StateOfRegret

On 5/5/2021 at 4:14 PM, Hall89 said:

Damn! That's a long time! But atleast it's hope. I've been like 90% convinced the last couple of weeks that it's permanent and that those that say otherwise just have learned to cope with it, because pretty much everyone i've asked that's claimed that they've healed say that the key is to stop thinking about it. But that's not really a physical healing that's taken place, only ignoring the symptoms.

On 5/5/2021 at 6:15 PM, cosmiccharlie said:

To this day, there is not concrete evidence that human consciousness arrises as a result of physical phenomena.  Our understanding of the mind is still very limited and although we can measure electromagnetic signals that indicate the presence and existence of consciousness its origins are still a mystery.  I believe that if we detach ourselves a little from our physical self then our consciousness can actually impact our physical body.  

I don't think we really need any "unphysical" thinking to explain this.

Your experience, memory and behaviour is determined by neuronal pathways in your brains. Think of it as a network of connections which may either weaken or strengthen.

SomebodySomewhere's demonic visual can serve as an example (I hope you don't mind, SomebodySomewhere): He explained that he had a visual where people under florescent light looked demonic or dead-looking, and that it originated in a death-focused trip. This kind of experience creates new neuronal pathways, where the light pattern of someone standing under a fluorescent light is associated with death and perhaps fear. The more you re-experience this, the more the pathway is strengthened. The more likely it is that this pathway will be activated next time you see someone in similar lighting.

On the other hand, new experiences can alter this pattern. Seeing your wife standing under fluorescent light, and realizing that she actually looks quite wonderful. Over time, the pathway strength may also simply fade, due to not being activated because your mind was occupied by other things ("to stop thinking about it").

This sort of reinforcement learning mechanism was actually exactly the basis for how researchers often think about artificial intelligence nowadays.

On 08/03/2017 at 0:56 PM, gschppd said:

Do people recover, like all symptoms gone? Or is it different from person to person

That differs a lot. But it seems that for most it is a very gradual process. That's certainly been the case for me. My HPPD was/is fairly typical in most respects: arising from heavy use of psychedelics, visual symptoms dominated by patterning, moving splotches of colour, morphing etc. Some derealization, dizziness, anxiety. Most of it has gotten a lot better over the course of four years, but it hasn't completely subsided.

I should mention, though, that Keppra did help with the visual side of things, when it was prescribed to me.

Done. Good idea!

For a long time, I constantly felt like I'd recently taken some psychedelic. With time, this feeling has diminished. It's still there, but to a lesser extent, and I've mostly learned not to be scared by it (this in itself helps a lot, but it all takes time, of course).

That being said, benzodiazepines (particularly clonazepam) definitely gave me some short-term relief, but it's not something I dare use on a daily basis.
For me, Keppra (Levetiracetam) did provide some relief from the visual symptoms of HPPD, which helped with the general feeling of derealization. Unfortunately, my doctor took me off the drug due to elevated liver enzymes, but this seems like a fairly uncommon reaction.

Sorry that I don't have any "quick fix" answer to your question :-/ .

Yikes, now I feel bad for not seeing this sooner :-/ I've been away for a long while, but I've not forgotten you folks. Nor has HPPD forgotten me, unfortunately ;-)

Yes, definitely. But I smoke a lot, in general.

What you're saying is essentially "Just pull yourself together, man. It's not that bad, you're just fussy about it". Well, for some people it just is that bad. I'm not saying that I'm particularly badly off, personally, but I'm not going to pretend that others are not. That'd be pretty condescending.

It is true that your attitude can worsen or better your situation somewhat, but this is not the same as saying that the problem is mainly a matter of attitude. Recognizing the fact that attitude plays a role in your mental health does not mean we are to downplay the severity of actual neurologic or psychiatric conditions.

This pisses me off a bit. If you think HPPD is completely negligible, then why are you here?

Maybe your HPPD is not so bad. Good for you, then. But don't downplay the struggles of others, that's downright unacceptable.

HPPD has driven numerous people to the brink of suicide. Several members here have struggled with it for decades.

My reading speed has gone down quite a lot since I got HPPD. I find it hard to focus on text (which is a bit of a problem, given that I have to read a lot). Letters move around and patterns form in the space between the letters. I wouldn't call it debilitating, but it's definitely an annoyance.

It is difficult to say since there seems to be a lot of individual variability as to what affects the disorder and what doesn't. Personally, alcohol doesn't affect my HPPD except maybe very short term. SSRIs, on the other hand, were clearly detrimental for me, at least in the initial phases (beginning treatment, stepping up the dose). I can't say how they would have affected me in the longer run as I never stayed on them that long.

Hi Bugger,

The anxiety is still quite bad, though I have perhaps grown more used to it, which might sound a bit strange. The visuals are still around in the form of coloured splotches and some geometric patterning and "movement" of textured surfaces etc. I think that the intensity may have gone down somewhat, though not drastically. In short, it is essentially business as usual. Last summer I tried Keppra with mostly positive results but had to stop due to liver issues. I believe that I have described this somewhere on the site :-) I'll try to find that thread and elaborate later - I'm on the phone right now.

Ps. What are you studying?

Hi Megan, welcome to the forums

Perhaps you could describe your symptoms. Describe what makes you consider whether you have HPPD.

If you want to read about other people's experiences with HPPD, I recommend that you read some of the threads in the Introductions subforum - there are lots to pick from My personal story is Here.

Hey 415! Thanks for your comments. After trying mirtazapine for a bit longer (it was a couple of months ago, so I can't recall exactly how long, but I think it was 5 or 6 days) I can definitely relate to the "pro-depressant" comment. I'm not usually prone to depression but I felt absolutely anhedonic and grim and was a general pest to everyone in my vicinity while taking it! Definitely not pleasant. I'd have to agree that it is somewhat anxiolytic, though.

I actually have some tianeptine somewhere in a drawer. Never really gave it a fair try, but it's on my to-do list. Afobazole even more so.

Painting; Appreciating your writings! Would love to hear more details on your afobazole experiences (I realize that I'm pretty much just repeating my post from Sep. 17th )

With all this said, trust your common sense and get scientific knowledge on medicine.

There are clear reasons to not trusting Scientology at all, but there are also reasons to not fully trust all medical corporations marketing.

If anything is to be trusted, it's science and research, not Scientology and/or corporations profit motives! ;-)

Very true, 415 ! It's also worth noting who funded the medical research in question (Yes, I'm ''in science'' but I don't have delusions about the infallibility of the so-called scientific method )

Chris: Yep, certainly takes discipline. Oh, and good to see you posting again .

I tried a single dose (15mg) of mirtazapine yesterday night. I'm not going to make any statements wrt effectiveness yet, just wanted to say that so far, it hasn't affected my HPPD as far as I can tell. It did make me extremely tired, though. I slept well but awoke feeling exhausted and felt  'zombiefied' for hours. Upon returning from university I fell asleep again and awoke late in the evening. One of the possible side-effects is strange dreams. I had some pretty strange ones while napping, but then again, that's not too unusual for me.

I think I'll postpone giving it a real try for another week, until I have some more time on my hands.

415_STYLEE: Sometimes your posts come across like medication adverts "Always avoid SSRIs, take Wellbutrin, it will remove your depression and give you confidence!"

Anyway, saying that bupropion is good for anxiety is probably a bit of a stretch. Many anxiety sufferers feel worse using it, due to stimulation. Anxiety sufferers are different, but most don't do well with stimulating drugs.

In short, Luukzorika21:
If you're looking for advice on the general effectiveness of different anxiety medications, don't ask here. Look at crazymeds, crazyboards, socialanxietysupport or similar sites. If you're looking for info on the interaction between anxiety medication and HPPD, ask here

Also, have a look at my anxiety medication thread.

Wish you all the best!

I went through the same thing recently. My symptoms spiked as well. I just took aspirin + codeine to knock down the fever and aches that came with the flu, that helped a bunch. Taking a benzo would be perfectly acceptable in my opinion, though.

Hope you feel all better soon, a-a

Since the liver values were so messed up, and you got "Keppra Rage" chances are you didn't.. It's vital in the beginning to do so..

Maybe it was some kind of interaction with another medicine? I have never had elevated liver values except one period when I drank alcohol like a sponge..

[...]

Consider if there was something of the above mentioned which caused the elevated liver values and go for Keppra again maybe?

I did take high-dose B-complex but not faithfully. Anyway the "rage" part really wasn't all that bad. I didn't fall out with friends, just had a few heated interactions with people I didn't know very well I really felt no side-effects which would deter me from continuing treatment. It was only the liver thing.

As for interactions with drugs or alcohol; no. I didn't drink any alcohol at all or use any other medication except for very sparse benzodiazepine usage (less than once every fortnight during that time).

I would love to continue Keppra treatment, but the liver involvement was a bit worrisome. It has to be said, though, that ALAT values twice the normal range isn't that bad. It's no worse than what one would expect if on a high daily dose of some NSAIDs, for instance But it was high enough that my GP recommended cessation and recommended against increasing the dosage (which is what I would have done, had the liver issues not surfaced).

Hm, something prone to causing jitters/anxiety is probably a no go for me, but I appreciate the suggestion

Hey Visual, thanks for your reply :-) .

Was surprised that it affected liver function so much ... so much for the reports you can't OD or otherwise hurt yourself with it.  Elevated liver enzymes is the sole reason for not taking Tolcapone.

wrt "Keppra rage"; I wouldn't so much call it rage, in my case, but there's no doubt that it was a manifestation of the same side effect that people refer to as keppra rage (sorry if that came out a bit convoluted ). I didn't feel angry, just very "direct", stating my opinion without much thought to how it might affect other people emotionally.

I'm still considering what to do now. Trying lamotrigine seems like an option since keppra did have some positive effects for me.

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but here it is, my experience with Keppra.

I took Keppra for a little over two months, taking 500mg/day for the first five days and 1000mg/day for the remaining two months.

Before beginning Keppra treatment I had all the usual bloodwork done and all looked fine. During the period where I took 1000mg/day I had blood tests done twice and both showed elevated liver figures - I don't remember the details, but my ALAT/ALT was twice the upper boundary of the normal range (indicating liver problems).

Since it hadn't decreased at all by the second blood test after beginning Keppra (which was about a month after the first one) my doctor recommended that I didn't increase the dosage and advised me to perhaps taper off if the medication wasn't having substantial positive effects.

Now, I didn't feel anything remarkable during the treatment, but it did seem to have some effect.

• It seemed to reduce after-images/palinopsia, which was great.
• It seemed to do very little for general "patterning", but it may have helped this a little bit as well.
• It made me pretty confronting and unrelenting. I seemed to fall out with a few people while taking it, which is unusual for me.
• It may have helped general anxiety somewhat, but not much in any case.

So, all in all, not remarkable nor a complete let-down. Oh, and if you take Keppra, remember to get blood tests for liver function!

Yeah, probably anxiety. Tingling sensations/paresthesia is pretty common with anxiety, I have that a lot. That and dizziness/vertigo, feelings of unreality (derealization), tachycardia and feeling of electric buzzing/shocks are some of the strange characteristics of my particular strain of anxiety

Hope you feel more at ease soon

20mg oxazepam is not very much, thankfully. I'm surprised you could even feel 5mg.

I took 1.5-2mg clonazepam for two weeks exactly and didn't experience any withdrawals. I took oxazepam for 3 weeks at one point and didn't experience any withdrawals then, either.

My tolerance to benzodiazepines rise really fast, though! Faster than I've heard anyone else describe. I've never abused them (ie taken them to get high or used in excess or with alcohol).