Introduction, My symptoms. Please read

[nuroeone]

Hi my name is Corey, I am 22 years old and from Sydney, Aus. This is my first post so i'll try to be as thorough about my HPPD as i can be, From the age of 16 i was a recreational drug user i would go to raves, parties drink heavily and pop "Ecstasy" every weekend when i was 17 i had my first 2-cb based pill which i fell in love with and began abusing. ( taking every weekend and seeking the drug out specifically) After 2 months of 2-cb use, i had my first "Bad trip" It was an awfully long and bad experience, i came down as normal and decided to not touch that particular drug.

I continued to drink and pop ecstasy, always asking people if it had 2-cb in it or "trippy shit" as i would say, needless to say i got another 2-cb pill by accident under the impression it had no 2-cb in it, i had 2 upon leaving a day club and yep i freaked out again. I recovered once more and decided to swear off drugs completley, In my own stupidity i popped irregularlly and used Speed because i thought it was a bit cleaner and i knew what i was gettting, this continued till i was 21 when i was at a club and decided to have half a pill at a friends birthday apparently it was 2-ci or 2-cb based, i did not know that at the time. I took the pill which seemed normal got quite smacky, when i awoke from my munt i was tripping, i told my friend that i don't handle this well and they immediatley took me back to the hotel and watched over me as i went to sleep to avoid the freakout, i woke up scattered and stupidly i decided to drink the whole next day to ease the comedown. This was in June of last year.

All was good until about 4 days after the last freakout, i was at work and suddenly noticed i couldnt see out of my left eye and it was gradually getting worse, It was a migraine. My sight returned and i felt quite bad the rest of the day with the pounding headache. After that day is when i started to notice things i never seen before, I will try to list my symptoms that i had when it began.

Floaters- Small specs and silvery lines floating through my vision at all times and a lot of them

Flashers - Shooting stars that fly across my vision and dissapear

Auras - When i would be reading i could notice a slight aura around things that i was reading or around the edges of people

After images - Wherever i look, if i stared for too long and looked away i would be able to see the shape of that object for about 5-10 secs usually a purplely colour

A feeling of off balance - When it first began i would always feel dizzy, like i was still tripping it was odd and i couldnt pin point why i felt like this

Visual Snow - Static on everything, notice it more in the dark or when look at a pattern like carpet, i later found if i would wake up during the night and look at my phone with only my right eye open, i would see intensely thick static like a tv with terrible reception.

Anxiety - This was awful in the first few months, it has gotten slighty better over time. I would throw up every morning, have panic attacks at work ( intense feeling of fear)

Warping and breathing - If i stare and focus on anything for too long not only do i get the after images, Stuff starts to appear to breathe and dissapear from my peripheral vision, i have to blink and re focus my vision to get it back to "Normal"

Ghosting - When reading i can see and identical copy of the letter above sometimes it gets so bad like as if i were looking at 3d screen but without the glasses, usually at its worst in the morning or when i am squinting, This doesn't just appear on writing it has gotten worse in the last few months and there are now ghosted copies of everything, people cars etc. Blinking usually resets my vision to a more bearable level.

Reflections - I am really bugged out by my own reflection, i also constantly see double in the mirror when up close.

Star bursting - This is a symptom that has increased within the last few months, at night it is car headlights and streetlights, i will see a star type formation on the light with rays shooting off in different directions, in daylight it is the worst, sunlight reflecting off cars are like camera flashes. I notice this from very far distances.

Trails - If im looking at something and the background behind it is bright say white, if something moves across it i see a shape move across with it like fog.

Also one other strange thing is when i look at the bright blue sky i see all this tiny silver dots flying around in my vision, not sure what this would be called but i never used to see it until this hppd started.

Since it began i have sort medical advice by seeing a neurologist who sent me to have an MRI and Blood work done, both came back negative to anything physically serious, i was then reffered to a neuro opthamoligist which said my eyes are perfectly fine, that was this week i have ceased going to these doctors as it is clear they have no idea what they are dealing with or how to help other then to tell me hopefully time will heal it.

Basically what i hope to achieve with this post is get some advice such as How do most people cope with it a little better? Is there anything known that i could take to alleviate some of these visual symptoms? Do you find it gets worse or better over time? Any advice at all. I'd like to say thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this and give me their input. I apologise if my post is not clear or thorough enough as its my first time posting. thank you

[John Smith]

Mostly the same symptoms man. Consider yourself lucky that you don't have DPDR. Things should get better with time, many people do recover mostly normal perception. Even if the visuals dont go away, you will learn to cope with them and ignore them and eventually life will get better. The most important thing is to learn to ignore them, to stop checking for afterimages etc. Some drugs have helped, namely keppra. Benzos as well but they are highly addictive and have the potential to cause you more problems than even hppd does, so they arent recommended. Good luck man, let me know if theres anythin you need.

[mark]

Welcome aboard Corey

Good thing you did the physical tests and everything is OK!

Seems you have lots of symptoms, like Boogers here says, best thing is to ignore them as much as possible, as hard as it may be, just distract your thoughts from the visuals and gradually some if not all will get a lot better!

Get to know with the forum, there's a lot of useful information available.

Get to know how your own body's reaction to anything you do or consume, if something makes it worse, stop!

And take your time, take it easy as you ozzies always do

[windscar]

Yes, those are the symptoms of HPPD. Stop the drugs, stay healthy and you will be fine. Some say HPPD gets better with time. I'm not so sure about the visuals, but you will learn to cope with it and live a normal life.

I'm one of the few who would suggest against remedies. The benefits are mild and most of them can cause several problems on their own. Benzodiazepines, for instance, have the worst withdrawals you can imagine - read the posts on http://www.benzobuddies.org/ . Don't forget it was drugs that put you on this.

This is a rare condition so don't expect much from doctors. There is nothing wrong with you physically. The root of your problems are hidden behind the complexity of your neural networks so it won't show up on scans. The only exam that showed abnormalities were a special sort of qEEG performed by Dr. Henry Abraham. He is the doctor known for dealing with HPPD, but don't expect much from him too, as the man alone can't do much about such a misterious disease. He can officially diagnose you if you need it, though. You can read about it on his site: http://amrglobal.pow...m/category/hppd

That's it. Welcome to the boards. This is still a short but united community. Always count on us on the hard times.

[Ghormeh Sabzi]

I have a lot of those symptoms, and more.

The last visual symptom you talk about has been described as cell-like floaters by some. Others call it blue field entropic phenomenon. If it is indeed the latter, the dots are white blood cells. Everyone can see this if they try hard to look for it. However, for those with HPPD, there seems to be an increased awareness, and so we do not need to try hard to see them. I may have actually developed two different types of cell-like floaters at different stages, so I'm not really sure what's what. Either that, or I just got a spike in the awareness of this phenomenon at two different stages.

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Some other scans have shown some abnormalities for some people. But these are just anecdotal reports.

[nuroeone]

Thanks for the replies guys, its really good to finally be able to talk to people who are expiriencing the same thing. As far as i know i do not have Dp/Dr but at a few stages since this hppd started i felt as if my body was foriegn to me, but it has not be anything that has bothered me to much, ive grown used to keeping calm when such such anxious feelings arise.

I have stopped drugs since the last freak out which was june of last year purely because drugs now scare the shit out of me and you never know what you will be getting without a tester kit. i was an every day drinking and a binge drinker within the last month i can now say i am completely alcohol free it took me a while to come around to this and for my friends to adjust but it is a change for the better none the less.

I do not think i will try to rememdy it with more drugs because like you said it was drugs that got me here i was just curious as to whether or not it could be treated, i will look over the links you have provided. thank you for the information, cheers for the warm welcom everyone it is appreciated

[Ghormeh Sabzi]

Yes, no drugs is essential to any recovery. Or at least to prevent symptoms getting worse. That includes alcohol, IMO.

Everyone's HPPD is different and responds differently to medication. Klonopin seems to be the most effective medication, but I wouldn't recommend it as it's just replacing one problem with another, IMO. There are various anecdotal reports of help on this forum with other meds that have less side effects. Some prefer to deal with this without meds, some with.

Dr. Abraham will be reporting the findings of a medication trial involving dopamine boosting meds in May at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting. About a third of people responded positively to the (ongoing) trial, with around a 75% improvement of symptoms. You can have a phone consultation with him for a fee of $275, but in all honestly you can probably find out most of the stuff he's going to tell you on these forums. However, if you need a diagnosis, this can prove useful. He can write to your doctor and advise them.