K.B.Fante

Curious if anybody's tried SAM-e for depression and if so what this did for visual symptoms. I've been on it for about a week and it's helped with depression but I do think it's increased snow a bit. On the other hand I feel a bit more in tune with reality and colors seem more vibrant. I'm going to continue to up my dose as I'm not noticing anything too negative. I'll try and update this in a week or so so given it's difficult to search for "SAM-e" on the site.

Yeah, I'm gonna experiment with taking it in the evening or at night, that way I can still get the benefits and not have to deal with the brain fog and static during the day.

Yeah, I can confirm it -- fish oil does aggravate my symptoms. It gives me slight brain fog and as diddy mentions it also adds a sparkle to the visual field. Nothing too intense but enough to notice, which is enough for me to not necessarily feel like I have to take it. Incorporating fish and nuts into your diet is a much better way to get those Omega Fatty Acids anyhow.

Anybody know if fish oil exacerbates their HPPD? I think it does for me but I'm not really sure. I think it might make my snow a bit worse...

Would just like to post and say I tried this version by Country Life: http://www.iherb.com/Country-Life-Coenzyme-B-Complex-Caps-240-Veggie-Caps/12081 I took only one today but it definitely seemed to help a lot. I felt much more in touch with myself, not as much DP, and things seemed more clear. I'll continue taking this to see how I feel down the road but I would agree that everyone should try this. Good stuff Visual. Keep up the great work.

I'm in the exact same boat. For the first 11 months after taking acid I thought I just had HPPD an didn't think I had any DP-DR hardly at all. But after going to therapy, figuring out I've dissociated in the past and learning more about this subject field I've come to the realization that my real problem is that I have DP and not so much atypical HPPD symptoms. My advice: First, this is a great DP forum with tons of useful information, so read up: http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/ It sounds like you're living a pretty healthy lifestyle so you should keep doing that. Exercise as much as you can and continue to eat really healthy. If I were you I'd look into eating all organic raw whole foods with lots of nuts and other good stuff. Stay away from sugar. Perhaps embark on a cleanse. You just need to start transforming your body so that your mind can then adapt as well. Also, yoga is huge. It's been known to help cure PTSD and part of dissociation is a traumatic disconnection between mind and body, so you really need to work on making that connection stronger. Get to a psychiatrist and see a therapist if you haven't already. Chances are you've dissociated before, probably many times that you were unaware of, and so it's vitally important that you understand your past before you move forward. Also, some people with DP have been healed through meds so you need to have a doctor who you can work with to prescribe you meds if need be. In terms of supplements, try magnesium (but remember to balance it out with at least half the amount of calcium), a b-complex vitamin with thiamine cocarboxylase, vitamin D and perhaps some pine pollen. The first two have a very high success rate with people who have HPPD and DP while the second two I've heard good things about. Meditate with alpha wave binaural beats. You need to find a way to calm your anxiety and reset your parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system. From my experience, breathe work, meditation and yoga are the best ways to do so outside of pills. Also, alpha waves have been proven to assist in this regard. DP is the same as HPPD in many ways. There's no cure but most people who live healthy lifestyles and dedicate themselves to improvement do get better -- the only question is how fast. I'm unsure of your scenario but as long as you put in the work you should be OK. Good luck and let me know if you have anymore questions.

General fatigue, sugar, being outside, fast-moving objects, diphenhydramine, alcohol and other recreational drugs. I also haven't run into anything that has made my symptoms permanently worse (knock on wood) but I'm really clean and healthy. I think just living an unhealthy lifestyle and doing more drugs is the easiest way to exacerbate HPPD.

I tried to get into a relationship a few months back and it ended in disaster but I think it was mostly due to some underlying personal issues. Still, HPPD and the feeling of being numb prevented me from sleeping which caused anxiety which led to dissociation which led to her dumping me haha. If you're a relationship type and always need to be with someone then I don't think HPPD will affect you too much but I would encourage people to focus on themselves before entering a relationship with HPPD. It's just really hard to take care of someone else when you can't even take care of yourself half the time.

I started taking a Magnesium supplement about three days ago and have already noticed a pretty drastic decrease in anxiety, which is great. I feel much more at ease and not as prone to thinking negatively. But I was curious as to whether magnesium helps alleviate visual symptoms as well, and if so which ones? I haven't noticed any improvement here really, but I think this could also be because most of my worst symptoms are DP-DR related.

Nice man! Good to have a positive and encouraging post like this every once in a while. How long did your HPPD last for and what'd you do to get better?

Does Clonazepam generally have good results? Seems like it's a pretty popular one around here. Also, I find these stories fascinating. I've taken quite a few supplements and a few pharmaceutical drugs but nothing has even come close to relieving symptoms entirely as it seems to have done in so many other cases similar to the OP. This makes me want to bug my doctor to give me some prescriptions but at the same time I don't want to worsen symptoms either. Ah, the paradox of HPPD.

"This experience is sometimes framed in a religious or spiritual way - and seems to be associated with improvements in well-being after the drug's effects have subsided." Yes, I think we can all agree that if there's one thing that's improved since taking drugs, it's our well being. All joking aside, I think this is going to be an interesting time in science as drugs are administered in an attempt to heal mental illness. I think a big reason why a lot of us are here is because the drugs we received probably weren't manufactured professionally or we took an ill-advised amount or combination of other drugs. I much more trust drugs in the hands of actual scientists, however I do think there's quite a bit of disregard for people who've had altered senses of consciousness from the past that were traumatizing -- instances they may not be aware of given the nature of trauma and that could be reactivated with the help of LSD and other drugs. I guess I just think as a society we still love to buy into this idea that drugs are the key to "freeing your mind," which I happen to think is complete crap. There are lots of people, as we all well know, who simply cannot tolerate drugs and would be much better off having never touched them.

Not sure how old you are but assuming you're under 50 you have a long ways to go before you should consider yourself "old." In between that time there could very well be a cure or at least some sort of medication that alleviates symptoms enough to function as if you were essentially normal again. However, if you're just talking theory alone, it wouldn't surprise me if this led to some sort of cognitive dysfunction down the road. There's a lot of HPPD symptoms that are interrelated with trauma, PTSD and other forms of mental illness, so clearly we're in that arena. But again, who knows. You're much better off trying to focus on little goals to make it through and worry about other larger issues if they arise down the road.

Thanks for this Visual. I won't see my doctor for a while but next time I do I might ask him about this and see if it helps. What about other natural dopamine-increasing meds like Tyrosine or Theanine? Any idea if these have any positive effects? I know they're not as strong but perhaps if I experimented with these first and got an idea of whether they helped or not I could then proceed to the heavier stuff. Not sure if it works this way with meds though; I'm still a beginner with all this. Also, doesn't anybody with streamers have a frame rate problem? It's essentially the same thing right? I still have really bad streamers but it wasn't until recently that I realized it's just a matter of frame rate. It's the same concept as if you wave your hand in front of your face really fast over and over increasing speed to the point where it blurs together. There comes a certain point where you just can't see that fast, it's just that with HPPD it's much much slower than regular. I don't know, this is just the way it seems to me...

Seems to me frame rate is probably my biggest problem at this point. I'm at 11 months exactly and though it's improved quite a bit I still can't track cars or birds or other fast-moving objects across my field of vision without the entire background moving along with them. Would you advise Wellbutrin for this? If I can make my frame rate better permanently after only a week like you did then I don't see why I shouldn't look into it...

I've tried a benzo (Lorazepam), anticonvulsant (Lamotrigine) and an SSRI (Lexapro). As far as I could tell only the benzo made my frame rate better but not by too much. So your saying Wellbutrin permanently improved your frame rate after only having taken it for a week but at the same time caused eye pain that lasted for years as well? I'm pretty resistant to meds just because it seems like every time I've taken them the side effects have been terrible. But if you think there's something out there that can really help my frame rate I might consider it just because it's still really bad after a year.

I have a pretty bad frame rate problem too. In fact, I'd say that's my biggest problem at the moment and perhaps the stem of all other related symptoms. Any medications you'd suggest for this Visual? Specifically, any meds that are natural, perhaps vitamins or something of this sort?

I guess it's encouraging to me considering people are probably more motivated to study VS knowing it doesn't come directly from drug use, given the stigma surrounding hallucinogens. And still, I find it remarkable how similar these are. As far as I can tell these are the same condition only one is induced through drug usage. This means there are thousands of people out there suffering from this without having done hard drugs, which I never even knew was possible! If anything it gives me hope that sometime soon someone will figure this thing out.

Recently while browsing the Net for HPPD-related information and articles I stumbled upon a connection to Visual Snow Syndrome (often referred to simply as Visual Snow). I'm sure longterm HPPDers who frequent this board are already familiar with this but being as I've been here for about six months and only stumbled upon this a week ago I figure it's worth making a post just so that people are aware of the similarities... Here's the Wikipedia page for Visual Snow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow Interesting how other symptoms aside from snow include trails, floaters, afterimages, starbursting, tinnitus, etc. -- all of which are common symptoms of HPPD. A few other websites dedicated to Visual Snow: http://eyeonvision.org/visual-snow.html http://www.visualsnow.eu/ There's also a Visual Snow forum, just like the one we have here for HPPD: http://thosewithvisualsnow.yuku.com/forums/63/General-Discussion/General-Discussion#.VvNpKpMrL-Z And here's a few YouTube videos of people talking about their struggles with Visual Snow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVDR6w892t4 Finally, there have even been several posts on this forum about people who've developed HPPD symptoms without the aid of drugs: http://hppdonline.com/index.php?/topic/5130-hppd-like-symptoms-without-drug-use/?hl=%2Bvisual+%2Bsnow http://hppdonline.com/index.php?/topic/5019-non-drug-related-hppd/?hl=%2Bvisual+%2Bsnow I have a lot of curiosity surrounding this connection between Visual Snow Syndrome and HPPD given it appears they're basically the exact same thing, right? Is there anybody here who knows a bit more on this subject? It is quite interesting how there's not more of a push to unite these two disorders when you consider how many of the symptoms overlap. The only difference I can pinpoint is that HPPD symptoms derive from drug use whereas Visual Snow appears without the use of substance, but in terms of the actual symptoms they're basically the same thing. Anyway, if anybody has anymore information on this please feel free to post here. I'd certainly like to understand a bit more about the connection between these disorders if anybody has information. Thanks.

I think like a lot of people have said, anytime you have an increase in symptoms there's almost always an underlying cause, whether it be stress, lack of sleep, medication, diet, etc. I know there have been times where my symptoms have increased mildly and in looking closely at my lifestyle I've pinpointed why every time. I'm sure you've already examined your living pattern but I'd suggest going back to when your symptoms started to increase and see if there's anything at that specific time that you changed or did that could have led to this. There have been people who've reported symptoms worsening even from second-hand marijuana smoke so it's important to keep in mind just how sensitive your brain is with HPPD. It's also important to keep in mind how environmental changes, even very subtle ones you don't notice, can have an enormous impact on your psyche and even trigger underlying psychosis. I know from my own life that an increase in visual snow has always come with an increase in anxiety even before I had HPPD. Even recently I had a period of intense stress over the last few months and my visual snow is the one symptom that became exacerbated nearly twofold. In terms of moving forward the only advise I can give is to remain calm, exercise, sleep, eat healthy, don't stress, don't do any drugs and just try and wait this out. You could experiment with going off Keppra but you're best to just try and taper off rather than quitting it altogether. If you notice anything improving then keep decreasing your dosage and if not then perhaps try and increase again and see what that does. That said, messing around with meds you've been on for 10 years might not be the way to go. It's a tough call since I'm no doctor, but this is all I can think of off the top of my head. My HPPD was a living nightmare for about the first five months and the only way I made it through was meditation, exercise, eating healthy, doing brain exercises and eliminating all stress from my life. I figure if I can do it then anybody can. The important thing to keep in mind is that as long as you live a healthy lifestyle you give yourself a great chance to improve. Hope this helps. Stay strong, keep fighting and remember, we're all in this together. You are not alone my friend!

I saw an informercial last night for some sort of medication that supposedly helps Tinnitus and after a quick Google search it seems there's quite a few out there. Not sure what's best but if you need relief for only Tinnitus I think you could be in luck. You'll probably just have to sift through a few until you find something that works for you.

Seems to me every time I post saying something does or does not work for me or does or doesn't affect me I am proven wrong. Recently I commented on someone's post saying anxiety and lack of sleep hasn't hurt my symptoms but I again was proven wrong. Over the last three months I've been anxious and have had all kinds of trouble sleeping. In the last month and a half I hardly slept over five hours a night and never without waking. I finally hit a breaking point about a week ago and have slept well since and also eliminated anxiety and have noticed a pretty substantial improvement in my symptoms ever since. My snow is better, my streamers have significantly improved and my overall clarity of vision seems to be worlds different. Anyway, just wanted to post this as evidence that sleep and anxiety do matter -- at least for me and many others -- and that if you want to improve your HPPD it would be wise to eliminate any stress whatsoever from your life and to sleep a healthy 6-8 hours per night. Also, I've been exercising virtually every day for the last four months and that has undoubtedly helped as well.

I keep hearing this but I don't get it. Are there people who claim their HPPD really started to improve drastically once they cut anxiety out of their life? I didn't have hardly any anxiety for the first six months of HPPD and improved a lot but have had lots of anxiety the past three months or so and have still improved, so for me anxiety doesn't seem to have any real negative effects. But I guess I'm just curious how much people claim it improves their HPPD more than anything. Can't be too drastic right?

Yeah I can see how that'd do a number on you. I only took 100 MGs and even felt the effects after about 48 hours. I can imagine how 400 three nights in a row wouldn't be good.

Honestly I still feel a bit groggy and it may have worsened some of my symptoms a little but I think most of this is due to the fact I haven't slept well in over a month and finally got decent sleep last night. Did your symptoms worsen after the first time you took that 400 MGs? If so why'd you take it again?