Jay1

i've not heard of anything like that... if it happened, my 1st assumption would be the hppd had healed naturally, and benzos just covered up that healing process, not helped it. But i'm no expert... hppd feeds on stress/anxiety... so maybe if you caught hppd early and went on klono... cutting that anxiety/hppd cycle for a month might help. my personal view is to avoid all meds for at least a year though... 1) give your body time to heal, without additional chemicals in the mix and 2) learn to cope with hppd life without meds

yep, as the others said, this is a HUGE warning sign... listen to your body/mind. most of us are on here now because we got these signs and carried on regardless. Is it worth risking years/decades of normal life for a few nights on the acid? It's not easy, especially is your friends are still loving it... but yuo have to be strong and say no... you can still party, beers etc... maybe even some weed and stuff (thought I would have a few months off). Good luck, I hope... in the best possible sense, not to see you here again.. with the exception of maybe a message to say it has gone away and you'll steer clear of physcedelics.

sound slike you have very bad dr/dp (derealisation and depersonalisation). This was my worst symptoms for a number of years, but I slowly came out of it (3-4 years) naturally. I'm not sure what really triggered the progress, but at the time, I was fed up with it all and just decided not to back down from anything in life, where normally I would just hide away from anything tough. Maybe this new found mindset helped? If you want to go down the medication route, sinemet and keppra seem to help alot of people with strong dp/dr, and are relatively safe and addiction free. Try and stay away from daily benzo use, unless you get truly desperate. Good luck, Jay

From what I remember, the qEGG tests done by hppd sufferers showed increased activity in the area of the brain thought to be connected with visual activity. This backs up your idea of the brain no longer editing things out. I think of hppd as lowering a filter on our visual activity.... all the stuff we see is natural, but is filtered out by a normal brain. Drug use has led to that filter being lowered to the point where we can see all that natural stuff. Why natural? floaters are natural, visual snow is natural (white blood cells), after images are natural (many tests online for the normal person), seeing faces (very human thing), seeing patterns (again, very human trait). dp/dr, anxiety etc are harder to understand. I'm not sure if they are a side product of the constant visuals.. or a seperarte issue. The fact that benzos seem to help all these aspects leads me to think they are connected.

What dosage of soma do you need to get some relief?

there seems to be interest in the drug community about hppd, ... and if the uk is anything to go by, they love a documentary on weird, rare diseases. You could be onto something... I think a documentary would be the way to go, with various angles on hppd. I do some film making and could get invloved... but the idea would need to be pitched to a network... even the cheapest 30 minute documenary will run into the $100ks

Doesn't seem to give me long term issues.... but I don't imagine it is do anything to help either, and may be prolonging any chance of recovery. For me though, it's a price worth paying. Keeping social and having a laugh with my friends, once or twice a week, is worth it.... I do social things without booze too, football and surfing.... but having a few beers with mates is what it's all about.

only the left arm, mind you. on a (kind of) side note, regarding scale... i once got a right beating from some football holigans with baseball bats.. as the police couldn't catch them, they gave me a list of different injuries I could claim money for, from the government. I had a fractured skull and broken arm, I managed to get £5k... but some of the stuff on there was insane... losing 1 arm = £20k. 1 testicle = £15k (yet on £20k for the set!), both eyes = £50k......... 2 arms and 2 legs was the jackpot = £250,000 ......... If you ever need cash and mutilation is your kind of thing... get yourself on a flight to the UK

I guess it depends what you want to lump in the HPPD term. As an overall condition, i'd happily trade a foot, a leg, even an arm in to get rid of this. I'd trade in my unknown years on this planet for 5 hppd free years.... and i'm one of the optimistic, hard fighting ones!

don't seem to get opiates in pill form in Europe other than codeine, which is shite. Probably for the best, i'm not the best when it comes to addictive goodies

I imagine it can be genetic, yes. It seems most mental problems are. dp/dr is a a feeling of not being in your own body and not fully grasping reality. It is a horrible feeling, perhaps the worst symptoms. Be firm with your friends... some wont want hear there could be down sides to the lifestyle they enjoy... but the true friends will understand.

I've never had a major issue with alcohol... It can make hppd hell when hungover, but a klonopin solves that. I know a few people here have accredited alcolhol to being the trigger from mild to major hppd though, so it is a risk. Of the 3 things you talk about though, booze seems the best bet. Coke has never had any long term affects, but as Lucid says... shit drug anyway. Opiates, i'm no expert on... but I have alot of freinds and family who have been through hell with heroin,not nice.

Hi, it sounds to me like you have the warning signs, or pre-hppd. Probably from the MDMA(I'm assuming that is "Molly", not down with you kids anymore ). I accredit most of my HPPD to MDMA, this is not just an lsd problem. Have a good, long break from all drugs... do plenty of excerise and eat well. See how you are in a few months, hopefully this will disapear and you will have saved yourself years of hurt. Make sure you learn the lesson though, it is very easy to start everything back up, once you feel well again... Take time to read some of the intros on here and embrace the horror stories, it is worth it. This condition gets much, much worse... I'm sat here 16 years after my last pill and the room is still breathing... not worth it. If you are in a circle of friends that are all loving taking drugs, you will have to be very strong minded to say no when the party starts.... I would explain the situation to your friends and tell them you want to take a break... It will soon seperate your good friends from your drug friends. Good luck, Jay

I had this for 10 years before I even knew the name, let alone the treaments... So, you never know. it just seems that these more unusual treatments only seem to be helping those that also use klonopin. Anyway, i'm glad something is working for you. If anyone else has success with this, please make a post.

Had you tried Klonopin before (on it's own)?

Usualy about 1 hour and starts diminishing after about 12 hours

I start noticing a 50% or so reduction in all visual symptoms at 1.5mg and find 2mg takes them away by about 70%. Higher doses don't seem to bring any further improvement. This includes warping, visual snow, after images and altered depth perception. 1mg or below doesn't affect my visuals, but helps with anxiety.

haha, i live in portugal,,, they eat that stuff for breakfast, followed by a nice pig's ear

I'll give it a go

Just saw this on the news.... http://news.sky.com/...rticle/16135715 It is nothing short of a miracle for her.... But the interesting thing was that they mentioned the treatment is also being trialed for depression, epilepsy and anxiety. All areas that could be closely related to HPPD. What really got me thinking was the fact that this treatment dampens down over activity in the targeted area of the brain. I'm sure they could use our off the scale qEEG results to locate the problem area and dampen it down (assuming it doesn't affect any other serious brain activity). It sounds like they can locate exact parts of the brain. Of course, this will take many years to become common place, and will be hard to trial for anything other than the big illnesses.... But well worth keeping an eye on (and well worth watching the video anyway, amazing). Hopefully David sees this and can fill in the gaps.

bandwidth is no issue... this is my business server and I deal in HD video, 1000s of downloads per day. I can't remember the exact limit, but it is very high. PM me if you can help out

I stopped taking it, it did nothing for me.

I wonder if they are migrane related.... I have had similar experiences before getting a migrane.... but also get excatly the same thing sometimes if I am excerising heavily or sit up really fast

First doctor I had (in England) just said I had depression and put my on Prozac, which turned into a nightmare. I told her that valium I had taken for a flight cleared up my vision and anxiety, but she was unable to look past the depression diagnosis. I can't really blame her, as she was just a GP. In hindsight, i'm glad that she didn't allow me onto Valium at 19 years old... I didn't have the will power I have now and would have soon been addicted. My second doctor, where I live now, in Portugal, is a neurologist and has dealt with flashback cases since the late 70s... I took him in a bunch of papers about HPPD and he is now suitably convinced that this is what I have (and, interestingly, thinks this is also what his other patients had, that were referred to as flashbacks), He has since been very helpful with advice and medication.

As some of you know... David is forever struggling to pay for server costs for this site. I have a dedicated server and can provide free hosting, but we need someone technical to help transfer the board and mysql data (he even has the old board data!) http://hppdonline.com/index.php?/topic/521-hppd-message-board-cost-in-time-and-money/page__fromsearch__1 Thanks, Jay