SomebodySomewhere

So I had been taking L-Tyrosine for a while for two reasons: 1) I heard it can be good for depression, and 2) People on r/HPPD had been using it saying it can help with HPPD (yeah I know...and here I am always saying to ignore them). I took a little more than usual early Tuesday morning after no sleep. I ended up getting very disoriented, felt very weak, felt manic, and started having small hallucinations (not the HPPD kind, I mean actual seeing shit that wasn't there). I became so disoriented I dialed 911 and was brought to the E.R. My vitals came back fine, and they gave me stuff to calm me down. After sleeping most of yesterday and last night, I feel a lot better today, but still a bit shaky and anxiety-ridden. I think my Dopamine levels were simply increased way too much by the supplement, causing basically all the symptoms you'd expect with high Dopamine levels.

*Snip*

*Edited out, long-ass pointless post*

Yes, it's definitely possible. I had used a variety of psychedelics, probably over 50 times in total, before developing HPPD on a bad trip. I don't have time to go into my experience now as I'm in a bit of a rush, plus I'm not sure I understand the question, you mean my experience with HPPD in general? Some people develop HPPD after a single trip, some people never develop it, and some people develop it after already tripping without issue many times. It's like playing Russian Roulette.

I don't know about the SPECT scans, I'll check it out, I want to address the antipsychotic part of your post. You said "or will force me to take anti psychotics", unless you're involuntarily commited or something, I can't see how anyone to force you to take them. For the record, yes, anti-psychotics will make your HPPD worse, not better, so unless you have a secondary condition that would warrant them, I'd fight back hard against taking them.

Thanks for the advice, both of you. I'm going to start meditating daily. I'm assuming both of you practice Mindfulness meditation? At one point I was going to learn Transcendental meditation, but upon hearing how much the instructor wanted to charge me I hung up on her.

I'm starting to worry that all of this might scare you off from getting HPPD support here, particularly what I said. Please understand that we're just trying to help, even if you keep drinking please know that we are here to help, we don't have to discuss alcohol anymore if you don't want. This is an HPPD support forum, alcohol is definitely a tempting fix for it. I'll admit that although I'm a recovering alcohol I fucked up and drank tonight. Shit happens. Especially in today's times. I have a drug and alcohol counselor I see, and she's told me that most of her clients have relapsed. I doubt anyone is immune to stress right now.

I've been meaning to experiment with meditation not just for HPPD symptoms, but for anxiety and depression as well. Does anyone here meditate and do you find it helpful? Part of me is wondering if it might actually temporarily aggravate HPPD symptoms when in a deep meditative state, who knows.

Maybe I misunderstood you, but I just want to clarify that Keppra is not a benzo. Your regimen is actually pretty brilliant I think. I don't get floaters, but out of curiosity, you've found those specific eye drops you mentioned help with them? I had wanted to take Passionflower, but it interacts with something, I forget what (I'm not talking benzo interaction, I think it might have an SSRI interaction). I can't find any decent search results for it, I forget where I read it. Has anyone else noticed that Google Search has become useless? *Edit* I had a similar reaction to Valerian recently, though I used to have no issues with it. Some stomach issues, as well as it causing muscle twitching/tremor, which I thought was odd, since it's sometimes used to treat that.

As a recovering alcoholic I feel the need to point something out you might not like to hear: 6 beers in one night is still heavy drinking. Most people don't drink more than two alcoholic drinks in one night. You have a drinking problem. You're used to high amounts of alcohol so likely don't even recognize your hangovers when you're having them. Hangovers = more HPPD symptoms. Only you can decide to get help, I know pushing you to seek help is a waste of time, so the only advice I can give is to do things that typically help with hangovers, and they might help: drink on a full stomach, pop some L-Carnitine, drink lots of fluids, supplement with B vitamins.

I'll address the rest of your post later, I just wanted to say that your idea of having Xanax in the morning and Valium in the evening is really not a good idea. Xanax has a short-half life, and generally won't be helpful. By taking Xanax all the time, and especially combining the two in the manner you're talking about, the likelihood of you ending up having some really bad withdrawals and side effects seems likely. Stick to the Diazepam, or Clonazepam preferably, but try and get a prescription rather than buying it on the street. I know you said Scotland and I have no idea what the laws are like there, but that idea you mentioned strikes me as dangerous.

Hi and welcome. Sorry it took you so long to be able to register. I sent the site owner a message on Twitter (he's only active there these days) asking him to come here and check in on some things, hopefully he'll see this and sort out whatever caused that as well. I'm so sorry that it is so severe for you. I remember when that whole Salvia legal-high craze was going on. It makes me really angry that they promoted that as some sort of weed-alternative when in reality it's one of the most intense hallucinogens out there and it typically gives nothing but bad trips, in fact, I can't think of a single positive experience from Salvia I've ever read. The receptor binding is interesting and makes me wonder if a KOR antagonist like Naltrexone would have any relieving effects (Important: I have no medical training and this is not medical advice, it's just my curiosity). What dosage of Diazepam do you take? It's worth noting that those of us who go the benzo route typically choose Clonazepam/Klonopin, though I'm returning here after a long absence, I'm not sure how others typically respond to Diazepam, it's worth doing a search. Although this forum isn't as active as it once was I'm sure even by reading through existing threads and using the search function, you can find a lot of helpful information.

I didn't get my HPPD from DXM, just the visual snow, I should have worded it better. I didn't know that about Nutmeg.

Nope, I don't. When I first developed HPPD I probably did at first just because I was wondering what the hell was going on, but not since.

Hey, I had missed this post somehow. As I had mentioned, my visual snow was definitely brought on by DXM (Dextromethorphan), which I abused off-and-on for a couple years starting at age 14 due to being a dumbass teenager that couldn't get my hands on any decent drugs. I'm pretty sure my visual snow developed after the first trip, and got a little worse with repeated usage. I do remember it bothering me a little at the time, but now that I'm in my 30's, and having developed full-blown HPPD at age 20, it's the symptom that bothers me the least. Even with Clonazepam it is still there, but again, so mild that I rarely even notice it. I also wonder if being near-sighted and spending lots of time in my life in front of my computer may have played a role in it. As an aside, an odd thing I've noticed is that if I wear my glasses, the visual snow is slightly more noticeable, which is why part of me wonders if maybe it wasn't the DXM after-all but more of a physical issue related to my eye health. I remember you mentioning that you felt that your visual snow was brought on by the drug Actifed, right? I looked up the ingredients: pseudoephedrine and triprolidine (anti-histamine), assuming of course this was pre-2006 (got this off of Wikipedia). Pseudoephedrine certainly has some dangers associated with it, but if I were you I'd look more into the anti-histamine side of it. Although I no longer trust r/HPPD at all, according to them they believe anti-histamines can cause symptoms. Might be worth doing some independent research (Pubmed is your friend, also, try Erowid.org "trip reports").

Thanks, I didn't put too much thought into this before because my monitor does have a blue-light reduction feature that I keep on and only turn off if doing stuff like Photoshop, but I did just turn on Windows 10 "Night Light", which also reduces blue light by giving it an orange tint. I actually haven't been having anymore HPPD symptoms for ~6 days, but that's because I went off my SSRI finally... Still, good to keep in-mind for others and if I end up having returning symptoms.

Don't do it: http://hppdonline.com/topic/7733-update/ Don't take suggestions from Reddit's HPPD subreddit, they don't know what they're talking about. Stick to this forum.

Definitely good advice. As for tolerance, I did think of that and had my mother try to take higher and higher dosages, but it still ceased to help. There was a special on 60 Minutes, CBS, where they talked about this very phenomena but I don't have a link. That website looks great.

I don't doubt that's true for you, as everybody varies, but I was here a long time before this current account, and in general a sizeable amount of people that have HPPD that end up using marijuana again end up with permanently worse HPPD symptoms. I feel it's not wise advise to give people to take weed, they may be unlucky and it can end up destroying their life even further. I do understand your point of view, I just personally feel like this is the wrong advice to be giving to him, especially right now.

One thing I want to say about CBD is that if you can order a variant online that claims to be free of THC that's definitely the better route to go. CBD is very interesting, but also a bit tragic in terms of it's long-term effectiveness: there are a lot of accounts of it helping for a long time then suddenly ceasing to work at all. The same is true for my mother. I convinced her to take CBD for Chron's disease, and it helped for a long time, and then out of the blue it ceased to work at all. It's a stange thing that seems to happen to lots of people that take CBD for any reason, so just be aware of the fact that it may poop-out after a while. Another thing I've noticed, is that if CBD has any traces of THC at all it tends to make me depressed and my thinking strange, so be aware of that as well. Quite frankly I don't recommend CBD at all, everything else listed though is great advice.

Melatonin is definitely a great suggestion, but make sure you stick to the smallest dose possible and take periodic breaks from taking it at all. If you take it every day without any breaks eventually your brain will be unable to produce melatonin properly on it's own which is obviously very bad which is why you need to take breaks. Some other suggestions I would make are Valerian Root and Chamomile tea. Both will relax you and calm you into sleep, more-so with Valerian though, especially since it works on GABA receptors. My nurse practitioner told me this so take this with a grain of salt, since he doesn't always know what he's talking about, but since I take Clonazepam twice a day he's told me to avoid taking it close to bed-time as apparently it can disrupt sleep. Don't know if that's accurate/true though. I also tend to trust Pharmacists far more than anyone else when it comes to medications, so if you have questions they always seem to be the best bet. Pharmacology is a Doctorate degree, and they tend to really know their shit.

I definitely have to echo that SSRI's are not a wise-idea right now. When I first got HPPD it made things worse. Years later I was able to use them, and for a long time, up until recently, I'm currently tapering off of Lexapro at a rapid-pace due to a return of HPPD symptoms. For HPPD symptoms, and I feel like a jerk for recommending something so insanely addictive, but honestly the only drug I've tried that has dramatically reduced my HPPD is Clonazepam. Before going on it though, you need to realize two things: 1) Benzos are some of the most addictive substances on the planet. If you were on a moderate dose of Clonazepam or any other benzo for a sustained period of time and went off cold-turkey you'd risk death. It really is something you need to take into consideration first, especially since tapering off of any Benzo, if that ends up happening, is incredibly difficult 2) Most psychiatrists are totally ignorant not just about HPPD, but about Clonazepam being an effective treatment. Come armed with loads of printed out info if you go that route, and be pro-active, be your own advocate: make it clear you're not just some drug-seeker, you have a legit need for it. Alternatively, it looks like others have had success on this forum with Keppra and Lamotigrine. I can't vouch for either, I've never taken the later, and the former I took for only a short while and I ended up having a prolonged manic episode, but your experiences may vary. In terms of the depression end of things, consider more natural routes: Omega 3 fatty acids, lots of exercise, meditation, yoga, Probiotics, there are a number of natural ways to help feel better (and no I don't mean stuff like St. John's Wart, that carries the same risk as SSRI's).

First of all: don't do anything rash. This forum isn't as active as it once was but we all care and want to help, and if need be try a more active place to get some help. Considering how badly you're feeling, and how hopeless, if you're willing to accept being addicted to benzos, I have to admit that getting an every-day prescription to Clonazepam/Klonopin would be a good idea. Xanax's half-life is too short to be helpful long term, whereas Clonazepam has a great track record. It will reduce your symptoms and help you feel more normal again. I totally get where you're at, I was at that same level myself, having the same thoughts. Klonopin is why I'm still here and still feel it's definitely worth sticking around. The fact that anti-psychotics didn't help and made things worse makes sense: that's the case for all of us, whoever diagnosed you with drug-induced psychosis is an idiot: it's clearly HPPD, not psychosis, and you definitely don't sound at all delusional. I strongly suggest going on Pubmed, and printing out all the studies you can find on HPPD, specifically those mentioning Clonazepam as effective treatment, printing them out, and bringing them to a Psychiatrist with a working brain (though I know they're in short supply). I sincerely wish you the best of luck, I totally get where you're at. I'm not as active here as I'd like to be but feel free to PM me anytime and I'll do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

That gave me a good laugh (both posts). I was wondering where that bleach post went...after reading that my head practically exploded at the stupidity being given as advice. For the record bleach-guy: you have likely shortened your life due to the retarded treatment you chose. God only knows what's going to end up happening to you. Most people know that bleach is a tad toxic...

Good point. Dedicated forums do indeed seem to be on their way out. It's a shame but I do get it.