Wait... but why?

[yosoydiego]

The thread name is the name of a fabulous blog, highly recommended. 

I have a lot of questions. I guess some of this questions have been asked already, but perhaps you can help me to summarize the answers.

 

Why the term is HPPD, (persisting = continue to exist; be prolonged.), when most of the time it appears WELL AFTER the last psychedelic intake?

 

What would be the most prevailing hypothesis on WHY some times it could take SO long for any symptoms to appear? Pharmacologically, all drugs are cleared from the system in a maximums of some days.

 

Why there is a whole separate condition (Visual Snow), equally "popular", with the only CLEAR difference being that the people in that group never took drugs?

 

Extending a bit from Visual Snow, there is a myriad of conditions with the same symptoms, that only seem to differ in the condition of "previous drug use". Conditions leading to DP/DR/Hallucinations with fairly high incidence: schizophrenia, sleep deprivation, pregnancy, narcolepsy, epilepsy, dehydration, stress, depression, dementia, parkinson's, etc etc.
The symptoms of hppd seem to be really common. Probably adding all those factors, the percentage of general population that hallucinates is greater that the percentage of psychedelics users that suffer from HPPD. Couldn't the prompt HPPD diagnosis (by means of the simple question: "Have you taken drugs?"), be masking other issues?

 

There seems to be many ways to arrive to the same "damage". Wouldn't it be logical to have a common root cause? Drugs don't seem to be it, although they are clearly a trigger or a worsening factor.

 

Why if different psychedelics have different type of visuals, the visuals experienced in HPPD are more or less of the same kind? Wouldn't it be logical that the visuals would resemble the visuals of the drug that caused it?

 

Why drugs that are not visual at all (caffeine, mdma, weed), are among the worst triggers of symptoms?

 

Why most anecdotes point that drug use worsen the symptoms but only temporarily, going back to baseline after a week or so? If it's a kind of direct damage to the brain, wouldn't it be expected to be more cumulative?

 

Why would someone want to get the "HPPD" diagnosis, when there is no treatment or solution. What's the difference with just being "undiagnosed", "unrecognized", still analyzing, etc?
I guess for most people the certainty of a diagnosis, a name to their condition, would bring some kind of peace of mind, which seems to be a huge step into remission.

 

[Jay1]

I'd say the vast, vast majority get some level of hppd directly after their last trip/drug use. I've heard of a few people getting it some time after, but it is rare and most likely they had some level of hppd and then a stressful event made it far more noticeable. 

MDMA and weed are very much drugs capable of giving visuals, even pure (tested) MDMA would give me some visuals (pre-hppd) and high level THC weed certainly did. 

It is odd that my visuals were distinctly purple after LSD, and then morphed into blues/green with MDMA use. 

Continued drug use has two potential issues... 1) a worsening of symptoms and 2), often overlooked... a greater risk of prolonging your hppd... People often overlook this and take the "Win" of returning to baseline. 

I think people generally want to get diagnosed to 1) Get access to meds that help, eg, Clonazepam and 2) Be ready for any meds that do show promise. 

[yosoydiego]

"MDMA and weed are very much drugs capable of giving visuals" ... NOT in MOST users. If they were giving you visuals "before" HPPD, most likely you had some kind of dysfunction already, or some propensity to "HPPD", or something like that. Perhaps you had mild "HPPD" your whole life, way before drugs... i.e. what a huge amount of other people know as Visual Snow.

"a greater risk of prolonging your hppd"... speculation, there is no way to know that. Makes sense, of course, but stating as a fact is wrong. 

 

In my opinion, a "HPPD" diagnosis could be the worst to happen to you. Ok, clonazepam, I get that.

But apart from that, usually the process is:
- Get diagnosed HPPD, no more studies done, no more iterations. You're to blame for having taken drugs. Incurable, untreatable, and the only change that you need to make is don't do drugs anymore. 

- now, if you DON'T get diagnosed HPPD (either you haven't taken drugs, or you deny it and they don't test it), you start being tested for a whoooole array of different conditions that might trigger the same symptoms, and perhaps, in some cases, finding a "proper cause", like you can find examples of people with stress, nutrition, fungus, bacteria, etc. Of course, chances are big that you're going to end up in the "Visual Snow" box, with more or less the same fate as an HPPD diagnosis.

HPPD seems like the end of the road, that equals resignation. In fact a repeated advice is "don't think about it, don't obsess it, don't google, etc"... and it makes sense, of course, reducing the stress associated with the condition, moving on. But... well, you get the point

Edited October 2, 2019 by yosoydiego

[Jay1]

Mate, i raved with about 30 people, we all got visuals off MDMA, everyone did.... and as for weed 

[Fillis]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/lsd-stuck-brain-20022017/amp/