gill

I've had this for 7 years. Some days I don't notice it much I'm too busy; other times, like in certain lighting, it's right there, obvious.... Only thing I can say to people who have newly aquired HPPD is to not stop doing things in life waiting for hppd to clear up because you may end up waiting forever.

Hallucinogens; especially LSD, release glutamate. Excess glutamate kills neurons; and/or causes synaptic changes. Either way, seems irreversible. Matches my experience anyway....

I guess I got lucky because my regular doctor let me try it. I did present him with the following abstract: " Levetiracetam efficacy in Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorders: a prospective study. Casa, B, Bosio, A. Drug Monitoring Service, New York NY; USA; Mater Dei Clinic, Rome, Italy. Journal of the Neurological Sciences, Volume 238, Supplement 1, 2005, p. S504. Abstracts of the XVIIIth World Congress of Neurology "Background: The occurrence of flashbacks following use of drugs is a recognised condition known as Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorders (HPPD), therapy for wlffch is based on neuroleptic and attticonvulsant medication. Tiffs prospective study assessed the efficacy of the novel antiepileptic drug levetiracetam (LEV) in treating patients with HPPD over a 1-year period. Method: Patients with HPPD were treated with LEV 1500 mg/day (500 mg in the morning, 1000 mg in the evening) for 1 year. Daily flashback frequency and electroencephalogram (EEG) assessments were conducted at Day 0, 15, 30, 60, 90, 180 and 360. The incidence of adverse events was monitored throughout the study. Results: 27 patients (121 males, 6 females), with a mean age of 21.8 (range 18-26) years, were enrolled. At baseline, mean daily flashback frequency was 9.3 (range 1-45) and EEG assessment demonstrated temporal slow patterns in all patients. Over the 1-year treatment period, 20/27 (74.1% ) patients became flashback-free. After 15 days, 7/27 (25.9% ) patients were already without clinical manifestations, with 6 patients demonstrating > 75% reduction in flashback frequency and 1 demonstrating 50-75% reduction. EEG patterns normalised in 18/27 (66.7% ) patients after 30 days and in 23/27 (85.2% ) after 90 days. 3/27 (11.1% ) patients continued to have flashbacks, despite complete disappearance of EEG abnormalities. Side effects were few in incidence and mild in severity. No patient discontinued treatment. Conclusions: This study demonstrated LEV to be highly efficacious in the treatment of HPPD, with very good tolerability and ease of use."

It seems to affect my concentration the most. Try to read something and the damn letters are swaying.....

It might actually be the benzo withdrawal which can be pretty prolonged for some people; up to several months.

The out of body feeling sounds more like DP, which a lot of people have overcome.

I'm curious as to why you decided to cut back on the klonopin rollingregret. Long term effects?

Yeah, I should add I think some of it can heal; and has for me. So I'm not trying to discourage anyone; just relaying my experience.

I think the visuals themselves are 100% neurological since they don't really change much depending on my mental state. The psychological aspect I'd consider to be how one deals with the problem.

Not trying to discourage anyone from trying L-dopa. Like I said; all the negative effects I got from it went away after I stopped taking it. I have no permanent problems from it. In my experience the effects of amino acids don't last long; but just something to keep in mind if you try it....

Not saying people with hppd have psychosis. I'm saying high dopamine can produce psychotic symptoms.

I don't think mine is downregulation because if that were the case it wouldn't last for years. Also, if psychedelics are stimlulants; it would make more sense for the brain to up-regulate GABA in response to counteract the over-stimulation. I think it's oxidative damage.

L-dopa is just an amino acid the body makes into dopamine. Doubt it could cause any permanent psychosis. Mine went away after I stopped it. I don't really get the fascination with dopamine for hppd lately. Antipsychotic drugs mostly block dopamine receptors. Hence, too much dopamine is associated with psychosis.

I bought L-Dopa once from some nutrition supplement place. Felt mentally insane after I took it.

Hi, it can get better in my experience. 1. You'd likely know the difference. What I'd call 'true hppd' is more noticable than mild hppd. I had mild once. 'Mild' in the sense that I had to more or less consciously look for visuals; 'True' in the sense that the visuals are smack dab on the front of my perception, hard to not notice. 2.Definitely. It takes a lot a patience though. One month is likely not enough time for the body to heal. It can take many months to see any significant improvement in my experience. Course, that will depend on your situation. 3Try to stay busy. 4. Not in my experience. However, hppd became the least of my worries many times after excessive alcohol use (to be replaced with alcohol-related problems). So I don't recommend it. Hope that helps, later.

Xanax withdrawal can cause the 'breathing walls' effect by itself, no hppd, so that's something to consider.... I would personally take klonopin over xanax if you're willing to take a benzo because it has a much longer half-life so you won't notice any rapid withdrawal symptoms.

Hope you feel better eventually; I still have my crappy days too....

In my experience, keppra is a depressant, or maybe more specifically felt like a 'stabilizer'; which was expected, since it's an anti-epileptic, used to stop a seizure. Side effects outweighed any benefits for me though. Theoretically there's some neural disinhibition in some areas of the brain with hppd; so then taking something which helps increase neural inhibition may help. Problem of course though is that it doesn't know where in the brain the most help is needed; it just binds everywhere... not too efficient imo.

Probably affects my attention/focus the most. It can be distracting if I'm trying to focus on something visual. The more I obsess over trying to find errors in my perception though; the worse it can seem. So then; it's best to not look for errors. Even people who never have taken psychedelics could find errors and weird distortions if they focus long enough on trying to find those things..... And I'm not trying to say this is just all in everyone's head; there's definitely an autonomic physical part of it; but a lot can be done in reducing obsessions.

Alright; I've had HPPD for 8 years. I think my final conclusion is that there really is nothing to treat or medicate, whatever therapy people may think of; it's basically a physical after-effect of the toxic effects of the drugs/stress that were combining in the brain at the time it happened. You can treat your stress/anxiety, which is good, and you may even not worry that much about HPPD anymore, and could diminish temporary aggravations of symptoms. But that's pretty much all that can be done; at least from what I've found in my experience, and I've tried many different things to directly get rid of it. Fortunately, the brain can heal.... but, only if you allow it. Don't expect to get any better if you continue to engage in unhealthy activities such as drinking alcohol or something similar.

BTW, I was referring to the chronic DP/DR. I.e. , you can wake up calm and still have it. It is a long-term effect of stress, altering the pathways in the brain; not an immediate effect of something current, which can be the case for transient DP/DR.

I don't think DP is very mysterious. Yes, perception in general can be, but not necessarily DP. My doctor gave me a pretty good medical explanation for it. Basically, the pre-frontal cortex inhibits the autonomic areas of the brain that respond directly to stimuli. If these autonomic areas become over-active, the pre-frontal can no longer do an adequate job in inhibition. So you basically have a disconnect which happens. This is why people have a perception of their thinking-mind, being disconnected from their emotional and sensory mind; there literally becomes a disconnect. Of course, there's probably many different paths to get to this condition. It's not really that relevant though; the only practical solution is to reduce stress; which is highly involved in these autonomic areas; then you can have a re-connection.

I don't think there's anything abnormal about us. No one's immune to problems from drugs, but people of course get them in different ways; and they won't tell you everything that's wrong with them (if they even realize they have a problem, heh)

I've taken Picamilon and found no benefit for HPPD.

Keppa made me super depressed after awhile when I tried it. It could be the med.