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AlphaBeta

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Everything posted by AlphaBeta

  1. Update: I discontinued Sertraline in January 2021 without any noteworthy withdrawel effects. I still feel completely healthy and took a very warm farewell to my doctor in February 2021. Live goes on as usual and I started to use Cannabis again few months ago. It took a few times starting with very low doses until I could enjoy it again. My Cannabis consumption didn't had any noticeable negative effects yet. Anyhow, I don't want to encourage somebody who suffered under HPPD to use Cannabis, there are many instances where it caused a worsening or relapse, I'm just reporting about my case here. So for the near future, this is the end of my story. As it's a real happy end for me, let me share some retrospective opinions about psychedelics and HPPD, as you're may interested how someone sees it who has read many studies about HPPD, intensively discussed them with a doctor reasearching about psychedelics, and fully recovered from HPPD: - HPPD is, in my opinion and from my expieriences, a distinct disorder caused mostly by psychedelics that can occur with any severity (from mild to extremely severe). It's not just getting anxious about psychedelic effects (which may applies to some cases, but not to all). - Seeking medical treatment asap makes sense, even if you read not many encouraging stories out there where it helped. For me, stopping recreational use of substances & medication with Sertraline was definitely the solution. Placebo effect or spontanous remission is quite unlikely, I tried another medication first which didn't help, and symptoms disappeared almost completely only 2 weeks after starting Sertraline medication, while they lasted nearly one year before. Anyhow, there are also reports of worsening after SSRI usage. But if you're heavily suffering under HPPD like I did, I think it's absolutely worth trying. - In my special case, I think the combination of Cannabis + LSD caused a traumatic bad trip that led to the disease. Anyhow, I think psychedelics can cause bad trips with the same severity also without combining it with other drugs (just the probability is lower) - Regarding psychedelics in general, I think they cannot be recommended to anyone, while I wouldn't demonize them as well. In my case, and I think that applies to most cases of HPPD sufferers, I can really say everything was great as long as I used them carefully, and it terribly got wrong when I was getting incautious. While it was definitely a "learning expierience", I think this is a very euphemestic term used by the psychedelic community to downplay the severity of suffering many users expierience. Everybody taking psychedelics should be aware that it's a decision that could have devastiting and permanent consequences to your life quality. Personally, I don't regret that I took the risk, but I hardly regret that I underestimated it. Using psychedelics needs very good preparation, extreme caution on each single trip, and an open mind. It's a mental extreme sport capable of providing expieriences that are probably more fantastic & magic than any other. But as for every extreme sport, even if you do your best being cautious, it still can get terribly wrong. I'd love to have the expierience again some day, but the risk seems unbearable - probably, I'll take LSD on my deathbed when I don't have to lose much anymore, so that I can feel the magic at least one last time.
  2. Another update: Visuals got fewer and fewer during the last 2 months and I do notice them quite rare now during the day and indoor (at night it's still very noticeable outdoor). I'm still taking Sertraline, but I'm not suffering at all anymore and I feel completely healthy (despite the fact that I gained weight, but I think that is more due to unhealthy eating already before the medication). I can't say that everything is like it was before my HPPD, but generally I'm completely fine! Maybe this gives some of you hope that it's possible to completely recover from this disease without any suffering remaining
  3. Update: I'm on Sertraline 50mg/d now for 2 months. First two weeks, mood swings got worse. After two weeks, anxiety and mood swings did disappear almost completely. Regarding mood I feel quite normal again. I didn't notice any significant change on visuals so far, but that's maybe a good sign as it got worse before. Overall, this is an extreme improvement. If it continues like this, it's a life that's worth living again I think few days ago I had the first day not thinking about the condition at all. That's a great success and I wouldn't have thought to reach it that fast after it got worse for such a long time.
  4. There is no "typical" reaction. Some reported immediate improvement, other ones slight improvement over a couple of months though. I'd say for most people it does not help at all. For me, side effects did fade out 1 week after dosing up each time. Anyhow, it was not beneficial for me.
  5. I'd like to know if he could do a rough estimation of how many of his patients (1) clinically had a full remission (which means they do not suffer under the disease anymore, but may still expierience altered perception or altered consciousness) (2) reported that they completely got back into their old state of mind (which means they do not notice any perceptual or emotional difference in daily life compared to the time before they got HPPD) Also, I'd like to know (3) whether he sees any connection between HPPD and pre-existing mental illnesses (4) which medications he tried for HPPD treatment (not only the ones that he usually used, but any medications he tried on more than one patient) (5) whether some of his patients tried hallucinogens again a longer time after their primary intoxication and if yes, which impact it had on their symptoms. Was there any case of cure by an additional hallucinogen exposure or any other "strange" cure stories? (6) What was the worst case of HPPD he ever treated (except people with pre-existing mental illness) and how was the course?
  6. Discontinued Lamotrigin last week. I was on 200mg and visual symptoms still got worse, also anxiety & depressive symptoms were there again. It seems it was just a 2 good weeks initially that did let me believe it helps. Discontinuation had no effects.
  7. Sorry, I didn't recognize my own posts, because you put my these sentences completely out of context and interpreted these sentences like I said that this would be "symptoms" by me. I never said that. In these statements, I'm responding to questions of user Denairix who asks if other people have watering eyes or see rainbow colors. Yes, I do, but I don't see these phenomena as "my" HPPD symptoms. I never said that not everything I see can also be seen by normal people, just very very much weaker. I also saw them just much weaker before getting HPPD. In this way I'm differing from many other HPPD patients - I have strong halos, I have very strong colors and so on but in general my visual symptoms are comparably benign and if I would just have the visual symptoms I don't know if I would see myself as ill or seeing doctor at all. My first symptom after the trip was DP and extreme insomnia, this was 4 weeks before vision started to change. A bit later, mood swings joined. This is the worst. I'm not an anxious or emotional guy, I never was. I see the facts as they are and accept them. It does not make sense to worry about something that you cannot change. I understand everything that you say and I would have said the same if I would not had my expierience. On many days, suddenly a feeling of strong anxiety comes up, stays for some hours and goes away. I'm not anxious, I don't worry. I just FEEL anxious, it's the mood, not the thoughts. For me it's like pain - it's not something that you can control, it's just an extremely bad feeling that comes when something is wrong somewhere in your system. Sure you can try to distract yourself, but it does not cure the feeling just as distraction does not cure pain. When it comes, everything you can do is waiting until it's over. Very rarely, euphory comes up like under LSD or MDMA / like I'm on a trip. Never before my HPPD I got such extreme euphory without taking any drugs. It's not correlated to any event in my life, just as the anxiety it suddenly appears and goes away again. Also, I often get depressive feelings or just a very strange feeling that is unpleasent and hard to describe. Everything comes for a few hours and subsides again. Insomnia faded after 4-6 months, but mood swings and visuals got stronger overall. I'm not obsessing about my visuals at all, I just notice that they got a bit stronger each 1-2 months. Very often, I did not care about visuals for weeks and thought they are not changing anymore. Anyhow, they do not subside in this time - contrary to what I would expect, at least every 2 months I suddenly notice a new visual effect or some worsening that was not there before. I don't know how your words can help me to cure. Yes, visuals are irritating some time, but I don't obsess about them and I wouldn't see them as a fundamental problem if I would not suffer so much on the other symptoms. What were you expecting? That everyone here reacts with "ooooh, didn't know that, never tried to stop focusing an visual phenomena". As said, you're acting like someone who tells a depressive patient he can cure it by just not being sad. Please understand. NOBODY WANTS TO BE SAD. NOBODY WANTS TO OBSESS ABOUT VISUAL SYMPTOMS. Everyone suffering under HPPD would love to stop noticing visual phenomena and everyone has hardly tried to do so, just as everyone with depression does not want to be sad and did try everything to get happy again. Your advise is not bad, but it's ridiculous and ignorant to think that not every single HPPD patient suffering on it at least some months is aware of it and has tried to follow it with no success. You're respectless when you don't accept that many other people made expieriences which are completely contrary to what you claim. You have completely no evidence other than your own expierience, but at the same time you deny all other expieriences and try to argument with "proofs" that are not even close to what can be called scientific evidence. The worst thing a scientiest can do is ignoring all facts and expieriences that go against his own theory. This is not science, this is dogmatism. The best scientist is the one who listens and is willing to question & adapt his opinion when he gets to know contrary information. It's like everybody in the room did hear something ring and you don't. What is the right consequence? Denying the existance of this sound and saying to yourself every other one in the room is crazy and obsessing about quiet sounds? No, you would think "I didn't hear it, but probably there was something, even if I can't know". Please accept that other people made other expieriences than you and that what you're saying is not a solution for most HPPD sufferers.
  8. This is not my posting history. Anyway, let's stop here. It does not make sense. The opinions are set. Everything that needs to be said is already said, continuing would be just looping the same arguments again and again.
  9. You had luck that it worked for you and it subsided. As I said, I did not put attention on symptoms for 3 months and they still got worse. Damn, what a proof, you're a genius. Does a psiorias patient feel the itching under such circumstances? Does a deppressive patient feel the depression in such moments? No? Oh, then psiorias and depression are not real as well I guess. Just not focus on it and it'll go away, problem solved! Why did not all the doctors had your great idea? We can cure 50% of all diseases with this method! Please, shut up. You have no idea. You just don't know what real HPPD means because you did not have it.
  10. Guy, you disprove yourself. If it has nothing to do with previous drug exposure and is only a mental process, then there would have to be plenty of non-hallucinogen-induced cases. How does it work? Nobody knows. You have diseases like the Gulf War syndrome that can also suddenly occur years or even decades after the damaging exposure - and in this example, you clearly see a brain damage on the MRI in some cases. Not surprising. You refuse to believe anything that could imply that you don't have the control about the severity of the symptoms. HPPD is real. It could be that it was not HPPD in your case and you really just flipped out. But don't do the mistake thinking your own expierience is valid for everyone. People who don't have expierience with chronic mental illnes are always thumb enough to think patients could escape if they just really want it - I thought similar before getting HPPD. But that's just bullshit. It was not your great capacity coping with mental illness in your case, it was just luck. There are people who have indeed great capacity dealing with mental illness - but every single person of them needs months and years of training to develop that capacity.
  11. One very severe counter-argument against your "theory": In 11 of 12 cases, taking phenothiazines worsens HPPD severely. For "normal" anxiety patients, they just work as a sedative. Many of the usual anxiety patients are also extremely worried about their health, so why don't they get HPPD when taking phenothiazines? It just does not make sense, there would have to be much more non-hallucinogen-induced cases. Even if not "trained" well, at least a small number of anxiety patients should notice the increase of visual phenomena caused by phenothiazines, get worried about it and falling into the "HPPD loop". But there are, as far as I know, 0 cases of people developing HPPD after phenothiazine usage without a past hallucinogen exposure. During my psychedelic expieriences, I completely didn't notice any of my HPPD symptoms. They suddenly occured more than a month after my LSD exposure, so I definitely did not have any "training". Some people suddenly get HPPD from one day to the next, years after hallucinogen exposure. How do you explain that? Why do many people exist who have very(!) strong visuals, but no anxious or emotional component at all? Why do some people have a sudden remission of visual symptoms from one day to another after years of "training"? My visual symptoms are not correlated in any way with anxiety. Sometimes I feel anxiety and visual phenomena are weak, and sometimes visual phenomena is strong and I don't feel any anxiety. For 3 months, I didn't feel any anxiety at all and barely put any attention on visuals, but visual phenomena was still getting worse with the same speed as befor and afterwards. Why do I have extreme mood swings from anxious to deppressive and (rarely) even euphoric expieriences which are very trippy. Do usual anxiety patients feel strong euphory just as under drug exposure? It was also normal and acceptable for me to take hallucinogens and I felt completely no anxiety about the use of the drug. During my bad trip and afterwards, within the first 3 months of my condition, there was not a single moment where I was not 100% sure that I'm safe and will be cured very, very soon. So why did I get HPPD? So many questions that cannot be answered by your claim. But I'd bring a counter theory into the discussion: People whose HPPD symptoms fade fast, persuade themselves that it was just imagination. No it was not. It was real for you, but you can't believe it as soon as you can't feel or see it anymore. You don't want to believe it. Your mind is rewriting the story in a way that you feel that everything is / was under your control. Because it doesn't want to accept that control is an illusion. And of course your mind favorites the explanation allowing you to continue hallucinogen use and having the control whether to develop HPPD or not. It's hard to admit that you don't have any control whether to develop this disorder or not. Everyone here knows that HPPD highly interacts with anxiety. There are people understanding this connection from the first day of their condition trying to work against their anxiety. "Stop being anxious" is a very good advice, but not a cure. Nobody knows if there is a brain damage or not. If someone suffers 40 years from this condition, and yes, there are such cases, I don't know what's the difference to a brain damage. You may say "the difference is that you can escape the loop", but remission can happen in cases of brain damage as well because the brain has the capability of working around the damage. Anyhow, you can assume that many patients do everything they can to get rid of anxiety. In the end it does not matter which theory is right. You cannot cure HPPD by saying it's anxiety-based just as you cannot cure depression by saying it's sadness-based. This discussion is damned to end in the middle of nowhere. There is no key and there will always be patients who are completely therapy-resistent, even if they are working harder on their cure than 99% of the other patients. Anyone can be cured, but not everyone.
  12. Sometimes I see a rainbow-like ring around white lights.
  13. My eyes water sometimes when visuals get strong, but there is no pain.
  14. Could you tell more about your drug usage before HPPD onset (frequency / doses) and your initial and current symptoms (did they got better or did just your acceptance of them increase)? Would be interesting to hear! Also, I wonder if you did you suffer from any mental illness in your life before HPPD onset. Thanks for reporting your case, especially that you got better. This always helps.
  15. Mine is also worsening for exactly 8 months now. From what I've read I'd say there is the highest chance of getting better or even cure within the first 18 months after onset. So it's too early to give up hope at this point of time, you still can get better. Did you do any drugs/meds after onset?
  16. Started Lamotrigine therapy 3 weeks ago. I'm on 50mg/day now and will increase the dose as long as the trade-off between effects and side-effects are fine. I think I already feel a mood-stabilizing and antidepressant effect. Although, sleep got a bit worse and visuals are still exacerbating. Anyhow, mood is the most important stuff so I'll continue.
  17. There is no recipe, everyone has to find his own way. But as it does not seem to do much harm to you, I'd say the best approach would be to just not paying attention to it. Weed can worsen it or prevent it from going away. For some people, it subsides after some weeks, months or years, for others it doesn't. For most people, every drug has it's time in their life - just like a partner, a job, sports or anything else. Life is transitory by it's definition. Sometimes it's hard to accept that you can't continue as before, but that's life. Be thankful that you just have a slight visual component. My visual symptoms are very similar, but I suffer from heavy mood swings, 95% negative, as well. It's getting worse for 6 months now. I don't know if my whole life will consist of suffering now. But we can both be thankful that our fate is not comparable with some others here who suffer from extreme symptoms on a daily basis. Some of them got so bad because they continued drug abuse after first symptoms occured. Be happy that your life is not ruined and that your hardest challenge is to find another hobby than tripping. When it subsided, I'd recommend to continue abstaining at least as long as the symptoms stayed. I had warning signals and made the mistake of directly start tripping again after they subsided. You have to be extremely cautious with acid. It's a highly underestimated drug measured at the amount of suffering it can bring to your life, even if used just a very few times. When I've read about acid, it was like "latent psychoses can happen to vulnerable people, otherwise worst thing that can happen is a bad trip". One source mentioned this "extremely rare condition called HPPD". Extremely rare. I felt so trapped after I read the study by Baggot that 60% of hallucinogen users had persisting or recurring visuals. Sure, most do not (really) suffer from the symptoms, but I really don't understand why this is not one of the FIRST informations regarding expected side effects from repeated acid usage. I never wanted to have a persistent change of my visual perception and I can't understand why this information is hidden in nearly any safer use advice.
  18. Hi & welcome! Could you tell more about how it was developing since end of 2016? Which symptoms did you have , did it went back completely to normal again or did you have remaining symptoms? Was it the first time you smoked weed after getting HPPD or did you do it in between as well? Did you had any mental illnesses before end of 2016? I think if you abstain chances are very good that it'll get better again.
  19. And still, we have just highly speculative numbers of prevalence and not much more than a bunch of case reports. This doesn't mean Abraham's work did not matter. In fact it's really important and a big part of what we currently know. But still, there are many basic question which are not answered with the necessary confidence yet. I don't want to discourage anyone. In the end we want the same thing. Being hopeful and positive is always good. I'm just a realistic and skeptical guy. Also, I'm an engineer. I always concentrate on problems that can be solved in the near future.
  20. No. I'm just telling that etiology research won't bring fast results and the ratio between costs and output / relevance for clinical practice is bad. When you put the money on more easy questions that are also not even answered yet, you'll have more results in less time and also have more improvement for HPPD patients and hallucinogen drug consumers. Also, the more information you have in general about the disease, the easier etiology research gets. That's why I say, it's too early to search for the cause, because we e.g. don't even know the prevalence and miss some general data like maybe some pre-existing conditions which encourage HPPD or effectiveness of currently used medications. As soon as we have all the basic data, sure we can also put focus on etiology research. As I said, when you're trying to build an airplane without even having a hammer yet, you'll fail. That's why you should focus to get the hammer now instead of getting stuck with dreaming of an airplane. Otherwise your dream will never come true.
  21. Believe me, that's not the right approach. You won't find the one damage. As I said, depression research has (and will always have) so much more resources and they didn't find "the damage". Or take a look at epilepsy. Much research about it, they didn't find "the damage". All explanations are very rudimentary and do not play a significant role during treatment. Our understanding of the brain and human consciousness is too basic, it's too early. It's like you're trying to build an airplane though you didn't even invent a hammer yet. HPPD research is resource-limited. It should focus on the easy questions instead of wasting resources with the hard ones that we can only really answer with a toolset that we don't have yet.
  22. I didn't say that medicine won't advance, I did say there won't be the one solution. Surely in 40 years HPPD therapy options will be better than today. But I'm very sure that it won't be like "HPPD is an up-regulation of THIS receptor and when you get THAT medicine, it'll cure within 3 months". As I said, just take look at depression. Are the therapy options better than 1980? For sure. Did we have a major breakthrough, a one and only solution what in the brain exactly causes depression and how to fix it? By far, no. So much research was done about it, and we still just can give some relief and help people to cope in most cases, but the cure is mostly still up to mother nature. And I think it'll be similar with HPPD in 40 years. Yes, medicine did advance. But we're far, far away from an utopy. Damn, we can't even cure a simple cold. 100% true, I didn't say that there should be no research. As I said, I just don't expect big breakthroughs in the fields of etiology and therapy options. Anyhow, I think with relatively few resources some very significant other questions could be answered by research. E.g. questions like: How big is the risk to get HPPD? How long does HPPD usually last? What are consumption patterns that can prevent HPPD with a very high probability? Which medication is helping the best, statistically? Under which conditions does it make sense to start the medical therapy? ...
  23. I think that most probably HPPD has, just as some other psychologic diseases, no exact common etiology. Causes, onset, symptoms, courses, medications that help are so distinct and individual. All etiology studies regarding HPPD are highly speculative and do basically admit that they don't know what they're talking about. For me it seems like the brain is a chaotic system and when it gets the right push at the right time, it somehow develops towards a different attractor. It's so complex, everything is connected. And our understanding of the brain is so rudimentary. I'm quite sure that there will never be the one solution, the one etiology, the one medication that cures most people. At least not in my lifetime. With cure I don't mean that people somehow find a way to live a good live with reduced symptoms, with cure I mean you feel >= 100% as comfortable as before the HPPD and you have 0% remaining symptoms. Just take a look at depression. There is so much research about it, but in the end therapies are still very limited. In heavy cases, people still just try one medication after another and if they have luck, they finally find one which helps. In mild cases, people just wait and for most it subsides somehow. Psychotherapy can help, but often isn't a cure. Even if we'd put 100 million dollars to HPPD research, I think that we would surely have a number of small successes, but still wouldn't have anything close to a major breakthrough in the fields of etiology and therapy options.
  24. I take valerian from time to time. It's a mild sedation, sometimes barely noticeable, but often also effective and helpful. Can reduce anxiety and strange feelings a little bit, also slightly helps with sleep. Especially in the beginning I had to be quite careful with dosing. The doses I needed seemed to fluctuate and overdosing felt uncomfortable. It doesn't affect visuals for me. Valerian is so mild it's no problem to give it a try. Whether it helps or worsens, effects are so mild that there is no risk trying it. I think most commonly it does not have any significant impact at all. I think I'm lucky that it often does a quite good job for me. Nowadays I most often take 450mg.
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