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Connection between TMS and HPPD?


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Hi all,

I have been reading about HPPD for some time now after having some difficult after effects following psychedelic drug use. What most people in this community would probably agree on is that we are dealing with a problem in our brain. Most of you that have checked your eyes at the doctor have discovered that you have perfectly healthy eyes, even though there are obvious issues with your vision. Our brains are creating these visual effects, even though we are completely sober! At this point, we don't know much more of what's going on however. Why is this happening? We know that LSD for example is not even toxic, yet it can still leave us with symptoms lasting for years! Maybe there is another explanation?

During the time when I have suffered from HPPD, my girlfriend has also been a victim. However, she does not suffer from HPPD but with chronic back pain following back surgery (lumbar puncture). This made me read a lot about chronic pain and I stumbled upon a condition called Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS). Basically, there was this one doctor (he died very recently) called Dr. Sarno that came forward with a completely new approach to dealing with pain. According to him, most people suffering from chronic pain don't have anything wrong with them physically. Their brains are just sending pain signals in order to distract them from their negative emotions. He wrote a book about this, and he held lectures to teach this idea to pain sufferers which he continued to do until he died of old age. Apparently just educating yourself about this idea could cure you from your pain!

I started digging deep into this. I was very skeptical that people with severe chronic pain could become pain-free after just reading a book and attending lectures. It just seemed too good to be true. However, everywhere I looked I just continued to read people's success stories and how they overcome their symptoms by following this method. There is so much praise for this guy it's insane. I couldn't ignore all the positive things people were saying, and I started thinking that maybe this doc was up to something.

Then, I started drawing a connection between TMS and HPPD. Maybe, HPPD is just a form of TMS? There is a clear difference with what we are dealing with though, in that it is not pain signals but visual signals. But, I still think it could be the same condition. If this is the case, then...

1. There is nothing physically wrong with us. 
2. The symptoms we have are entirely stress related. 
3. We can get rid of our symptoms by learning about the true cause of them and by focusing on our mental health.


Many people here report getting HPPD after one or several bad tripping experiences. These experiences can be traumatic and very taxing for our psyche. I believe that the psychological trauma could be the cause of the HPPD symptoms, instead of the actual drug itself. This is an important distinction to make, and radically changes how you would approach the healing process. Basically, our brains are dealing with the trauma by distracting us with these visuals artifacts. 

This is just an idea I had, and I felt I wanted to share it here and see your thoughts. 

For more about TMS:
TMS Forum - http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/
Dr. Sarno interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzOBa-t6Vcw

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I'm not huge on the "It's all in your head" theories. My HPPD, and many others' here, is not related to anxiety in the sense I can control it. My HPPD symptoms are pretty much the exact same 24-7, 365. Theoretically, maybe the brain is sending some sort of signal it shouldn't, but it sounds like it's much more likely the brain is not filtering out excess signals instead -- at least that's what a lot of the leading doctors are suggesting. 

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41 minutes ago, K.B.Fante said:

My HPPD, and many others' here, is not related to anxiety in the sense I can control it.

What does this mean?

If you're having it 24 7 365 how are you controlling it?

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6 hours ago, K.B.Fante said:

I'm not huge on the "It's all in your head" theories. My HPPD, and many others' here, is not related to anxiety in the sense I can control it. My HPPD symptoms are pretty much the exact same 24-7, 365. Theoretically, maybe the brain is sending some sort of signal it shouldn't, but it sounds like it's much more likely the brain is not filtering out excess signals instead -- at least that's what a lot of the leading doctors are suggesting. 

Imagine you were having physical, real pain in your back 24/7, 365. So much you couldn't even walk for too long at a time. I bet you would be reluctant to believe it then as well, but there are so many cases where pain like this was caused by anxiety and stress. And furthermore, they were able to become free from symptoms.

I agree that it COULD be that the drugs have somehow hindered the brains way to filter out noise. But, I don't think it is much more likely to be that than this. We really don't know. I am going to give this a shot and see if it helps me with my symptoms.

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My mom has a lot of physical pain and I think a good portion of it is psychological. Shes experienced a few instances of rape and sexual abuse and I think this is her minds way of dealing with it 

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22 hours ago, TheMythos said:

What does this mean?

If you're having it 24 7 365 how are you controlling it?

I mean many people don't see huge fluctuations in their symptoms based on their level of stress or anxiety or whatever other mental instability they may be facing. Symptoms are bound to fluctuate a bit throughout the day based on body chemistry and mood, but no amount of ignoring symptoms or relaxation or even severe anxiety has even done much to change my symptoms on the whole. 

 

16 hours ago, shroomanxiety said:

Imagine you were having physical, real pain in your back 24/7, 365. So much you couldn't even walk for too long at a time. I bet you would be reluctant to believe it then as well, but there are so many cases where pain like this was caused by anxiety and stress. And furthermore, they were able to become free from symptoms.

I agree that it COULD be that the drugs have somehow hindered the brains way to filter out noise. But, I don't think it is much more likely to be that than this. We really don't know. I am going to give this a shot and see if it helps me with my symptoms.

Good luck, but I don't know that it's wise to assume you can understand the pain, suffering and physiological impairment of others based on stories you've heard here and there. I'm curious if you apply this same sort of logic to other scenarios in life, telling people their subjective experiences, feelings and bodily sensations actually don't exist and that it's just all in their mind. I don't think this is a particularly helpful way of interacting with people who are suffering, nor is it grounded in fact. Quite frankly, it's fairly egotistical to assume your condition or pain is equal to others when in fact they could be experiencing a level of suffering you didn't even know possible. My visual impairment that resulted from ingesting acid doesn't change because I want it to or because I just think a certain way. I guess maybe I'll just try to think like a millionaire from here on out and one day I'll way up next to a sack full of 100 dollar bills then? Is that how it works? 

I don't mean to be an asshole but you can only handle so many people telling you it's "all in your mind" before you have to be blunt. If you could spend a day in my shoes you'd understand this isn't something I'm imagining because I'm bored with life and want to see magic fairy dust every time I look into the sky. If you believe you can just think yourself out of neuronal cell damage then have at it, but please refrain from insisting this is some sort of cure until science can verify this as an actual method of treating illness. 

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9 hours ago, K.B.Fante said:

I mean many people don't see huge fluctuations in their symptoms based on their level of stress or anxiety or whatever other mental instability they may be facing. Symptoms are bound to fluctuate a bit throughout the day based on body chemistry and mood, but no amount of ignoring symptoms or relaxation or even severe anxiety has even done much to change my symptoms on the whole. 

 

Good luck, but I don't know that it's wise to assume you can understand the pain, suffering and physiological impairment of others based on stories you've heard here and there. I'm curious if you apply this same sort of logic to other scenarios in life, telling people their subjective experiences, feelings and bodily sensations actually don't exist and that it's just all in their mind. I don't think this is a particularly helpful way of interacting with people who are suffering, nor is it grounded in fact. Quite frankly, it's fairly egotistical to assume your condition or pain is equal to others when in fact they could be experiencing a level of suffering you didn't even know possible. My visual impairment that resulted from ingesting acid doesn't change because I want it to or because I just think a certain way. I guess maybe I'll just try to think like a millionaire from here on out and one day I'll way up next to a sack full of 100 dollar bills then? Is that how it works? 

I don't mean to be an asshole but you can only handle so many people telling you it's "all in your mind" before you have to be blunt. If you could spend a day in my shoes you'd understand this isn't something I'm imagining because I'm bored with life and want to see magic fairy dust every time I look into the sky. If you believe you can just think yourself out of neuronal cell damage then have at it, but please refrain from insisting this is some sort of cure until science can verify this as an actual method of treating illness. 

You are clearly completely misunderstanding my point with this whole post and what I'm saying. I'm not saying "it's all in your head", and never insisted that this is a cure. I'm quite flabbergasted by the fact that you even managed to conclude this from reading what I wrote (if you even did). In any case, you seem to be a very angry individual and I'll leave you at that.

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I mean, we don't really have any concrete evidence that hppd is neuronal cell damage either. All the limited studies that have been done show that it may be some kind of thermal noise in the visual cortex. Fact is, nobody really knows, and telling people they're brain damaged is as equally disingenuous as implying they can "think their way out of it." And, quite frankly, probably more damaging to their mental health.

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14 hours ago, shroomanxiety said:

You are clearly completely misunderstanding my point with this whole post and what I'm saying. I'm not saying "it's all in your head", and never insisted that this is a cure. I'm quite flabbergasted by the fact that you even managed to conclude this from reading what I wrote (if you even did). In any case, you seem to be a very angry individual and I'll leave you at that.

Re-reading your posts it does seem as though the solution you're suggesting is to somehow view our condition in a certain light that would allow us to control our stress and potentially master our HPPD symptoms. The numerals you list as "1., 2. and 3." explicitly state this. I will admit I took your suggestion a bit too personally and went too far in addressing what I felt was erroneous about it. I apologize if I offended anyone with this. 

That said, I'm not an angry person and I think the 400-plus posts I've made on this site clearly corroborate this. I do tend to comment at night after work and lately I've been a bit cranky due to additional medical conditions on top of HPPD and getting pretty tired of my job. Maybe it just all came out in the post above. I do think, however, that posts that reduce HPPD to a highly controllable condition in any way are incredibly frustrating to read given this site -- the largest database of HPPD-related stories and information on the Web -- is teeming with literally thousands upon thousands of first-hand accounts of longterm HPPD sufferers who've tried every trick in the book to alter their condition in the slightest and have often failed. There are in fact suicide notes and many accounts of suicidal ideation due to the immutable force that is HPPD, and so to suggest there's really nothing wrong with us, that it's only stress related and that if we just understood the cause we'd overcome years of the most severe mental anguish imaginable, I think is not exactly helpful. 

Again, I apologize if I came off the wrong way, but I think it's important to understand the stigma surrounding mental illness and especially HPPD, especially with regards to the concept that what we're going through is "all in our heads" and not an actual neurological malfunction. Downplaying the severity of this condition is the exact opposite direction we should be going in as a community and is exactly the battle the mental health community has been waging for literally hundreds of years. If we can't even get our own sufferers on board with the idea we have a neurological disorder then how in the hell are we supposed to make progress with doctors or the general public? 

Please don't take my above post personal. I promise I'm not an asshole. I think you just happened to catch me on the wrong day at the wrong time with a subject I'm very passionate about. 

3 hours ago, TheMythos said:

I mean, we don't really have any concrete evidence that hppd is neuronal cell damage either. All the limited studies that have been done show that it may be some kind of thermal noise in the visual cortex. Fact is, nobody really knows, and telling people they're brain damaged is as equally disingenuous as implying they can "think their way out of it." And, quite frankly, probably more damaging to their mental health.

Perhaps you know better than I, but is the brain not composed entirely of cells that fire signals back and forth to convey messages to the body and to the self? If something is healthy, is acted on by an outside force and then remains unhealthy afterwards, that is essentially the definition of damage, no? Perhaps you feel differently than I do about HPPD, but in my case I have zero reason to believe I did not suffer some form of damage given I was neurologically "normal" prior to taking a hit of acid but ever since have had a long list or neurological conditions that forms the basis of HPPD, including micropsia, palinopsia, tinnitus, diplopia, mydriasis, cycloplegia and visual snow to name a few. Though I am no doctor I also don't think it's to far fetched to suggest this array of neurological disorders does not often result simultaneously on a single day without some form of significant alteration inside the brain. You can call it whatever you'd like, but from my perspective and in my case "damage" seems to be an entirely appropriate and in no way disingenuous nor offensive term given the definition of the word can be as simple as "unwelcome and detrimental effects." I'd venture to say everyone here could label HPPD as unwelcome and detrimental without feeling all that disingenuous. 

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Brain damage is something that in most cases is irreversible. You can use whatever terminology you want, I just think something like malfunction is better because it gives the possibility of recovery. Which many people here have done, with or without medical intervention.

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