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2 Months later, it gets better


noworries

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Hello all,

 

It has been two months since I last posted. My last post was the morning after my 19th birthday, and my plan was to stay off the site all summer. That didn't work out, and I've been checking in on the site somewhat regularly but I haven't been posting. I just want to let you know that it can get better, I recognize that for some this doesn't seem to be the case, but it does.

 

In all honesty my visuals don't seem to have improved one bit. But I've come to realize that with, granted a mild case of, HPPD I can live my life as I used to but with some obvious exceptions. I still don't smoke weed and don't plan on starting any time soon (though I have a feeling I'd be fine if I did), I haven't touched any stimulants, psychedelics or any other type of intoxicant besides alcohol. I've found that alcohol doesn't have any effect on me, this may be naive. I still don't drink excessively or frequently, maybe once or twice a week, but I think that the mental benefits of being able to live my life similarly to how I used to are worth the trade off of whatever difference it makes in my condition.

 

I still have the following symptoms:

 

  • After-images- Negative afterimages, but they're only noticeable if there's a lot of contrast. These used to bother me the most but I've learned to ignore them. Even if I get into a frenzy of checking my symptoms for changes they don't bother me at all.
  • Visual snow- This was never a problem for me to begin with, just a sign of the condition. I only notice it at night and it's only ever bothersome because I can't look at the stars like I used to.
  • Light sensitivity/trailing- I put both of these in the same category because the only trails I get are off headlights and such which leads me to believe that they're actually burn-in afterimages instead of classic light trails. These can be distressing at night but I think (fingers crossed) it's getting better.
  • Ghosting- This is the first of my symptoms that I think is genuinely going away. It's becoming less and less of a problem and I can tell a definite difference from when I first got HPPD.

That's about it. Not all is perfect though. While my anxiety about HPPD is more or less completely gone, the anxiety that it brought about has morphed into other things. I believe that I have developed obsessional OCD, I get my mind on a though thought and can't let it go. For awhile it was schizophrenia, and while that one is gone it's an ever progressing condition. I think I might see somebody about it if it doesn't resolve itself in the coming month or so. And it has actually gotten pretty bad. But we're talking about HPPD, not my other issues. My HPPD is becoming less and less of a problem and I'm posting this just in the hope that others may derive something positive from it.

 

 

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That's good news!

Are you taking any medications?

I have the same symptoms...negative Afterimages, trails, photophobia, mild snow.

I hope to one day be able to accept and live with the negative Afterimages. They only seem to be growing in I intensity and I am constantly checking for them 6 months in.

I don't do any illicit drugs. I drink very infrequently.

I wish you the best of luck with a full recovery.

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That's good news!

Are you taking any medications?

I have the same symptoms...negative Afterimages, trails, photophobia, mild snow.

I hope to one day be able to accept and live with the negative Afterimages. They only seem to be growing in I intensity and I am constantly checking for them 6 months in.

I don't do any illicit drugs. I drink very infrequently.

I wish you the best of luck with a full recovery.

I'm actually not on any medication whatsoever, I take valerian infrequently but that's more for the help it can give with sleeping. I think overall I'm just a little over six months deep into HPPD and with the exception of the first few weeks I've never felt the need for meds. In one of my old posts I talked about getting klonopin but that was more for external anxiety problems.

I hope things work out for you, I read your posts awhile back and I feel for you. I can't imagine what it must be like to develop this at a young age then have it come back to bite later on. It's really my only fear concerning HPPD actually because I'm only 19 and have a lot of time for things to change.

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Yeah. It sucks.

I don't know. It's weird since I had smoked a massive amount of pot while I first had hppd (which I guess was a mild case) like, for 8 years, and it never bothered me. I also drank a ton and even dabbled in coke.

I stopped everything besides drinking for 7-8 years. Smoked a few times in the midst of a stressful breakup and, BOOM, full blown, severe hppd. MUCH worse than I ever had it before.

Now, it needs to be said that I had a migraine the morning after smoking one of those times and I've had a headache ever since. Could this be something besides, or in addition to HPPD, like persistent migraine aura? It's possible. Maybe that is why something as 'mild' as pot had made such a strong impact.

I don't see why it would continue to worsen though. Anyways, I am happy for you. Hopefully we both get lucky and all the visuals go away. I just hope they stop worsening at this point.

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