Syntheso

Any update?

Interested, you got anyone else?

I have been taking Cyproheptadine the last three days @ 24mg/day (20-30mg required to block 5-HTA receptors). I stopped taking Nefiracetam before. The only other things I am taking with it are Omega 3/6, Vit C, B D3, Iron + Zinc. I am back to not feeling so good. I did have a very long patch of feeling really good when taking Nefiracetam. Last night I couldn't sleep, and when I did I had a series of nightmares. I have also been severely startled several times, jumping out of my skin at very little things today. If anything, my visuals have been worse since taking Cyproheptadine. The OP's theory predicted things would get worse before they got better. I have no idea how long that will be. I think I will continue at least till I finish what I have, which is actually only 4/5 more doses, which I doubt will be enough to see an improvement. I will try and get some more in.

I would love to be able to do that currently, but I simply do not have time, working professionally and doing a degree. I cannot afford a long route, hence why you may perceive that I have rushed into things. That's not quite the case though. I make sure I understand enough about an article to act on it. At the end of the day, whilst it might be useful to understand some nitty gritty (and I often do get nerdy about things), these reports are written by people who really understand what they are talking about, and they provide you with very legible conclusions. Reading over a decent amount of reports and doing some deduction provides me with the information I need, for now at least. My actions have thus far provided me great symptom relief. In the future, when/if time allows, I endeavour to study formally. On a different note. What pain are you experiencing, could you elaborate?

Of course, you are correct, but these things are constantly part of my world, the people around me. If I have had a few drinks - mistakes can be made. Thankfully my mind will not allow me to touch the worse things regardless of sobriety. Whatever works for each of us! I am not saying I am correct, but I just don't believe blocking the NMDAR is the best solution. Although, as I noted in my other post, if NMDA antagonism gives you sufficient symptom relief then of course do it. My thinking, put simply, is that the symptom relief from NMDA antagonism comes from blocking NMDA-mediated long term depression (LTD), which would only be a palliative treatment. In blocking LTD you are also blocking long term potentiation (LTP), thus, synaptic plasticity, the ability of forming new memories etc. As noted in the other post, I believe fear extinction (+ perhaps vision therapy afterwards) is required to cure the disorder, specifically, chemically-induced fear extinction. Studies have revealed that fear extinction is not the forgetting of traumatic memories, but the reconditioning of the brain to deal with them appropriately. I believe the only possibility for curing HPPD will come from maximising the brain's potential to expand i.e neurogenesis. Blocking the NMDAR would fundamentally hinder that possibility. It would also affect the ability to resolve issues upstream - in the hippocampus, the amygdala. Basically I think NMDA antagonism is just a mask. And life is too short, our brains' potential too minimised already, for me to consider blocking a receptor highly implicated in learning. I would rather potentiate the receptor in forming beneficial memories. I know you're probably thinking excitotoxicity, but most of my recent reading makes me inclined to believe NMDA hypofunction could be responsible for excitotoxicity; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11290881. This isn't the best study, I will find the one I was thinking of. Not saying I am correct, that's just how I see it.

Any updates Odisa? Nefiracetam still continues to do good work for me. I have been consistently running on very good form since taking it. Even, after a silly moment last week doing a large amount of Ketamine, my symptoms becoming far worse afterwards and me quite 'out of it' (also remember Ketamine is an NMDA antagonist) in the days after, I was restored back to my good self, I believe, by Nefiracetam. I have just tried Nefiracetam with NAC, knowing that there could well be a contraindication but also hoping they could work synergistically with their mechanism on the NMDA receptor. I took both about an hour ago, 150mg Nefi, 1g NAC. I have some strange head tension currently, suggesting that these perhaps don't go so well together, even though they work well on their own and both with action on the NMDAR. But I will confirm that later on. So yeah, for me, unless somehow things get worse, I'm pretty much sorted. No effect on visuals as far as I can tell, but I feel fine and can finally spend hours practicing. Add in a Modafinil (plus the rest of my stack, mentioned elsewhere) and I can do what I want when I want.

Reading this very flippantly... Kratom...remember doing that pre-HPPD. Amazing euphoric experience. Probably the best body experience I have had. Horrible 'comedown' skin irritation that lasted for quite a few hours, couldn't sleep for ages. Lasting impression; amazing but kind of freaky. I was thinking about trying it again some time. Slightly unhelpful, I know.

I wouldn't worry yourself, but to the same token, I would probably stop taking drugs to decrease your likelihood of both worsening your HPPD and potentially bringing on dormant schizophrenia. There is suggestion that HPPD is similar in pathology to schizophrenia. I figure, and many of my friends have told me that if I were to go schizophrenic, it would have happened already. This to me sounds like friends who want you to keep taking drugs with them. Just be weary about this... Just wondering from the masses of psychonauts here who have done enough psychedelics to bring on a case of HPPD. It's not about amount, it's more to do with predisposition. For some, HPPD is brought on by tripping on multiple occasions, for some it can happen after one incident. Best wishes to you.

Should we be trying inverse agonists instead/as well?

Excellent. I am glad if at very least it does not cause any adverse effects so the idea that NMDA agonism = negative can be dispelled.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8599393

Yeah I noticed Pregnenolone was available quite widely, just not in sulphate form. Would be worth a try, perhaps. Maybe you can take something else with it to get a sulphate form.. (my chemistry is terrible so wouldn't know) That would be a pretty interesting stack. I have thought about tackling from many angles, but thought there must be an easier way. I am sure if you focused on a couple of avenues you could get everything to align to alleviate symptoms sufficiently. As you know, different neurotransmitters modulate each other. Serotonin is a key modulator, with implications in modulating glutamate, GABA and dopamine. See; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2430669/#!po=3.57143 (this is super duper important, I was meaning to pick this apart and post but totally forgot - anyway, implications should be easily gathered!). High levels of serotonin = DA deficiency. Think this was discussed in the 5-HTA antagonists thread.. I am still waiting for my Cyproheptadine to test the theory. Just came across this which I should post in that thread; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8599393 My point is, focusing on one or two things which modulate other systems correctly could/should be enough.

Choline bitartrate would only be of use, for our purposes anyway, if you were taking something to up your acetylcholine. Think of it as the fuel of acetylcholine, which is the brain chemical that Odisa has proposed as upping to alleviate our symptoms. And to nick what Odisa wrote above ALCAR would be transformed to Acetyl-CoA, which is the other building block of ACh (acetylcholine). There are people that claim to get nootropic benefits from taking ALCAR alone. I can't say it has worked for me. Anyway, to be clear, my taking of choline bitartrate was with regards to my Nefiracetam intake, due to it's cholinergic mechanism. I was seeing if my head pressure could be resolved by increasing the amount of choline to be used as ACh fuel.

Perhaps that explains people's success with NMDA antagonists, as upregulating DA receptors is something sure to make you feel a lot better with HPPD. I still maintain that blocking/dampening the NMDA receptor is not the best approach. If that is the case, then dopamine upping supps would be required, but I haven't read such yet. It's a shame we can't get hold of these things.. GLYX-13, D-Cyloserine, PregS.. you can get them from the Bio med companies, but you have to be some sort of organisation.. must find someone who can help in this respect.

Oooh interesting, perhaps this is a better approach if there is a lack of NMDAR cells, that is, presumably if excitotoxicity kills NMDAR's as opposed to merely damaging them. Perhaps both upregulation and modulation are required to mitigate symptoms related to the NMDAR's. Would you (open to all) agree that the negative symptoms of schizophrenia relate to some of the symptoms we experience? NMDA-targeted treatments for schizophrenia, from the reports I have read, generally seem to mitigate these symptoms, which to me sounds promising in mitigating symptoms we experience which are the same/related.

GlyT-1 inhibition as another form of treatment; http://www.amriglobal.com/partnering/Treating_NMDA_Receptor_Hypofunction_83_105_sb.htm

This theory, which I have seen intimated in a few different papers, mainly on schizophrenia, is more or less currently what I think. So - excessive activation of NMDA receptors from [LSD] use damages the NMDA receptors, and renders the NR system hypofunctional, giving rise to some of our symptoms and/or their ability to be resolved. Thus, to reiterate, stimulating the receptors might be a method to help them recover and mitigate the excitotoxic process.

Cool, small doses of Choline Bitartrate with it seem to help, I haven't done it long enough to work out the optimal dose. I had an off day yesterday because it was my birthday and doing stuff. Nothing to add really. Yeah perhaps wait till you've recovered a bit. I swallow it chased with milk (it is fat soluble).

Why not Lamictal first? Sinemet will be more immediate if it works, but you're more likely to develop Parkinson's in the future.

My assessment was £100. £65/session for vision therapy before 4pm, £330 for 6, but they have just upped their prices, I got in before they switched that boat. My advice to you is to see a behavioural optometrist if you want to try and treat your HPPD in this way. These guys are not just concerned with the eye itself, but how you use the rest of the visual system, and whether you make use of all your visual apparatus appropriately. They will give you the normal eye test any optometrist will give you and can prescribe for the 20/20 vision stuff, but as an extension, they will also be able to correct vision issues in the brain. This is what vision therapy is; teaching you how to use your visual system correctly, creating new pathways in the brain. As my therapist speculates, HPPD'ers might not use their visual system correctly. The results of his examination of me, at least, regardless of my speaking to him about HPPD in email back and forth before I went to see him, concluded that I qualify for vision therapy, thus not making use of my visual system correctly. I went to see this particular practitioner because he was interested in the condition and we had an interesting dialogue beforehand. He also told me of his anecdotal experience treating his wife's visual migraines, which occur in the visual cortex, like our perceptual distortions. Of course, I will post the exercises if they prove to be efficicious. Let me finish the therapy and report back (5-7 weeks time), or, if I notice results before then I will most definitely be making a post. Right now, they are preliminary. It makes sense if people wait to see my and Mike's results before taking it on themselves because it is expensive.

I have started vision therapy. I will keep everyone updated. My vision therapist, Mr G.Shindler has speculated the following;

Cheers man. Yeah they're cool. Product came in one of those proper UV jars and was packaged very professionally (lovely gold enveloped compliments card.. if you're into that ) I don't remember shipping being that expensive for me. I eat quite a lot of eggs... funny you mentioned choline intake, I just posted in the other thread about that. Supping Choline Bitartrate last night helped when I felt weird after taking Nefi + Colu. Yeah I do have some ALCAR, I'm not quite sure in what respect this would help? I keep pretty well hydrated. I've been getting quite a bit of heartburn recently from the intake of my stack, trying to keep everything moving smoothly. I haven't heard of cerebrovasodilators - will look into it. Me too - I will keep it up

To be honest, I have yet to notice a huge difference between the two, although I am pretty sure Colu has the upper hand. It seems to me currently, that just upping acetylcholine is doing wonders, whether Nefi or Colu. I can't say whether or not Nefi's NMDA action is helping me or not, but it's not making me feel bad, which is as much as I can suggest thus far. I actually fibbed... I ended up trying Nefi and Colu last night (150mg/60mg) - I felt a foggy for a bit, but this was resolved by supping Choline Bitartrate (I realised I hadn't supped any choline since trying Nefi + Colu). I felt pretty decent, and continue to. Hah yeah I know, a lot of Glycine, for my body weight it gets up to around 45g.. definitely going to have to spread that out.. I'll do what they did in the study, up from 4g/day, probably won't need to get that high before I notice stuff. Yeah I figured that wouldn't be a silly idea, besides should probably cycle off the Nefi soon due to the GABA action, as we discussed! Although, I see potential for lower doses of the two, perhaps working synergistically? Unless I've missed something ! Edit; Glycine trial will have to go on hold for now. My o/d has finally maxed out from ordering brain toys well, it's my birthday at the weekend, hopefully I'll get some cash.

I'm going to try high-dosing Glycine following this study; http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=204616.. ridiculously huge doses!