David S. Kozin

I just returned from a trip, and I have been away for a few days. Here is a response to concerns about GABAPENTIN (NEURONTIN) to start: Gabapentin generally induces drowsiness and feeling drunk during the first three days. The first day the experiencing of the effects of Gabapentin are most severe (Call this X). By day two, most people can have X+ or X-. Day three the other symptoms will be down to X/2. And by day four it is X/3 and maintains that so long as the dose is maintained and no stop in taking Gapapentin. This only refers to the noticable side effects. Along with the other effects I listed, GABAPENTIN is abused for the euphoria that can accompany for the first few uses. Rapid speech, noticable high, lack of inhibition are common in about 1/2 of people I have met with prior drug experience. Regarding "Skin crawling largely gone." - Neurontin should help with symptoms of Restless Leg Syndrome, and is effective at improving nerve related side effects of other drugs. GABAPENTIN does not have the same anti-anxiety effect that a benzo will provide. It will reduce inhibitions and anxiety related to social functions (Might find you are answering the phone more often or taking on tasks that were once anxiety-producing (e.g. I knew people who would take it to "talk to girls"). Drowsiness should abate by a week and will return with dose increases. GABAPENTIN increases pleasure with smoking in a group of people in my experience. (Cigarattes. With Cannabis, GABAPENTIN often makes the experience worse and increases the depersonalization and derealization symptoms during smoking). The weight gain information is not substantiated and I do not see it in people who take gabapentin unless they are taking it with a drug like Zyprexa (olanzapine), which is known for causing weight gain. Gabapentin is well tolerated in most people, abuse by some for the initial euphoria, has the benefit of not being metabolized in your liver (so no liver toxicity increased and impossible to overdose on the drug). Gabapentin can affect your vision as you describe (tunnel vision/vertigo) and particularly during the first few days. Gabapentin definitely has promise with certain forms of anxiety, and affects people differently. It activated me (felt somewhat like very mild MDMA as far as my rate of speech, comfort in my setting, reducing barriers to behavior [this is not always a positive thing] and does make my mouth dry and more likely to make me appear "Drugged" than clonazepam at this point (10 years, 1mg TID and trying again to reduce w/new doc). I have found a single 100mg capsule of Gabapentin put me into a manic (like) state and people thought I took cocaine. I also find that most people taking 1600mg on initial dose (two 800 tablets) will experience extreme effects and dangerous to drive. But, this "high" goes away after a few days and levels off. Taking the medication in the divided doses rather than using the instructions "take 400mg three times daily" to mean "Oh, I'll take all three now and see what happens" will help reduce the effects in the beginning. Hoped that help regarding Gabapentin. - David

The web site is valued by the people who participate & support it. Many updates are on their way (content, new sections, etc).. - dk

GO TO DOCTOR. - DAVID

An amazing lab.... Dr. Monuki’s lab Is. http://today.uci.edu/iframe.php?p=/news/release_detail_iframe.asp?key=1720

Part of recovery some(many)times includes relapse, even if the damage is HPPD (Or lost love, child, DUI w/Vehicular Manslaughter). People use hallucinogens or related drugs for a reason, and for my own reasons I have experienced different substances after 1998 HPPD onset. Addiction or the disorders or dis-ease we experience in our daily lives may lead to decisions inconsistent with logic and emotions/impulsivity leading the way. Treespirit, thanks for coming back. Life is full of struggle, freedom from it is understanding the self and true honesty about our own spirit and emotions to ourself. To say, "David, you are lucky you are alive," and "HPPD is much better than the death that was approaching in my drug use," perhaps have been part of the most effective ways I deal and manage my symptoms. It is hell to see what I do, feel the strange pains I do and lose night vision and end up dependent physically on a medication for over 10 years, but when I weighed 104 lbs at 5'7" what was about to come could and would have been much worse. I am lucky to be alive, and I think this makes HPPD much more managable. The moment we stop asking, "Why did I do that," with the mindset of making a MISTAKE and say, "A lesson learned," we convert our mind's perception and judgements of our experience in the now and the past. The same roller coaster can make this person feal panic & fear and the other person rush & excitement. Same physical world, just a matter of how we take our perception of physical reality into cognitive experience. - David

Different layouts will be available. Already available for smartphones (also a specific app for IPBoard is available for iPhone), I am working on imports of different looks to be best for your vision/context. - David

I did convince the Support group to patch the board, which was a vulnerability that became quickly & widely known in hacking circles. I took the board down, even though we have no known enemies, but because your privacy is paramount to me. I also asked the Hosting company that created both the software and hosts the site to upgrade the site to newest version. I expected this to not take forever. The patch is complete after threatening them (in a consumerly way), but here is the following messages and times to the support team regarding the upgrade (notice time & day). I expect tickets regarding hosting upgrades are not completed except during business hours. It is not a major issue, and they did handle my second request for the security patch. I expect the change to happen on Monday early eastern standard time. I am sorry for the board downtime, it was intended first to protect until patching and then allow for an upgrade to occur with a database of information I have saved. You will notice when the upgrade occurs. It does have useful updates. - David David Kozin 25 October 2012 - 07:07 AM 1) I have a 2 year package purchased. The License Key Expired notification continues to appear as a warning even after going to Admin CP and saving/etc. Please fix. 2) Upgrade from 3.XX to 3.XX (I'm hiding this for security, but in original message) I have not clicked auto-upgrade or any links. Keep package the same. All passwords to admin directory are correct. Proceed at any time. Thank you, David David Kozin 25 October 2012 - 07:11 PM I realize this was not a critical issue so I stated to "Proceed at any time." However, it has been 12 hours and I have not been notified of a plan or if any issue on my end needs to be resolved before this happens. An estimate would help me decide what to do for the next 24-48 hours. Thank you, David Larry Walansky 26 October 2012 - 08:06 AM Hello, In order to proceed with the upgrade, could you please reply stating that you agree to the following disclaimer: "I understand that I am requesting Invision Power Services perform an upgrade to my software on my behalf. Upgrading between versions will result in the loss of custom changes such as skins, images, or other modifications. It is the customer's responsibility to perform a backup of the database, skins, and important files before the upgrade request is entered. By completing this upgrade request, you are indicating a backup has been made to restore your software and data in the event of upgrade issues." Once we have your acceptance and the requested information, we can proceed with the upgrade. -- Larry Walansky Invision Power Services, Inc. Rate this response: David Kozin 26 October 2012 - 09:19 AM I have read, understood and acted according to the disclaimer in this ticket. Please proceed. - David David Kozin 27 October 2012 - 01:32 AM PLEASE PROVIDE AN ESTIMATE FORTHWITH OR I CANCEL MY PRODUCT. I have 440 or so prepaid, which I will ask back, and just put this on virtual host with Rochen. Techs, I know it is not on you, but more the way you are staffed, but you know you would be upset with this timing. Just be human and let me know if it will take a week. I don't care, just want the time. I have no confidence in IPS and the reason I used it for this single forum. David S. Kozin @davidkozin

I will be sending out a mass e-mail, but wanted to advise the foundation has paid for multiple years of web hosting and service for HPPDonline.com (so no more downtime for years!)

These are afterimages. Typically, the processing of the image (like headlights, street lamps, stop lights) would not "trail" when you move your vision. These can both trail or appear in one position in your vision even after the image is gone. It will tell you a very interesting part about afterimages: If you have an afterimage of a perfect circle, and look up at the ceiling at a 45 degree angle... the afterimage will adapt the shape to become stretched out and lose the perfect shape. This is one strong argument against the afterimage being a problem occurring in the early processing of vision, but the cognitive processing. These are very common.

Dear Community, The initial results are public. Dr. Abraham presented the report at the Annual Meeting of the Biological Psychiatry Society earlier this year. I have included a copy of the Abstract in this post and providing a link to Dr. Abraham's additional discussion and graphs at the bottom. My emphasis added, but to restate Dr. Abraham's website: "This study is NOT the gold standard of proof that this approach works. . .These medications are not approved for use in HPPD. Any interest in them should be discussed with your physician." I know we have discussed COMT, genetic variations and watched the board's discussion move from the serotonin system to the dopaminergic system having originally focused on the GABAergic system. These are not systems locked in single compartments, single receptors and single cell types, but have complex interactions and as you are aware we are just touching the surface of Neural Science and Behavior/Perception. However, the basic discussion was on target: Dr. Abraham hypothesized that inhibition of COMT would reduce symptoms in HPPD. Consequently, COMT inhibitors were tolcapone and Sinemet Again, these are not approved for HPPD and should only be tried with a clinician. Here is the abstract from the conference: Catechol-O-Methyl Tranferase Inhibition Reduces Symptoms of Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder Henry D. Abraham, Psychiatry, Tufts University, Boston, MA Background: Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD) is a poorly understood disorder arising from the use of hallucinogens. It is characterized by continuous visual disturbances which can be lifelong. There is no known treatment. Studies of HPPD patients with qEEG mapping show that the disorder is represented by disinhibition in the cerebral cortex. Inhibition of catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) increases inhibition of sensory input in humans carrying the G/G polymorphism. Accordingly, I hypothesized that inhibition of COMT would reduce symptoms in HPPD. Methods: A single-dose, open label trial of a tolcapone, carbidopa, and L-dopa was conducted in 17 consecutive HPPD subjects. Visual symptoms in each subject were coded on a 0 to 7 Likert scale before, and two hours after, drug administration. A paired Student t-test was used to determine statistical significance. Results: The mean pre-drug visual symptom score for the entire sample was 4.7 +/- 2.6, compared to the post-drug score of 3.7 +/- 2.8 (P= .001). A post hoc median split of the percent response of each subject was 51% symptom reduction in the upper half of responders compared to 1% in the lower half, suggesting a bimodal sample. Conclusions: Inhibition of COMT is a novel approach in the treatment of HPPD. The bimodal treatment response is consistent with the action of a functional polymorphism in the COMT gene. Future directions include a double blind, placebo controlled trial of this treatment and a determination of COMT polymorphism in responders and non-responders. Keyword(s): HPPD, COMT, tolcapone, carbidopa, DOPA (Retrieved from Convention eBook downloaded from: http://www.sobp.org/...?pageid=345267; Kindle Locations 21096-21098. SOBP. Kindle Edition.) LINK TO Dr. Abraham's Web Page regarding this study: http://amrglobal.pow...atment-for-hppd Best wishes, - David Kozin

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