because the text/background colour combo destroys me!

-Legs feel light sometimes when walking

-Seen the black sperms once but tbh I don't go looking for them! I try and ignore all my visual hppd and it's getting better!

-Drop in Libido

 

All the above are more noticeable when I'm tired! Especially the drop in libido! ;-)

 

Not got:

-No de personalisation, never done any drugs that do this so I don't really know what it would feel like

-Depression is minimal but this headache is getting me down, that's for sure. The thought of never being able to do drugs again (I'd only just discovered shrooms and mdma!) is also a bit upsetting but probably a blessing in a very good disguise.

-No visual trails 

-No tinitus (Please, please, please don't let me get this now!)

 

I'm not sure if this head pressure is due to the painfully poor combo of drugs or the HPPD or both. What I do know is that if it went I'd be a hell of a lot happier and could certainly move on from thinking about my HPPD. Not read many success stories though of shifting their head pressure so I'm kind of letting that sink in at the moment! I eat healthily, exercise. taking magnesium tablets (just one a day) and cod liver oil (1000mg a day) and multivitamins.

 

I'd love to hear from someone that has had this head pressure I describe and managed to beat it? I spoke to my GP about it (UK) and he said "well we all get headaches...!" "Come back in a few months if you still have it!"

 

Anyway, so much negativity! I'm generally a happy guy, love my gf, have a good job and a loving family. I understand how serious some of you guys have HPPD and reading about it has put me off drugs for life. It's clearly not the path I'm destined for and I wish you all well and hope you make a good recovery. My gf has also since said to me she thinks headlights are brighter to her since the MDMA night so I think she may be susceptible too, so I'm not going to let her try shrooms to risk it!! She also said her depth perception is wack since... not something I have noticed but I have read some others have? Drugs are out of our life for sure.

 

So is alcohol. I had a few sips of wine and my visuals were worse the next morning so no more for me! I'm going to turn into a right boring person! This sucks seeing as I just made 25L of strawberry wine and have a few gallons of larger to brew! Aren't my friends lucky when they get all this alcohol handed to them!

 

I have read a lot about hppd in the last few weeks and the main bit of advice I read time and again is... don't think about it! So I'm not going to check the forum too often but will be back to (hopefully) reply to some of your comments Now... to shift this head pressure... maybe if I just go for one more run...!

 

Take care,

[etardnow]

I had headpressure. My hppd started with physical symptom aches before visuals came a month later. Eventually the physical symptoms disappeared though. Read one about some worsenings, killing some hope, recreating some hope, straight talk, etc. lol

 

For me it started with head pressure with some tension behind eyes.

About a month after developing visual effects, Fluctuations in heart beat and blood pressure, as well as related anxiety started suddenly. Along with anxiety related symptoms like racing thoughts, tremors trying to sleep, etc etc. Very minor DP when the anxiety was strong(once or twice).

 

The anxiety/bp/pulse/headpressure only lasted for about 2-3 weeks and the head pressure maybe 4-5. But i developed tinnitus and new/worsening visuals stayed.

 

I was like you at first. The visual effects didnt phase me at all in the beginning. I just let it be and thought not too much of it.

It was about a month into hppd when i developed the heartbeat/anxiety problems. I honestly, even now, believe to a little extent that I wasn't anxious but the hppd messing up my brain chemistry triggered the anxiety(perhaps a drain of serotonin/dopamine?). (I never had anxiety in my whole life except on a minor bad trip). I didnt know 'why' i was anxious, because a day before, i was fine with the visuals.

 

But that can be argued because anxiety is part subconscious.

In the beginning, although I 'believed' i was going to get better and subconsciously I was begging it for it to go away, every awaking day with hppd was probably eating my hope away(though, consciously, i was trying to believe i was getting better).

Which inevitably caused the anxiety? who knows.

 

What matters is that it didnt stay. headpressure, heartbeat fluctuations, racing thoughts, sleep problems, minor DP were all gone and i believe those are the ones that hinder hppd-ers most.  Visuals are just visuals. Like wearing dirty glasses you cant take off but the mental ones make it hard to function. 

 

I think headpressure will settle down for you as the brain adapts to the unfamiliarity of hppd. 

 

I didnt really do anything special. I changed my diet to an extremely healthy one (losing about 10kg due to the healthy diet), and I quit alcohol, caffeine before i even got to "test it out" to see if it worsened my symptoms.  But i think only time is the real answer here.

 

If it gets too fucked up, knowing that i have some  benzos at hand helps imo. Eventhough i havent even tried one yet.

 

And at first, when I found this site, i was on it all day everyday, reading through all the posts, and such. I felt better reading about it but later came to the realization that its not that helpful.

I mean support and research is great but in the end, the cure isnt here....YET  

I still check it everyday when im on the computer but im also living life right now, back in school and busy with that. 

[Heyguys]

Thanks for your kind words mate, they helped a lot.

 

So time for an update I think! I'm 3 months in now, or thereabouts! 

 

So end of September my head pressure went away and it was replaced with a head ache. This was so much better! (Didn't think I'd ever welcome a familiar headache!) Paracetamol became my best friend. Peace at last! A week later and I was off on holiday with the family to Florida. By day two, the headache was gone completely. Whether this was because I was so active I'm not sure. What I do think helped a tonne, was the sunshine! The heat! It was a savior! I spent the whole holiday very positive knowing that if the headache came back when I returned to the UK, I had a cure. I just had to uplift my entire life and move to the Sunshine state! Perfect.

 

The headache never returned. I get a slight head pressure the day after a night clubbing but I think that's more to do with my neck. I feel that banging my head around to the music all night does my neck in and that's given me the weird head sensation.

 

The visual symptoms are getting better daily bar a few. I've not seen the black sperm since or any visual snow. 99% of my day is hppd free. 

 

I still see some colour after images, headlights are still brighter at night and my retina is still determined to hang on to bright information for longer than most people. I do feel these affect me less however. Whether this is because they are actually getting less pronounced or because I spend less time analysing them after each encounter. Due to them being less 'significant' I find my mind is starting to ignore them and my anxiety is staying low

 

Turning the light off for bed used to freak me out because while it was pitch black, everything was still very white! It felt like I was blind. Freaky. It was instantly noticable and I became very hostile to it. A couple of months ignoring it and it doesn't bother me any more. It may still be apparent, but not thinking about it as such a 'bad thing' has made it less of a 'big thing'.

 

Tips I've learnt:

 

- New here? Don't panic, it will only make things worse. Relax and be positive The reason there isn't many success stories here and the forum is pretty quiet, is because those who get better want to put hppd in the past not post here constantly. There lots of helpful guys that do still post though... a friendly bunch it seems

 

- Get off this website. I've limited myself to reading on here like once a fortnight. Instantly when I study hppd my visual field starts messing up. In the white spaces between sentences I see temporary after image lines that aren't there. If I told that to anyone else other than you guys I'd probably get a snigger. Reading about HPPD really won't do you much good. At first it's useful to ease some anxiety and feed the need for hope, but once you have read all that needs to be read, stop focusing on it and live your life. (p.s. why isn't this website's text and background colour more 'hppd' friendly? Black on bright white is just asking for a headache!)

 

- Worrying about HPPD will worsen it. I read a guy put on here "Alcohol never used to effect my hppd until I read on this forum that it worsens most peoples... now it makes my hppd worse too."... I think this happens to a lot of people on here which I why I'm conscious about reading threads about peoples symptoms in case I subconsciously make more for myself! I've been drunk drunk twice since and it's not worsened mine. I felt amazing and happy. So happy and carefree that I'm on the phone to my mate telling him how much I was to try all these other amazing drugs one day. Needless to say, I slapped myself the following morning multiple times with various household products for having such immature thoughts.

 

- Take some supplements. I only took an A-Z vitamin, magnesium and fish oil tab a day. If anything else, the placebo effect really helped me out. I've not taken these for a week and I feel fine.

 

- You're not as alone as you think. I found out today my girlfriends auntie sees 'white fuzz and black wiggly things' sometimes. Most people don't know what they have and have just dealt with it. For some people not knowing, works out better.

 

- Tinnitus; don't focus on it. I 'think' I developed tinnitus. I've put it in brackets because I think I've only got it because I expected to get it. And i'm not even certain I didn't have it before. Either way it's only noticeable if I lay a certain way on my pillow and even then it only bothers me for a minute or two while I change position. I'm making a conscious effort to divert my thoughts away from it immediately. Not going to let my brain focus on it. 

 

- I've found caffeine is OK in moderation. Not knocking back the espressos on the daily but a latte or can of coke here and there doesn't effect me.

 

- Drink lots of water

 

- Change your underwear every day.

 

- Start a new hobby? Gym?

 

- Get some sunshine. If there's none, then maybe a sun bed once a week might have a similar effect.

 

- Don't do drugs, they are bad for you. (Yeah, like we need telling!) 

 

;-)

[Heyguys]

Copied a thread I started. I'm trying to keep my stuff together in this thread though.

 

I've been trying real hard to not drink alcohol but with friends birthdays and Xmas and that it's hard!

 

Had a few mulled wines (festive!) Sat night and then went clubbing in London. I had a great night! The combination of the low amount of alcohol, the loud music, atmosphere and all the lights meant my vision went pretty crazy. I'd be talking (shouting) to a mate and then look away and I'd still see his face clear as day for a second! Weird! Very shroomy and I actually enjoyed it as I felt a lot more 'gone with the fairies' than usual My mates were on MD and I swear I had a better night than them! I certainly danced/raved harder! Everyone was asking what I was on! By 2/3am the alchohol had worn of and I was going strong till 6am. "Sober!" I replied to their disbelief!

 

During alcohol: 

 

+ No visual snow, flashing etc

+ Headlights are less bright

+ Blacks actually look black (walk home at 6am, so I was sober I guess)

- 10x noticeable increase in afterimages in the club

 

After alcohol

 

- All symptoms worse for a day or two. I may notice an extra floater etc.

- Particularly 'background flashing' (Persons face is clear but I can see the background flickering slightly?)

- Headache next day (normal really)

 

I have cut my alcohol consumption down massively and have drunk only 3/4 times since HPPD onset, all just enough to get tipsy. Doesn't take much though any more!

[Heyguys]

 I saw this picture on a medical page on facebook. I'd only ever seen this before once a week after first getting hppd but not seen it since.

 

 

 

So I looked out my window at the sky just to see when looking at the blue sky. Saw nothing, just the same old sky. Then I saw this little triangle whizzing around. Was really shiny like a crystal, darting across the sky. Then more appeared and I could see like 20/30 of this little shiny triangle darting in their own direction! Looked a lot like a game on my phone called "Eufloria". 

 

They weren't falling like VS. They wern't moving away from my area of focus like a off centre floater does. They were all flying around in their own direction.

 

I was beautiful for the 10 seconds I noticed it. Then I looked away in fear I might never stop noticing it now! I haven't seen it again (phew), but I'm grateful I did get to see it. Very pretty, a different depth to HPPD. I do wonder if other have seen these shiny crystals whizzing around. Makes a change from black floaters and this one "ripple" looking this I see sometimes!

 

Update: My HPPD has been getting slightly worse but it's my fault. The alcohol is the issue. After this NYE I'm completely T total. The main thing that's worse recently is trails. I move my lit phone in front my my eyes and I get the usual trail (Everyone gets a slight trail) but then a second one lagging behind. There's a noticeable "lag". Bizarre.

 

Peace.

[onedayillsailagain]

Quick comment; what you describe above is known as Blue Field Entopic Phenomena, or BFEP for short. I've had this on some occasions prior to HPPD.
Be well.

[Heyguys]

Quick comment; what you describe above is known as Blue Field Entopic Phenomena, or BFEP for short. I've had this on some occasions prior to HPPD.

Be well.

 

Wow thank you! Just watched this video!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkUwogWzSwk

[Heyguys]

OMG everyone on here should watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_490724&feature=iv&src_vid=FkUwogWzSwk&v=L_W-IXqoxHA

 

Interesting effect at the end too! Anyone else have a blank circle in the middle where they don't see the blood vessels?

 

His third video. Again very interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LmCbRPdd0Q

[Jackj]

Did your hppd go away