Onemorestep

I’ve been on this diet for years. It’s effective for many things. A cure? Certainly not. But one thing it certainly does help with an unbalanced dopamine reward system sensitized to massive doses of sugar and carbs. I find if I eat carbohydrates I am hungry every two hours. On keto I feel like I eat for nutrition, not because I want that feel good dopamine. When I eat, I feel satiated, not full. Took a long time for me to discover the difference.

I’m curious— did you try it? The kratom I mean. valerian acts upon gaba a receptors I believe in a similar way to benzos. Usually, they are safe to take. For me, however, it exacerbates my symptoms related to gaba PAWS. A few years ago, if I took it, I felt MUCH better followed by weeks of feeling like death. Now if I take it, I have a comparatively mild increase in anxiety after usage. My brain has come a long way though so ymmv.

Yes I have used ashwagandha on and off for a while. Not recently though. I can say that it does indeed have a calming effect. I found that, when going through benzo withdrawals, it would give me good reprieve for the day but followed by an increase in withdrawal symptoms. Off the top of my head, I believe ash works through gaba neurons and (maybe more importantly) by reducing cortisol release. all in all I found it to be benign and worth a shot. I used herb pharma ethanol extract.

“Zopiclone (brand names Imovane, Zimovane, and Dopareel) is a nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic agent used in the treatment of insomnia. Zopiclone is molecularly distinct from benzodiazepine drugs and is classed as a cyclopyrrolone.” this is is a “Z” drug. Be careful with these, as they have been known to worsen hppd or even cause it (in the case of zolpidem(ambien)). I can’t recall of my visuals got worse when I withdrew from benzos. Honestly, I felt so awful I probably wouldn’t have noticed. The only thing that makes my visuals better is a specific racetam (in the end made it much worse). Things that have made them worse are cannabis and tianeptine.

just For reference so everyone knows what homeopathy is and does. A 1x solution will have results that are clinical. A 10x well... that’s just water really. That being said hallucinogens need an incredibly small dose to be active in the case of lsd. Dunno about what you’re talking about in terms of this plant. Honestly the idea idea that you can reverse hppd with things that cause hppd is really silly. There may be a very select few people that have claimed this has happened to them, but it is unlikely true. This is serious dis regulation and, for some, most likely brain damage of a sort. It certainly fits the time frame for brain damage recovery... Bottom line is posting stuff like this is dangerous. Stop throwing things at your brain without calculated risk backed by scientific hypothesis. This is how you got here in the first place #definitionofinsanity

Damn HMU next time you find your next hit

My personal experience with hppd taught me to stay away from antipsychotics, ssri’s, and anything that ramps up glutamate too much. Also benzos should never be taken everyday else you risk hell when withdrawing. As for whether you try it, I don’t think anyone can tell you for sure if you’ll react well or not. You wouldn’t be the first person with hppd to react well to something that most react poorly to. Getting better from this disorder is a combination of time and calculated risk. Once I understood that and stopped throwing things into my brain hoping they would work, I began to get better. I did, however, need to find out what DIDNT work so I could figure out MOA’s that did help. If you do try it, go low and slow, keep a log of how you feel, and don’t start multiple new things at once else you will never get clear results for what works and what doesn’t. best of luck, oms

Atomoxetine, for those who don’t know, is a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. Ive taken it before, after hppd (albeit it was 2 years after onset). I didn’t have a problem with it but was very sensitive. I only needed 10mg. After a a period of tome, it can make you feel antisocial and robotic. norepinephrine in high levels is associated with chronic fatigue and increased susceptibility to post traumatic stress. People with naturally high norepinephrine have a hard time relaxing and letting go. It it can be a useful drug. I certainly don’t think it would cause any permanent problems, bur do your due diligence with research. Start small

@iancurtis for me, a lot of positive effects were permanent. I’m much more driven than I used to be. Went from probably 0 drive to 50% and that’s more than enough for me to do something decent. Before box, I just laid in bed and watched Netflix really. Now I’m starting a business. It was kinda hard to realize how different I was but when I look back over time I realize how much it contributed to me taking on this endeavor.

Yup! I don’t take INI everyday. I tried for the first bit but it felt kinda like it lost efficacy? Or I just got used to it? Either way I just take it 1-2 times a week now. Still works great. One of my favorites in the arsenal. I really save it now for when I need to be social. It’s a wonderful social lubricant. I would take it le it more often but I figure if I don’t need to, why not stagger? Seems like a good idea. Don’t want downregulation on my insulin receptors. There’s long term studies coming out soon as well that should say whether it’s okay to take it everyday for long periods of time. So for now, without that info, I’ll stick with what I know is safe—short term daily dosing or once or twice every week.

@maddoc pitfalls there have been aplenty. Both teach you a lot about this disease though!

I don’t mean to contraindicate jbalsa... but you should not take ambien. It’s too mich of a hypnotic and has a high chance of making your hppd worse—mental and physical. If you google around, you’ll find evidence for it doing this. People have been known to have hallucinations in it that seem oddly similar to delirient drugs. While some drugs are hit or miss for effecting hppd, I highly recommend you look elsewhere for sleeping aids. I’ve taken melatonin and trazadone in the past (although the later many people don’t react well to with hppd according to posts on this website).

Thanks thelostreceptor! Great find. I've always been more keen on finding solutions to the emotional/cognitive strains HPPD puts on me but I would never turn down a chance to get rid of some of the visual snow I have. I started my first day of INI today and so far have nothing to report. I may feel a bit sharper though. Less brain fog. I can read much faster than normal as well. My mood seems to be relatively the same. Perhaps with continued usage i'll see more in that department. I took about 60 units today. Will report more as the experiment progresses.

I'm kind of surprised no one has ever tried this or brought it up on this forum! I'm having a hard time finding any serious downsides to the stuff. It is purportedly fantastic for increasing memory/mood. I went to a doctor a while back who wanted me to use it but was going to charge me a fortune for it. I didnt take his offer and didnt think much about it until i stumbled across an article about a guy who says you can make it yourself with insulin you can buy at walmart for $25. https://www.selfhacked.com/blog/intranasal-insulin/ http://www.lostfalco.com/intranasal-insulin/ anyone ever tried it?

I unfortunately do not ? my photophobia went away relatively fast after cessation of racetams. I know acetylcholine can influence photophobia-- myasthenia gravis and anticholinergic poisoning often cause it. Thats been the extent of my research over the years...

Increased cholinergic functioning. Better memory. Zero pleasure response. This lasted for several years and as my pleasure response got better, my memory got worse. Some interplay between dopamine, gaba, acetylcholine? Found good evidence for theories but thats it...

Luckily, I do not. Plenty of other things to worry about!

Wait what was the muscle movement disorder like? I’ve been using naltrexone for a few months now at v low doses and I recently added a few doses of memantine into the mix. And I had to stop all meds since I started getting spasticity problems REAL bad. I’ve been adding things in slowly to try and figure out what it was but if you’re right maybe it was the naltrexone and memantine combination? Interesting.

Hello! I wrote pretty extensively about this drug in a previous thread: its an interesting drug. It helped me immensely and hurt me too in equal proportions. One day I’ll revisit it with a major write up of my experiences over the 8 months I took it. one thing I didn’t mention in my post—if you take it, and after a few days you feel good (I mean really good) then I would discontinue. For a subset of the population it seems to lead to hypomania and burnout similar to GHB.

About a year after the onset of my hppd, I was prescribed amoxicillin. Had no effect on my hppd that I noticed. I was still doing a lot of drugs back then though so I definitely didn’t have a good baseline to judge against. Some people don’t seem to have problems with them though. cipro is another story. Flouroquinalones are an awful class of drugs that ruin people’s lives. Never take cipro unless the alternative is death.

Unfortunately, after a few weeks on nsi it began to cause anxiety. I still take it every 4th day, but at about a tenth of the 40mg dose I was earlier. The mechanism of action for nsi is under patent and not accessible to anyone except neuralstem so I don’t expect to find out for certain any time soon what may have been causing it. its definitely not as effective the way I’m taking it now, but it’s better than nothing. It’s still a wonderful medication and I’m probably 25 percent more productive and less depressed than I was prior to using it. lastly, I have retained the ability to see colors in full saturation. This doesn’t appear to fade even with a full washout. I’m very pleased with that

What were you not clean of prior to three weeks ago? Not to poke holes—but stopping substance use and starting a medication isn’t very controlled. It will be hard to discern whether you are improving because of the medication or from abstinence ? many say that ssris need a month for the antidepressant effect to kick in. I think many misconstrue this as meaning the medication isn’t working for the first month. It does have an acute action on the brain and people can respond to that (although more often than not it’s more negative the first month). ssris are tricky for those with hppd. Many don’t react well to them. Some react okay. No rhyme or reason with hppd sometimes! Its a good sign you can still tolerate caffeine many of us don’t have enough inhibitory action going on in our noggins to take stimulants anymore. I miss the taste of a hot cup in the morning! Keep on trucking!

Let me know how the VR turns out J. Might give me the push I’ve been waiting for to invest in one

Also I don’t think you will need to take lorazepam to deal with starting keppra. It’s not likely to make you anxious. Going off keppra however, you could take lorazepam to soften the glutamate spikes that come with going off antiepilectics. I don’t recomend this though. All benzos should be taken sparingly if at all. Mince again it’s a very weird drug. I couldn’t sleep for three days when I started it the first time. I took a single dose of Benedryl and was able to sleep though. After the third day sleep resumed normalcy and even improved over time. If you are anxious about the medication, you can start on a very low dose. I took 75 mg for the first week and then bumped it up to 500. Worked my way up to 1500. It was the closest thing I’ve felt to a cure when it was working. However, after a single dose of methylphenidate, it stopped working for whatever reason. Moral of the story—if it works and you feel cured just stay sober.