Onemorestep

Also, it must be taken into account you were taking multiple medications which all have acute effects and downstream effects over time. It’s almostnimpossible to figure out exactly which of your medications caused your neuro soup to spill. Here’s two things though to think about off the top of my head: topamax and lamictal do opposite things to ampa receptors. The topamax could have been reducing the ampa acutely and that was helping... but perhaps it got overwhelmed by the lamictal after a period of time? I know for me, ampa excitation = anxiety, increased visuals, bad juju buspirome effects 5ht2a receptors. One always has to be careful with this one. You touch that guy wrong and suddenly you start reacting different to everything.

@jbalsa2 I’m very sorry to hear the meds stopped working for you I’ve had this happen to me twice as well—I find a strong solution and my etiology is changed by a different drug or by increased dosages. The combination no longer works after the negative event :/ this is definetely a cautionary to to go to move slowly. When you finally find something that works it’s so easy to push it to the limit. We all just want to get better and it’s hard not to get overzealous. Slow and steady wins the race with hppd. now your reaction is something I find to be incredibly interesting. Especially the “cocaine” analogy. From my understanding, topamax is an inhibitory drug. They use it in seizure disorders. It shouldn’t be stimulating like that... but I one hundred percent believe you felt that dopamine rush. I had the same thing when I started keppra the first time. In fact, I couldn’t sleep for several days when I first started it. It was like I had a bit of meth. My thoughts on it at the time was it was rebalancing neurotransmitter systems in my brain and the incredibly sensitized dopamine receptors needed time to downregulate to match the increase in dopamine levels. And sure enough, after a few days, they did. And it lost its magic. This was on a VERY low dose of keppra too. I kept increasing until 1500 where the good effects normalized but the “magic” kept going away after a bit. I found a combination of things that kept it stable though. Inositol was one of them. Plus a shit ton of supplements. But I had my life back.... then I took Ritalin. i was niave. Had no idea that one is kinda a no no for those with hppd. It screwed everything up. Keppra then turned on me and I had to discontinue. I dont think ill ever really know what keppra was doing to help or why it stopped after I took Ritalin. But it’s taught me that this disorder is more complex than I previously thought. I hope you find another combination soon to help yourself out of this funk. It’s so hard to experience mental well being and have it stripped away again. But if you can take comfort in anything let it be that a personal cure is possible and you tasted it so it can come again.

I know this is a really old post, but if you googled cipro and “Floxed” you get some really interesting stuff about people taking cipro and suffering from a disorder that shares a lot of symptoms with hppd. I agree that if you have to take an antibiotic and have hppd, or even if you don’t have hppd, you should avoid cipro.

I want to update this thread—I’m still experiencing some degree of fallout from sarcosine but it has gotten a ton better. Mostly I’m just deal with certain mood issues I didn’t have before such as irritability. I think that that sarcosine should be avoided if you have hppd. It exacerbated my symptoms, visual and emotional, by a hundredfold for weeks.

Many people with hppd say SSRIs make them worse. This was the case with me. I was on SSRIs most of my life and went off of them right before I got hppd. When I gave them a shot again I tried a low dose of escitalopram for 7 months. I came off of it due to sexual side effects and noticed that I immediately started feeling better. I was able to fully withdraw in a weeks time which, in my past experience, would normally be too fast and would send me into a depressive episode. I don’t think I was permanently hurt by trying them though. On the the flip side, there are people with hppd that SSRIs have helped. My understanding of the mechanism is it is the eventual downregulation of certain serotonin receptors such as 5ht2a that cause a big part of the antidepressant effect. That and increased bdnf after sustained use. This does take time, however. One to two months on the drug. Before that, many “normal” people can even experience feeling worse. If you think it is worth it to try, give it a shot. Otherwise discontinue and try something else. There are plenty of things that can help reduce 5ht2a and raise bdnf that aren’t SSRIs. I believe selfhacked has an entire page about the receptor and how to influence it—I like the page but it should be cautioned that some things they talk about are not safe for those with hppd such as using psychedelics to downregulate. Also feverfew. Don’t take that. Hope le you find some relief soon. oms

So I saw a neurologist today who wants to start me on an oxytocin sustained release patch. My first question is whether anyone here has ever taken oxytocin before? Or knows anything about it’s use in relieving depression? Hormones are crazy things... I’m hesitant to mess with them. I’m going to try and do some research over the next few weeks and perhaps post it here. Even if I don’t end up taking it, I feel it never hurts to have information compiled for others.

That’s fascinating!! I don’t react well to it (well at least I didn’t when in heavy benzo withdrawal last time I tried it; might give it another go) but what I did notice one time when I took it on a night of heavy drinking, it cut my hangover in half. I give it to my family on vacation now when they go hard and they love it.

Yea I don’t notice much of anything either tbh. DL-phenylalanine used to provide some measure of relief but not so much anymore for whatever reason.

@brendan i dont think it makes makes a difference in terms of the end result. However NAC comes with other effects that some people might want to avoid. When I tried taking NAC, it made my panic horrific. But then again I tend to react poorly to things that increase ampa. For others this might be preferable and they get benefits from all the moa’s Of NAC edit 2021: NAC can (not directly) bind to methyl-b12 and render it useless. It was screwing up my already screwed up methylation.

Always wondered if briveracetam would have effected me different than keppra. Unfortunately I’m not willing to find out as I have strong immune reactions to taking keppra. The suspected antidepressent effects from lamotrigne are, and I’m not looking this up so correct me if I’m wrong, increases bdnf after chronic usage and increased AMPA receptor function in response to lowered NMDA (compensatory in mature but similar end result as drugs such as sarcosine, long term effects of ketamine, and coluracetam to some extent). Now increased ampa functioning can boost nicotinic receptor functioning too—something that many with hppd find uncomfortable (at least I’ve read anactodaly and experienced this myself when trying to continue smoking cigarettes in my early hppd stage. Keppra, along with inhibiting sv2a/nmda, inhibits ampa. So if you’ve perhaps boosted your ampa too much with lamictal, perhaps you’ll find that keppra helps calm that down. I’m not a fan of lamictal—if it works then great. But I don’t theorize that it works for correcting what I feel are many major players in the hppd etiology FOR SOME (reduced nmda functioning via excitotixic event (5ht2a excitation—>glutamate overload), increased ampa via compensation, increased alpha 7 nicotinic via ampa). That doesn’t mean though that parts of your brain don’t have high glutamate still though. So if you find lamictal working then stick with it. Lowest possible dose is best. If you try keppra, my experience is you’ll know if it is working pretty quick. It was within two days for me the first time and the second time after about a month. one really has to look at their symptom set though In deciding which meds are best for them. Look for what things you are sensitive to and find out common MOA that set you off. It’s so hard especially if ones hppd hasn’t settled yet and things are still evolving. If if you’re looking for new things to try, take a look at my bpc-157 thread. I’ve had more success with this peptide than.. really anything else I’ve tried. Another member read it and decided to give it a shot and apparently, according to his message to me earlier today, can’t believe how much it has helped him in such a short period of time. Hope le you find out why the lamictal is turning on ya! best oms

@jbalsa2 have you experienced any cognitive issues? They nickname it dopamax for a reason however if it’s correcting so much you probably just feel clearer. I do do have someone who will prescribe it. I’d like to try fycompa instead... if only because my mother was in topamax and she experienced decreased verbal fluididity and hair thinning. Keppra already messed up my hair. But I would rather be healthy and bald I guess. Im also just really interested in having someone with hppd try fycompa. If it works like keppra for some, it might be a great substitution.

That’s so awesome!!! I’m glad you found something that worked for you ive been thinking about topamax for a while now actually. After making a compilation of all the meds that have helped me and hurt me, the common denominator I’ve found is AMPA overactivation is bad. Topamax is one of the few meds (besides keppra) that inhibits ampa. Some interesting stuff about ampa and hallucinogens. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17728034/

I was doing some research and came across some information that NAC augments AMPA transmission. This explains my supremely negative reaction to it... some people on this forum don’t do well with touching ampa receptors. They also seem to be the subset of people who react well to keppra interestingly.

I’m doing subcutaneous injections right on the front part of my hip. I find there’s very few nerve endings there. This stuff passes the bbb and if I’m being honest has a much broader effect than just localized. You can take it orally too but I figured injections would be more efficacious. Probably not necessary though!

Wh.... what?

So I started to feel pretty uneasy on this stuff. Had horrible sleep. Kept waking up with physical anxiety. I’m discontinuing the trial—it doesn’t feel good or safe to me and has put me back several steps in my recovery for the time being. Hopefully the reaction finds equilibrium soon.

Started taking during the day before the gym. Works well. Can’t say how much it’s impacting my sleep. I guess I’ll know when I stop taking it in a month or two. Will report back with any side effects otherwise I’ll write a end report after ceccasion.

Still going strong. It seems with every few days on this I become more human again. I’ve had bursts of enjoying music. Feeling like life is beautiful again. Some anxiety that I’ve wasted so much time being sick... but hey what are you going to do? still highly recommend the use of this peptide.

Whelp I took the plunge. Didn’t notice really any effects. I felt a little uncomfortable physically later in the evening. I think I’ll do 500mg twice daily and see how that goes. Apparently this stuff helps repair dysfunctional nmda receptors and that’s what I’m looking for as I believe oxiracetam really did a number on mine. i read one report on here about a user having a bad reaction. Jess I think. She also got relief from keppra. Since Sarcosine definitely impact ampa function, and I’ve noticed those who benefit from keppra are those with SEVERELY hyperactive ampa receptor functioning, I believe this explains her reaction. I have no way to tell for sure if Jess was suffering from increased ampa atomization, but the majority of my hppd was caused of overuse of coluracetam which is a highly poten ampa receptor HACUe. My symptoms were 100 percent in line with every keppra success story in terms of the symptoms they were suffering from (it’s a very distinct kind of hopelessness one learns to identify). These people tend to have those life changing moments on keppra without the typical side effects one would expect from a med like that. I’ve tried keppra twice—once with very high cholinergic functioning that was causing crippling depression and suicidal ideation. It worked like a charm. Cognition improves along with mood. Then I tried it again when I had normal/sub par cholinergic functioning. Side effects. Depression. Lethargy. Memory issues. Interesting to think about no? I was able to knock down my HACU by withdrawing from benzos and keppra very quickly (not a fun experience; I don’t recommend it but it worked). So if you are a responded to keppra, stay away from things that enhance ampa until that’s under control. Anyway a litlle sidetracked. Will report back on the Sarcosine.

I find diet really helps too. I’ve cut out sugar the past year and gluten for the past few and it makes a big difference in my life. There’s some good research on the keto diet being good for anxiety (it helps with seizures so it definitely reduces excitability). Other things that have helped for me: 1) Wellbutrin: ironically this allowed me not have to take benzos at all during the daytime and helped me begin my taper again. Seems counterintuitive as it’s a stimulant... can’t say why. 2) bpc-157: there’s some promising research out there about this peptides ability to reset tolerance to gaba drugs. It certainly helped mine. 3) inositol: this helps me... but for many others it makes it much worse. I don’t recommend it unless you’re feeling like taking a risk. 4) go on a walk. It actually works. 5) I bought a dog! One of the best things I’ve done for my anxiety.

I’ve just received some Sarcosine in the mail (100g). I was wondering if anyone has had experience with this? The only person I’ve really found on the forum who’s tried it (Jess) didn’t seem to have a good time. But I do seem to react semi positively to enhanced glutamate. Glutamine seems to help remove a lot of negative symptoms I have (apathy, social withdrawal, etc). Would love to know if anyone has tried it. Best, oms

So Ive concluded that this stuff is pretty safe (for me at least) in the short term. Can’t speak to long term use. It’s highly effective at deepening sleep. Almost too effective... it seems to make me a bit groggy the next day and worsens some of my flat affect symptoms. But it also stabilizes my mood. I’m pretty sensitive to the stuff though I don’t believe others would find they have such side effects. As a supplement i I give this an B+. It kicks insomnia and frequent waking in the ass. Doesn’t seem to be particularly habit forming physically. If it didn’t make me groggy the next morning when I’m trying to get out of bed it would get an A+.

So this stuff seems to do the exact opposite of what I intended—it keeps me up all night. I’ve trialed it for a few days now in hopes that effect would fade and lead to better sleep but unfortunately that has not happened. I imagine if taken during the day it would be quite nice. Boosts my energy without feeling like I have some sort of stimulant in my system.

Abstinence is really best.... especially at the beginning of this journey. At the same time—-you gotta live. Clearly you want to have some fun! Just take it slow. Back in the day alcohol never really permanently worsened my symptoms. But I got tired of the increased anxiety and hangovers so I quit completely. It’s difficult, but after some time sober you relearn how to have fun without alcohol. Remember what you did as a kid—you weren’t drinking then! (I hope) best, oms

Delta sleep inducing peptide is seeming to work pretty well for me. Haven’t had any bad side effects either. Do some research on it. It’s an interesting one.