StateOfRegret

I'd love to hear more about your subjective experience with afobazole and maybe a bit about the severity and nature of your anxiety :-)

Thanks, skunk44 :-) While perhaps not the most uplifting message wrt anxiety management, I definitely appreciate your experiences. Good to hear that mirtazapine didn't worsen visuals.

Well, DOB is a bromine substituted psychedelic amphetamine. The amphetamine cousin of (the non-alpha-methylated phenethylamine) 2C-B if you will. I'm not sure exactly what you're asking.

How did you find out that what you ingested was in fact DOB? Many things can cause a bitter taste of blotters etc.

Just to correct one thing; Sinemet is not pure L-dopa. It is L-dopa and carbidopa. Carbidopa is responsible for inhibiting the breakdown of L-dopa outside the brain, allowing it to enter the brain itself. Carbidopa is pretty essential to the effectiveness of Sinemet.

hppd33: I think he was joking, there's no such thing as loratemazepam (which is what shaolin wrote), however lormetazepam does exist. It is N-methyl-lorazepam I believe.

Hey TM.

It sounds like HPPD, but it might not be. Some of the things you describe are completely natural, including "blue dots some times for a slit second when I get up" (could be nothing but postural orthostatic hypotension, completely normal) and "I see colors and stuff right before I past out . but its not to clear." (again, pretty normal to see colours in the dark, I believe. Especially when tired - I know I've always had that).

Visual snow, trailing (palinopsia) and objects seeming to glow, move, breath or morph are all pretty classical symptoms of HPPD, on the other hand. So yes, you might have it, but what's more important:
1) are these symptoms negatively affecting your life?
2) are they constant, or do they only appear when you obsess about them or ruminate over them?

3) you said you have derealization. When did this begin, can you describe it in more detail?

Wishing you all the best,

SoR.

Yeah, taking a break from the board once in a while is definitely something I need. I find myself mostly looking at the board when I feel particularly bad, which fuels the feeling of disconnectedness (reminding me that I have this disorder that almost no-one knows about).
That said, this place is great in moderation

Jay: 964 likes for you!

What sorcery is this? Garlic that cures depression, tastes good in your tea AND doesn't cause bad breath?

Don't discredit the viability of herbal supplements so vehemently.

I don't know that I did. I would never claim that supplements, herbal or otherwise, are of no use I just said that I meant to discuss pharmaceuticals in this particular topic.

''in my opinion''.

Oh, right, forgot to mention; I had a CAT brain scan (X ray scan of my brain, essentially) and it didn't affect my HPPD at all.

And even though my sertraline trial reduced depression and anxiety for the time being, it also worsened my visual baseline. Good luck

Right, I remember your thread about that .

Personally, I'm considering giving mirtazapine a go. Interesting pharmacological profile (5HT_2A antagonism, antagonist at some alpha-adrenergic receptors, only very weak dopamine antagonism). One of the ''atypical'' antidepressants in that it doesn't work as a reuptake inhibitor! Psychiatrists often prescribe it together with bupropion, to counter some of the drowsiness, appetite stimulation and so on. I remember reading here that bupropion (Wellbutrin) was generally well recieved by the few HPPD sufferers who had tried it.

From wikipedia:

In contrast to mirtazapine, the SSRIs, SNRIs, MAOIs, and some TCAs increase the general activity of the 5-HT_2A, 5-HT_2C, and 5-HT₃ receptors [...]

5HT_2A activity is definitely something to be avoided, so this would be a big plus for mirtazapine in my book, at least on paper.

What do you mean by "digital X rays"? X rays are just electromagnetic radiation (like visible light and radio waves) which lies within in a certain frequency interval :-)

Thanks for sharing, Jay! :-)
I don't particularly enjoy alcohol these days, but using benzos ''sparingly'' has also been the only solution that gives me a feeling of being able to handle life and my anxiety. Gotta go, just wanted to thank you for sharing your ''masterplan''

Propranolol is a beta blocker, I addressed those in my original post.

Velvet bean extract, trademarked as DopaBean is proven to be just as efficacious, if not more than Sinemet in ameliorating HPPD symptomatology;

Outright claims of ''proof'' really need to be followed by some ''proof'' in cases like these. Saying that something is proven to be true is really quite different from saying that you suppose it might be true, or that it may turn out to be true for some people.

Thanks for your well meaning post.
With all due respect, "if you have real bad anxiety, drink a soda" is the sort of thing someone who doesn't know bad anxiety would say.
I'm looking for experiences with anxiety medication and HPPD. :-)

Edit: As for Ashwagandha; I don't feel like going into these herbal supplements in this thread, but suffice to say, ashwagandha is a GABA agonist. One might as well use a well-researched benzodiazepine if looking for GABA agonism (or positive allosteric modulation, but I digress...).

Hey all!
 
I'm still searching for a medication to treat my anxiety problems that won't simultaneously aggravate my HPPD. As many of you know, that is one tough nut to crack. My immediate thoughts:

• SSRIs: Seem somewhat effective for my anxiety. Aggravates visuals, had to discontinue. At least HPPD symptoms returned to ''baseline'' upon discontinuation.
• Benzodiazepines: Greatly attenuates my anxiety (particularly etizolam and clonazepam) and helps HPPD symptoms as well (particularly clonazepam). Very addictive, not a long term solution. I build tolerance to benzodiazepines pretty quickly.
• Buspirone: Seems too ineffective to be worth it (never actually tried this one)
• Pregabalin/gabapentin: Seem to have many of the same pitfalls as benzos, plus some extra common side effects(?)
• Beta blockers: Ineffective in managing my anxiety, since it doesn't primarily manifest with tachycardia, tremors, flushing etc.
• Atypical antipsychotics: Seems like a dangerous combo w/HPPD (particularly risperidone).
• Older/atypical antidepressants, such as TCAs: Never tried any of those. Very interested in hearing personal experiences or ideas about any non-SSRI antidepressants useful in treating anxiety, particularly about how they interact with HPPD.

Thanks in advance, folks   Hope you're feeling all right. Looking forward to hear any and all thought on possible anxiety medications w/HPPD.

"based on all my readings and the countless documentaries I've watched, I think it does more good than bad".  If LSD does more good than bad, why is it illegal?

Sorry, but that is one terrible argument! No-one should buy that. 

Benzodiazepines are pretty much a last resort for me. I'm looking for an effective anxiolytic as well.

Jesus! You had me worried for a moment there I thought April's fools were on the FIRST day of April, not the last

[...]

If you don't mind me asking, what are your plans now?

None, really (except for Keppra, of course, but we're talking anxiolytics/anti-depressants here).

I've no reason to think that other SSRIs will have fewer unpleasant effects. I often see tri/tetracyclic anti-depressants and bupropion mentioned somewhat favorably on these boards. As for tri/tetracyclics, most of them are SRIs as well, only with more of a scattergun pharmacological profile. Bupropion usually isn't useful for anxiety - more-so for depression, which I don't have. Buspirone is another option, but it seems pretty ineffective for the majority.

Time to report back!

I took escitalopram at a fairly low dose (5mg/day) for 2 weeks to the day before giving it up (not necessarily for good).

The good:

• Definite anxiolysis for the first week. 
• Lessening (near obliteration) of "unhelpful thoughts", specifically rumination about the effects that various fairly innocuous substances could have on me (caffeinated drinks, NSAID painkillers etc)

The bad:

• Feeling "spaced out" the entire time
• Worsening of visual symptoms (subsided after discontinuation!)
• My memory seemed shot, I would forget where I'd been/what I'd done.
• Excessive sweating and feeling hot.
• Awakening every night almost exactly 130 minutes after falling asleep feeling physically very strange and spaced out, with strong visual distortions.
• Feeling somewhat emotionally "flat", unmotivated. I'm usually very "enthusiastic" about lots of things. 

I awoke one night feeling extremely physically tense. It took me a few minutes to identify this as a panic attack of sorts, since no intense feeling of dread or racing thoughts accompanied the physical sensations. I was able to simply get out of bed, awake my mother (I was visiting the family) and say "I feel strange, I'd like to talk for a minute, but I don't think anything's seriously wrong". Normally, I'd have been almost unable to speak during a panic attack.

The reason I quit was because all the unpleasant side effects were only increasing in strength after a week, while the anxiolysis seemed to be waning.

I've been off it for exactly a week now. The last week has been better in some respects, worse in others. I've been sleeping much better, feeling generally happier than when I was on the drug (the emotional flattening subsided, I can feel joy/enthusiasm to a greater extent now), but the "unhelpful/irrational" thoughts are back, and so is the anxiety. Getting rid of the "spaced out" feeling was such a relief, though! 

Curiously, escitalopram did nothing good for the dizziness/vertigo that I struggle with. In fact, it somewhat worsened it. This is interesting, since I've been led to believe that the dizziness is a product of my anxiety.

Hey Jess, take a look at this document I just uploaded (with thanks to HBB and the users who contributed!).

File Name: Some Keppra success stories

File Submitter: StateOfRegret

File Submitted: 16 Apr 2014

File Category: Publications

A document of Keppra success stories, collected by users on HPPDonline.

Click here to download this file