K.B.Fante

I agree wholeheartedly with this. I've been down this road before -- absolutely desperate for any sort of relief because I felt my life depended on it. I messed around with tons of medications and hardly anything even had a positive effect on my HPPD. In fact, I'd say nothing really helped my symptoms. What I eventually figured out is that there's an inherent sensitivity with HPPD and that the more substances you throw at your brain the worse you're going to feel. Jesus, half the people or more on this forum can't even handle sugar or coffee, much less multiple pharmaceuticals at the same time. As fruitgun said, ween off whatever you're on very slowly unless there's something you're taking that you feel you can't live without. Again, go slowly as you have all the time in the world. Then after that be sure to give yourself time so that you can assess how you feel. My guess is you're going to feel a hell of a lot better. Work out ever day, eat almost strictly whole foods, eliminate excess sugar, get off the cigarettes, go to yoga, see a therapist, go to group mental health meetings and check back in with us three months down the line. Again, I'm guessing you're gonna feel much better and have an entirely different outlook on life.

Yep, same here. My HPPD is always a bit worse after just waking up.

I'm a pretty firm believer in the power of nature, biology and healing, although it's important to remember not everyone is in the same boat here. Different people have different symptoms and different levels of HPPD. For those who've had it for a long time and just want to live without pain, I see no reason why medication isn't an entirely acceptable option. But I do think at first it's highly advisable to refrain from all psychoactive substances (including excess sugar, coffee, nightshades, etc.) in order to give yourself a chance at healing naturally.

What are you eating? A week is not much time in the grand scope of altering your brain chemistry through food. You need to practice good eating habits for months and even years on end before you can really start to feel a change. I'm at about a year now and my body feels as good as it ever has, especially when combined with morning exercise.

So I still don't understand... Who's prescribing you all these meds? Or are you just getting them on the black market? Because I don't understand how a doctor would be willingly feeding you all this stuff knowing the harmful interactions. Taking any combination of meds is a very tight balancing act with potentially disastrous consequences, much less psyche meds. I have absolutely zero doubt that this is the crux of your mental instability at the moment and that if you can get on the right meds and remain stable you'll be OK. Trust me man, I've been through this but to a lesser extent with over the counter herbs. Our brains are really, really sensitive and even the slightest imbalance can cause major emotional instability. I remember last year just mixing excess rhodiola and holy basil together made me nearly want to jump off a bridge. I can't imagine what it's like with big pharma drugs.

This says it all. What kind of meds are you on? And how many? If you're on some kind of ill-advised big pharma psyche med cocktail you're almost sure to be suicidal. Hell, I was suicidal for months on end without any of that crap. Are you seeing a doctor who's prescribing this to you? Have you let him or her know about what's going on? Here's the thing Mythos: I've had HPPD for over two years now and have had suicidal ideation for about half that period and have been suicidal for maybe four months when things were at their worst. I literally cannot explain in words how psychologically and emotionally tormented I was when I was at my lowest point. I thought my suicide out and thought I was being rational because I could not take the pain anymore and had tried everything. But the thing was, I hand't. There's always another day, another thing to try, some glimmer of hope somewhere. And this is the great thing about it: Life always evolves. Nothing stays the same. Everything changes all the time. This is a law of the known universe. So even thought it's as bad as you could ever imagine now you have to remember that it won't always be this way. It will get better. It just might take some time. In the meantime, I hope you can get on top of your med situation. It sounds like it's pretty bad.

Yes, you'll likely recover as long as you don't do anymore drugs and stay healthy. Your brain is still growing so fast at that age. Just give yourself time. I've had this for over two years now, and many people don't recovery for upwards of five years. You just have to give yourself time.

There was a big thread posted a while back that was similar to this, though I'm not sure how to find it now. I think B-complex vitamins and magnesium have the best track record with HPPD but that's likely because people are just depleted. I also take digestive enzymes, selenium, zinc, sunflower lecithin and fish oil. Time of day matters too. You shouldn't take a lot of minerals at the same time as they can compete with one another. My morning drink consists of tulsi tea, hibiscus tea, passionflower tincture, bacopa tincture, a half teaspoon of turmeric, sea salt, apple cider vinegar and sea salt. It tastes like crap but it's an excellent morning cleanse and gives me a boost mood wise. As for diet, I'd say going gluten free, limiting sugar to only organic produce and taking it easy or eliminating nightshades is the best bet. You can be liberal with what you eat as long as you're eating natural foods that come from the earth.

Yeah, there's a handful of posts on this site where people seem to find significant relief with opioids but as is mentioned above this comes with all sorts of additional health concerns. Perhaps they could offer some form of temporary relief for people who are really struggling.

I only had CEVs for the first few months, if that. It seems they coincided with the worst of my symptoms. As best I can describe CEVs are basically like a very light visual LSD trip when you close your eyes. I see vibrant colors, shapes, patterns, etc. Excess glutamate, caffeine and nightshades can sorta ramp up these symptoms again, but nothing too severe and it always goes back to baseline when I get that stuff out of my system.

Sorta felt like I got sucked to the back of my head, felt very childlike, scared, just wanted to stop tripping, be somewhere safe, etc. Never felt that way before in my entire life and have no idea what it was, but as best I can describe it was basically the beginning of what could have been a bad trip.

That sounds awesome. I did some similar work abroad in Spain a few years back. I think it's a great idea for those with HPPD as it will keep you busy and allow you to try and live a bit. The one thing I'll say about turning your diet around is that it takes time to really feel the effects. A lifetime eating a certain way has your gut biome thriving on specific foods and to completely alter it will take many months. I've been eating healthy for a year now and it's been the most effective treatment for HPPD and my mental health in general, although it's taken a long time for it to really kick in.

I know how it is man. We all have vices. Mine is sugar and sweets. I still struggle with that stuff daily. Again, it's all about making little achievements and goals here or there, baby steps, taking it one day at a time, etc. Like MadDoc said, focus on the progress you have made, be proud of yourself, but at the same time always have goals you're trying to work toward too.

If there's one thing I've learned about HPPD it's that progress is a lot like watching the moon go across the sky at night. You can't see it move no matter how hard you try, but if you glance up every now and then you'll noticed it's not in the same spot as before. Any progress is good with HPPD. It's really about entirely altering your lifestyle, becoming the healthiest person you can imagine and doing a whole bunch of little things each and every day to benefit your health and transform your mind, body and especially your brain. If you keep working at it, then over the course of hundreds and hundreds of days you'll notice a change. It's great you've made the progress you have, but man, smoking is just awful for you. If you could really cut back and then totally eliminate cigarettes and all forms of drugs I really think you'd notice a big difference in your mental and physical health. I know I did when I quit about three years ago. Also, eating healthy is the single most important aspect of altering your brain chemistry. I think I read somewhere recently that 90 percent of neurotransmitters begin their life cycle in the gut. You can't change your brain if you're not giving your body what it needs to work. It's like filling a sports car up with the cheapest form of gasoline -- it'll run, sure, but your not optimizing your output and in the longrun you could totally mess up your engine altogether.

Exactly. This is why people have such up and down days all the time and why they can't seem to get a grip on this condition. I've had no problem eliminating drugs and most of the stress in my life, though some stress is natural and inevitable obviously. The biggest step aside from this has been figuring out which foods make HPPD worse and which don't. Now that I have that mostly figured out I've really had no trouble with my symptoms because I know I'm making progress and even when I eat something that exacerbates them I know what it was and how to get it out of my system and recover by eating properly. I honestly feel like eating right has maybe saved my life.

Didn't make my see things but totally exacerbated my HPPD symptoms just like nutmeg did recently. I think they have the same chemical compound if I remember correctly.

I can definitely relate regarding the car crash analogy. That sums it up pretty well. There was a distinct period, at about a year or so, where my memory just completely shut down and the old memories I had almost didn't seem like mine anymore, like they were from someone else's life. This is a pretty common DP-DR symptom though. I think it's just been a result of living in a certain state for so long. Eventually your memories get coated with DP-DR vision and feeling and whatnot.

I took a sleep aid that made my symptoms much worse, but only for a day. I don't think you can run the risk of permanently worsening symptoms as long as you take small doses and don't overdo it. But that said, I stay away from all that crap. Your body will heal from a common cold if you just drink lots of water and eat right. No need in putting more junk in your system that makes you feel worse.

Same. I get this often when I'm tired and meditating right before bed. I listen to binural beats and sometimes it's like they get amplified in waves. It's difficult to explain I guess. I've also had instances where I'm either asleep or on the verge of being asleep and think I hear something. I imagine this goes hand in hand with the symptoms I have where I think I see things and then I look again and there's nothing there. The sounds, however, could be more linked to brain wave malfunction given the link to epilepsy and the state of consciousness when they occur. Maybe theta?

http://time.com/4841790/exercise-brain/?utm_campaign=time&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&xid=time_socialflow_twitter

Yeah, when I had severe insomnia I swore my symptoms actually improved. Looking back I'm not sure if they actually did or if I just felt like they did because my perception of reality was so messed up.

I didn't have a bad trip but felt myself go into a weird space in my head for about 10 minutes and am convinced that had something to do with getting HPPD, though I could be wrong. Lots of people seem to have gotten it from bad trips with heavy anxiety.

I really think everyone on this site, especially those with anxiety problems, should definitely consider this. All the science is pointing towards writing as an excellent way to help process trauma and it sounds like this could be one of the ways to follow through with this concept. Also, Jordan Peterson is just about one of the smartest dudes on the planet so I don't think you could go wrong. Thanks for posting this.

I went through a period of extended sleeplessness for about three months last year as a result of benzo withdrawal, HPPD and other life circumstances that was unlike anything I've ever experienced. Towards the end when I was literally falling asleep talking to people in the daytime I remember I could almost feel the exact place in my brain where something was going very wrong. It's crazy looking back now because that seemed like so long ago, but it really wasn't and I too had endless days where I thought there was no way I could go on and that ending my life was the only solution. It never is though, and life always goes on, always changes, always gets better and so on. You have to remember that this is only a period of your life, not you're entire life. Sometimes life doesn't go your way -- and I think all of us here understand that better than anyone -- but it's still life and it can still be glorious if you put the work into turning your life around. If you make the commitment to living healthy, to getting better and to getting back up every time you've been knocked down even if you've been knocked down a million times already, you'll get there one day. I really believe this from the bottom of my heart. Some people just have to fight a lot harder than others to get there.