Sam

It's going to get better one way or another. Even if your visuals don't get better, you will most likely adapt to it to the point where they don't bother you anymore. Your mental attitude seems to be a bigger problem than your HPPD. Just stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's only been 5 months and statistically there is a 50% chance it'll go away. Btw, have you tried any medications to help with the visuals?

I was wondering if anyone knew anything about diphenhydramine and HPPD. I've read on a few websites that it can cause or worsen HPPD. There has even been anecdotal cases of people getting HPPD by taking high doses of diphenhydramine to get high. I used to take diphenhydramine to as a sleep aid from time to time but haven't been taking it ever since I got mild to moderate HPPD 3.5 months ago. My HPPD has improved by about 50% in the last month and is improving so I don't want to do anything to ruin that. I was wondering if it safe again to take diphenhydramine to help me sleep. My doctor is reluctant to prescribe me any sleeping pills so this is the only option I have.

I have to disagree with WindScar. I've had mild HPPD for 3-4 months now and I've noticed some improvements. For the first couple months, it was getting worse and I was really worried about how bad it would get, but I would say that my HPPD is ~50% gone and it is still improving. I don't even notice it anymore unless I am tired, stressed, or focusing on it. There is a chance that it will stick with you for life but it could also get better. All you can do is be healthy, stress-free, and get the right amount of sleep. There's nothing you can do beyond that so just don't think about it. Remember, it is easy to think that HPPD is permanent by seeing everyone on this forum, but you have to keep in mind that once someone gets cured, they aren't likely to be active on this website so you don't notice them anymore. However if someone is stuck with it for years or decades, then they keep making posts which makes them more representative than the average guy with HPPD.

Jay, are you on any meds for your HPPD?

Damn. Those dmt images are totally different from what I had in mind. I guess it might also depend on how you got your HPPD. I got mine from mushrooms so most of the patterns I see on surfaces resemble those from my trips. They are just repetitive patterns, but nothing colorful like dmt images.

My HPPD consists of afterimages, VS, and seeing patterns on surfaces. When my visual snow is intense, my CEV consists of a bunch of lines forming a fine checkerboard pattern. I guess the best way to describe it is black graph paper where the lines are always dark green. But the lines always move and sometimes form shapes that resemble a human face. The other type of CEV I get is just random flashes of light with movement cloudlike green haze in the background.

I got my HPPD a couple months ago from mushrooms. I remember that during one of my last trips, I was looking at the carpet and thinking how nice the world would look like if I could always see patterns on surfaces. Be careful what you wish for. Now whenever I stare into something, I see the patterns that remind me of my HPPD.

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I think I have an idea about why HPPD seems to get worse on its own. Suppose you get HPPD and your brain is down regulating your receptors and is only producing 75% as many receptors as it did before. Right after your brain starts doing this, you still have the receptors that are left over from the time you didn't have HPPD. But as they wear down, only 75% of them are replaced due to down regulation. So once you first develop HPPD, you still have most of your receptors but they slowly decrease in number and stabilize at the rate at which they are being replaced (75% in this example). I may be way off. One problem with this explanation is when HPPD is "triggered" in a matter of hours.

If you had a collapsed lung or a heart attack, you'd be suffering so much that you wouldn't have any doubt that something went wrong. If you have any symptoms other than dp/dr or visuals, then it's not connected with HPPD so I wouldn't worry about it. Getting proper sleep really helps with anxiety. I am still up at 3 AM typing this and can't go to sleep. I am hesitant to take "sleep aid" because it has been linked to HPPD.

It's probably just stress. I get sore eyes when I have been studying too long or sleeping too little. It kind of feels like there too much pressure in my eyeball.

Does it affect your visuals? For some reason, I have no anxiety when I am on adderall of caffeine. So that's not a problem but my visual snow intensifies when I am on stimulants.

Wow. I am still amazed that it can remain dormant for months and get triggered out of nowhere months or years later. My HPPD started out a week after my last trip when I was using adderall to study. It was very mild and barely noticeable. I've been sober too but its been getting worse for the past couple of months. I still consider my HPPD to be mild compared to everyone else but I have to live in fear of getting worse.

HPPD doesn't give you auditory hallucinations or delusions. It's just a disturbance of sensory gating in vision. It has nothing to do with schizophrenia. Also, the visual hallucinations are composed of patterns on surfaces, visual snow, and after images. However schizophrenics usually have more vivid and abstract hallucinations such as seeing and hearing people.

Did it just come on by its own or did something like weed trigger it? I am asking this because I have mild hppd and it's been two months. I am king of worried that it's going to worse.

You can still get HPPD from low/moderate use. It has nothing to do with the metabolization of the drug. What happens is that when you are on psychedelics, there is an excess of neurotrasmitters in your brain. As a result, your brain tries to counteract this by reducing the number of receptors that the neurotransmitters can bind to. It actually has a genetic basis. The genes that code for GABA2 receptors are not expressed as much as they should be. As a result, you have less receptors which keep your inhibitory neurons from preventing your other neurons from firing when they shouldn't be doing anything. This leads to visual snow, after images, etc.

Don't risk it. I took mushrooms a few times and got HPPD two months ago. Mine is very mild since I caught it early so I got lucky. Beside, as much as you think psychedlics are fun, a bad trip will be the most horrific thing you will ever experience. I am a very relaxed and calm guy and I had loads of fun everytime I tripped. I thaught bad trips just happened to people who have a bad mental attitude. So one day, I was having the time of my life looking at the patterns on my celing while laying on my bed, then all of the sudden I thought I was dead and just woke up from a hypnotic state that I had been it all my life. It was 6 hours of hell. I was going to call my parents and tell them that I died because I kind of forgott I took mushrooms. Good thing I was too disoriented to operate my phone. I couldn't sleep well for a month after that trip. The main point is that psychedlics are unpredictable and you can get hppd from it. There are people here who have had HPPD for decades. Just to see what its like to have it, go to the gallary page and see how things look like with sever HPPD.

It seems to me that if you get HPPD during a short period of time, you are more likely to improve faster than if it took you longer to develope it. The latest research indicates that HPPD is caused by the downregulation of GABA receptors in visual cortex of the brain. This interupts with sensory gating because it prevents inhibitury neurons from doing their job. Basically, when you are on psychedelics, there is an excess of neurotransmitters released in your brain. As a result, your brain learns to deal with this by reducing the amount of receptors you have so the neurostrasmitters from the psychedilics have lesser affect on your brain. I guess if you get HPPD after only a few uses of hallucinogens, that means that your brain regulates receptors faster than people who take a long time to develope HPPD. It makes sense that if your brain adapted quickly and downregulated your receptor, it would also adapt quickly by upregulating them and therefore reducing or eliminating HPPD symptoms. By the way I am no expert and I am just posting this to see what others know about this topic.

I am double majoring in Math and Computer Engineering so I am pretty busy with schoolwork. I tried adderall a few times in the past year and it really helps if you want to study nonstop for the whole day. The last time I tried it was a month ago, after I had already developed HPPD. It really helped me study but on the downside, my visual snow and afterimages increased pretty dramatically for the time when I was on it. I got HPPD 2 months ago. I only have a mild case of HPPD and I barely notice anything when I am not sleepy or tired. In fact, it seems like its even going down a little. I am thinking that since Adderall is a stimulant, it is kind of like the opposite of Benzos which will temporarily make your visuals worse. I am wondering if Adderall can have any permenant effects on HPPD. It seems that it might have even triggered my HPPD beacuse I first noticed symptoms a couple months ago when I was on adderall and studying all day. It might have been because I was tired but either way, I am staying away from caffine and adderall to be on the safe side. Has anyone had any experience with this?

How did they get the money? It doesn't seem like HPPD affects more than a few thousand people. Is there a fundraisers or something going on?

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This is the most helpful website on HPPD I've found and there are only about 1100 members. You would think that most computer literates would be here since there is so little information available elsewhere. So my guess is that there are less than 25,000 people with HPPD. Am I way off?

I wouldn't. It's likely that it wouldn't do any damage but it's not worth the risk. Just stay away from everything. I am not even drinking or eating anything with caffeine.

When I was taking shrooms (before I got HPPD) I could remember all the dreams that I didn't know about. It really freaked me out. It's like I figured out I was living this other life when I sleep that I had no idea existed. Eventhough I don't take any drugs, I still can remember my dreams when I couldn't before. Is it just me or is everyone experiencing this? I wish it would stop. It's really disturbing. Before, I believed that everytime I go to bed, I would immediatly wake up as if I didn't feel time passing by. But now I know that I'll be stuck dreaming for a few hours and I just might not remember it.

I was on a binge on shrooms and stopped a little over a month ago after a bad trip. I have never done any drug (except the shroom binge) or smoked, and I don't drink. I stopped taking mushrooms and vowed to stay away from everything once I noticed very mild symptoms. But over the past week, it's been getting worse on its own. Now, I see patterns on the walls, carpet, and my bedsheets. I see static all the time although it isn't that bad (but worse than before). And I have slight after images and closed eyed visuals. I was wondering if hppd got worse on its own for you guys. I can handle the hppd now but I am worried because I don't know how much worse it's going to get. Do you think it's time visiting a doctor and getting on benzos? I was thinking maybe that will prevent it from getting worse.