olivier24445

On 6/29/2020 at 8:26 PM, Swartz said:

Hey, I had missed this post somehow.

As I had mentioned, my visual snow was definitely brought on by DXM (Dextromethorphan), which I abused off-and-on for a couple years starting at age 14 due to being a dumbass teenager that couldn't get my hands on any decent drugs. I'm pretty sure my visual snow developed after the first trip, and got a little worse with repeated usage. I do remember it bothering me a little at the time, but now that I'm in my 30's, and having developed full-blown HPPD at age 20, it's the symptom that bothers me the least. Even with Clonazepam it is still there, but again, so mild that I rarely even notice it. I also wonder if being near-sighted and spending lots of time in my life in front of my computer may have played a role in it. As an aside, an odd thing I've noticed is that if I wear my glasses, the visual snow is slightly more noticeable, which is why part of me wonders if maybe it wasn't the DXM after-all but more of a physical issue related to my eye health.

I remember you mentioning that you felt that your visual snow was brought on by the drug Actifed, right?

I looked up the ingredients: pseudoephedrine and triprolidine (anti-histamine), assuming of course this was pre-2006 (got this off of Wikipedia).

Pseudoephedrine certainly has some dangers associated with it, but if I were you I'd look more into the anti-histamine side of it. Although I no longer trust r/HPPD at all, according to them they believe anti-histamines can cause symptoms.

Might be worth doing some independent research (Pubmed is your friend, also, try Erowid.org "trip reports").

Yeah, at that time (1998)  i was using actifed to sleep in a regular way and had a few codeine doses...

I tried to find the formula of Actifed back then but it's hard to tell.

Pseudo ephedrine is now also well known to cause brain vascular events...

Damn, how come we all cannot find a common pattern or trigger , i'm pretty sure we are all missing something crucial.

I noticed this strange corelation...

Anyone of you remembers using regulary cough sirup or cold sneezing pills, pre-hppd or Visual snow onset ?

1 hour ago, David28 said:

definitely not a placebo bro. Its an hppd aggrivant it made all my symptoms worse increased visual snow and everything.

You give it the power you want. I know it's hard. There is no doubt you do feel these symptoms. That's why it's so tricky

3 hours ago, David28 said:

I've had HPPD for over 4 years now and I wish I would have known this sooner. I found out that artificial food colorings (the most common are Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6) were aggravating both my visual and mental symptoms. The most noticeable being vivid color enhancements. Mental symptoms included feeling out of body,  dizzyness, intense feelings of anxiety, intensified my overall sense of dread and I think it was causing borderline panic attacks.  

The thing that sucks is that I didn’t even know it was flaring up my symptoms because artificial coloring are in a lot of different types of food; not just candy and stuff. They put it in BBQ sauce, honey mustard, lemon pepper spice, chicken soup mix, lemonade mix, wraps, sushi wasabi and ginger, Cheetos, and that spicy red popcorn stuff. It’s smart to start checking ingredients. 
In fact, artificial food coloring is so bad and has so many negative side effects that it’s BANNED in Europe. Food dyes like red 40 yellow 5 and yellow 6 are proven human carcinogens (which means they are proven to cause cancer). Red 40 has been proven to cause hyperactivity and fits of anger in both children and adults. A british study was done on children that didn't have any prior conditions but started exhibiting ADHD-like behavior when given artificial food coloring. Natural food colorings, which are not harmful are never be labeled with a number. Usually natural companies will use fruit juice concentrates or things like paprika and turmeric to color their foods. 

List of FDA approved artificial food colorings:

Red #40, Red #3, Green #3, Yellow #5, Yellow #6, Blue #1, Blue #2. They might also be labeled FD&C Red 40 or FD&C Yellow 5.

Placebo. It's your anxiety that is playing tricks on you. Don't let it win. Don't over study things over the internet...it will make you anxious about litteraly anything. For a fact, some even stop masturb.....to find relief (true)...no no no.

In my experience, i vape an extremely pure and 1000% biologic grown weed strain, that does have THC.

You have to make sure it was cultivated in the right conditions.

It's actually relaxing and does not bring any side effects, increase or decrease hppd.

I believe harmfull weed, thc, or cbd varies because of the way it was grown and when it was harvested into the flowering cycle (very important).

That's why black market is totally a NO GO

They are so many factors that can deteriorate the benefits.

If you are able to control all these aspects, weed actually does have some perks in calming down anxiety and therefore hppd.

Liquid concentrate of Melatonine is the best honnestly. It's Natural and works without side effects.

Mix it with cbd and you'll sleep like a baby everynight for the rest of your life

Then,  if there are some particular thoughts that prevent you from sleeping and it's reccuring , you should also consider talking about it to a psychologist.

1 hour ago, Jay1 said:

Did you fully read and take in the article... It doesn't link hppd with psychosis (that I remember). It just highlights that psychosis can be a co-morbid disorder amongst HPPD sufferers, just as depression and anxiety can be... This is fact based. 

Keppra and lamictal did nothing for me. Because similar meds are used to attempt to treat two different issues is not a proven link that they are the same issue, neurologically. I've read a lot on VSS and, without wanting to gatekeep, i've never heard a VSS sufferer with even 1/5th the visual symptoms that I have, and none have ever described the trippy feeling that is yet another sideshoot of dpdr, ... I think they are similar, but i think HPPD will likely have some big differences too.

I started psychotherapy 2 years after i got hppd, and kept doing sessions every week for 15 years, until all the "noise" was taken off my shoulders, and god i had lots of stuff going on,  building over it. Probably, mushrooms have been a trigger, a slap on my soul, giving me no choice but to dig deep in what i was blindly missing.

Now as an adult, i'm just fine, i can smoke weed, i'm not depressed anymore, i feel completely normal. I own to this trip that in the end, i had a chance to become myself.

That means, yes, weird, but i own a lot to this trip. I won't go back for anything in the world.

What's left  ? What i call the "base" , a proper visual snow syndrome with nothing else.

So that's my point of reference, just for the input.

You can lift a big part of the  "hppd" extra problems with a psychotherapy . 

33 minutes ago, Jay1 said:

Yea, i'm not sure what you are getting at, Oliver. The article is a deep look into hppd and the potential issues with the explosion of excitement for LSD/MDMA treatment. 

The term "stuck in a trip" may not work for you, but you need to think how it works for the average reader. A descriptive phrase is better than a bunch of scientific words that they will just skip over.

I've always said that hppd is a collection of disorders that feed off each other, but I think that is addressed in the article.

And yes, a cure for VSS could have great benefits for us, and vice versa... But it is still just a hypothesis right now. Drug induced depression, for instance, can (from my own experience and anecdotal evidence) be much harder to treat than depression brought on by grief, even though the symptoms are very similar.

Also, a more constructive proof that the base of the pathology is 99% common with VSS is that kepra and lamictal are prescribed for both , and work in the same way. That's far too much for a coïncidence.

I'm just pissed , when i read this article, because it presents mild drug induced psychosis+hppd as a whole, and this is the confusion that , for me, represent a major obstacle in understanding what this condition really is. So, it just keeps spreading more confusion, going back to the romantic "flashback" narrative from the 60's...

Fact is, many people in the hppd community cummulate both, clearly.

So as probably in the VSS snow community people cummulate this same neurologic setup  with other psychiatric disorders.

For me the key for a searcher, is to focus on the neurological aspect, to unravel and sort out,  where and how it all takes roots, clearing (and that's the hardest) all the noise consecutive from extremely various psychatric manifestations, induced by drugs, or not.

4 hours ago, Jay1 said:

Stop stating opinion as fact... I very much consider myself trapped in a trip that doesn't end, it just about the perfect description for what I am going through. 

And why would he need to mention VSS on a topic that is clearly about the potential side effects of drug use?

Because the base of symptoms most of us experience and describe are these, after a few month/years. 

Others disorders mix up to these,  associated to drug individual experiences (and from cannabis to heroin, these are extremely various, vague... ), what makes the diagnostic extremely difficult and confusing for most physicians. And i'm not talking about the blinding stigma.

The cure , if there is one, will then probably be identical for both pathologies, VSS and "HPPD". That's actually good news because they are more searchers working actively on VSS.

"HPPD searchers" are for now, only coming from the psychiatry/addictology/mental illness realm.

They won't find a cure with psychotherapy or prescribing benzos,  antipsychotic, and other mollecules of this type, that's for sure, because they don't understand the psysiological side of 'HPPD' : these are just patchs over a bleeding wound - It seems so obvious if you study properly both pathologies. That's my own intuition and I'm pleased to share it.

"Psychosis, alcoholism" ...sensationalism.....

Have you checked what Visual Snow Syndrome is before writing this article ?

Like many others, you had difficulties understanding these pathologies, that are in fact all mixed up in the case of "HPPD"

I have to agree it's a can of worms, and that's why it's very hard not to get confused by all the misleading informations available on the topic, including on wikipedia.

A mistake was made in the first place, even by those who studied and named the pathology itself, like psychiatrist doctor Abraham.

As visual snow syndrome is exactly the same pathology  ( take it appart from the psychological repercussions ).

Visual snow is by then not a "persisting hallucination"   ...that's incorrect.

"HPPD" is not a trip that does not end (that's a psychosis).

"HPPD" is a neurological condition that can also be triggered by antibiotics, drugs, benzos and many other unknown factors : chemical, genetic or environemental.

There is so much confusion.

PLEASE

Any new book or article stating these non-sense and going into sensationalism are just counter-productive.

For reminder : 

Psychosis :  mental illness, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder...

Yes, we have some people mixing up both even here on this very board. 

"HPPD" and "Visual Snow Syndrome" : 

...If you believe in it, it will relieve your stress.... and ....work.

As you feel like you're actively doing something right....

...

...

I prefer to believe in other stuff

On 3/8/2020 at 4:26 AM, Fawkinchit said:

Important Please Read: 

I've been reading a lot and I think that there may be a possibility and link to a nutritional deficiency in HPPD, which realistically would assess the strange variable nature of this condition. If you at immediate glance question the severity of nutritional deficiencies just look up Pellagra and Scurvy, they eventually die if its not corrected. Most vitamins are antioxidants and neutralize free radicals, and hallucinogens stimulate neuronal metabolism leading to excess free radicals. When free radicals are excessive and deficiencies have occurred of said nutrients, the free radicals can no longer be controlled and spiral out of control, damaging surrounding tissues. These tissues in turn become inflamed and even due to their neuronal nature start becoming demyelinated, this is the explanation for the very mild incidence rate of white matter hyperintensities in HPPD MRIs, however not in all. These demyelinations under the given uncorrected circumstances cannot or very difficulty be repaired, unless the deficiency is corrected. The deficiency would also explain why some people never get HPPD, even with extreme doses of LSD use, they have plenty of reserves of the free radical neutralizing vitamin necessary.  It would also explain why some people only get it after multiple uses of hallucinogens, eventually they deplete the vitamin, whichever it may be. It would also explain the relationship with alcohol initiating HPPD in people who did hallucinogens a month or two beforehand, alcohol also may variably deplete the vitamin. It also could explain the spontaneous recovery of some few individuals that have reported it. It would also explain why multiple different drugs initiate HPPD, from alcohol, to weed, to hallucinogens, they all stimulate neuronal metabolism by excitation and or drain certain vitamins that are vital to neuronal functioning and maintenance, hence the symptoms. Also some of these vitamins are absolutely crucial to proper neuronal function and a deficiency only of some, like Vitamin B3 can lead to psychosis. I could elaborate further on this but will refrain for the sake of brevity. 

If anyone in the slightest bit thinks this to be a complete impossibility, like i said look up pellagra and the mental health issues they have, and even vitamin b12 deficiencies cause demyelination of axons. And even some may argue that the nutritional RDA is met by common foods, this assuredly isn't true, and proven not to be true, especially in the cases of drug use and alcoholism, there are definitely related deficiencies common with these habits.

I think that this possibility has some of the most merit than any of my other ideas, so if anyone would like to try and experiment as to whether a treatment will work, then they should get a full spectrum b vitamin complex(All B-vitamins known). and also Vitamin C. The B complex should be higher than the average listed RDA, as typically it wouldn't be enough. And the vitamin C needs to be at the very least 1000mg a day. Treatment should be carried out for 6 months.

I wont get in to all the details as to everything correlative with vitamins, their deficiencies, and their importance, but if anyone cares to know more, they can read "How to Feel Better and Live Longer" by Linus Pauling, two time Nobel Prize winner and profession chemist. Even if the treatments don't work, at the very least it will certainly improve the health of the person taking these vitamins.

If its not that then we may have some genetic defect.

If you do try this treatment please report that you are trying it, and also please absolutely follow up with your results in the future. Thank you!

Edit: I also forgot to add that I read that taking large doses of vitamin B3 will end an LSD trip within roughly 30 minutes, which shows a specific relationship with it and hallucinations, but not however with LSD diectly as far as I can conjecture, as LSD usually is metabolized within 30 minutes of hitting the blood stream. However the hallucinations continue for hours, which shows that the actual cause of hallucinations are downstream from LSD metabolism, and have a direct correlation with Niacin(b3) if thats true. I didn't read it from what I would consider an absolute reliable source, but there very well may be some merit and truth to the statement, as it wasn't an unreputable source either. If anyone else knows more feel free to share.

Very interesting theory.

I was actully having a lifetime food dysfunction from 0 to 18 yo when i had my hppd onset.

Turns out, there is something to dig here.

I made 2 polls over the nutrition problem : 

For hppd : https://www.reddit.com/r/HPPD/comments/fgfbva/preexisting_your_hppd_food_disorder_malnutrition/

For VSS : https://www.reddit.com/r/visualsnow/comments/fhdp2y/preexisting_your_vss_food_disorder_malnutrition/

It's interesting, how many of us had a food issue before getting HPPD : 

I also had some....

I 

Any of you guys had a food disorder ever ?   I do . (was much worst when i was a teenager)

Very interesting case : 

What's more interesting is that he actually had Visual Snow Syndrome since childHood

"... I’ve had visual snow since I’ve been a child though, even before the SSRI’s so it doesn’t bother me at all, I’m just used to it at this point. I actually grew up thinking everybody saw that way until I actually looked it up..." 

8 hours ago, dasitmane said:

Do you recall the exact drink?

It was coming from netherland and available in many techno goa parties in the ninetees

I remember it had a silver / pink can, very popular at that time, long before redbull.

The taste was also very chemical , and color  blue if i remember.

It was much more potent as well as today's smartdrinks

I remember they where kind of snuggled to France...

it's interesting, because long long long time ago, my hppd got also 100% cured, one afternoon, after having a smart drink ( back in 1998 ), a brand that now does not exist anymore.

It came back later after one night i microdosed shrooms, that same year, long long time ago....

I always wondered if the "smart drink" very experimental in those days,  had a correlation with the sudden complete recovery i had that day.

I did dig a lot into taurine supplements as I suspected the drink was heavy on it and guarana.

Maybe it was just a coincidence.....but who knows. 

I tried heavy taurine, even for my workouts, but never got anything out of it.

Can you tell me what exact brand you have been taking ? 

I totally discard any psychosomatic explanations.

Anxiety is a consequence, not a cause.

According to recent researchs, Visual Snow is mostly due to hyper activity in the visual cortex. It's not something you can  just train not to see watching a video on youtube.

It's not a psychosommatic phenomenon either.

It's just there in the cortex, and it's possible to diagnose it.

I had actually an abdnormal EEG back in the days, and it looks like a form of epilepsy over excitabilty, when you get the right stimuli (patterns, chessboards, flashing lights, etc...)

Any one else tried to have an EEG with similar results ? 

You must do an EEG and be tested on the visual sight with patterns, grids, strobe lights, anything that bothers us.

I would be interested to know if anyone else has been tested this way ? 

37 minutes ago, Jay1 said:

I'm not convinced.... 

I never had a bad trip, I haven't tripped for 25 years and have a whole raft of coping mechanisms... Yet I feel the same mental illness as day 1 (which 100% most definitely caused my visuals issues).

I can feel your pain,  in fact, I believe also the condition is not related to a bad trip, but when you had one, it won't help for sure getting rid of the anxiety.

The trip, good or bad,  is only the trigger in the brain, same as antibiotics , flue shots do for some other people... It's not clear yet what's the mechanism that induce VSS.

You must still find your thing to reduce your anxiety, to reach the ground level of our pathology :

The list is well known already : relaxation, breathing, eating healthy, sport, work, psychotherapy, yoga,  anything that will once for all clear up the trauma of getting hit by such a ...curse, and the guilt that comes with drug use that turned "dramatic" for your sanity. I guess overcoming that feeling, is why some people get better once they do psychedelics again. (bad idea)

Then, you will be at the same level as anyone else struck by VSS.

1 hour ago, Jay1 said:

If it is a drug induced form of VSS... Then all I can say is a feel sorry as hell for those that get it without drug use.

I feel like i'm on acid (without any good feelings)... but at least I know what being on acid feels like, so have some understanding of how to keep myself from losing it.

Personally though, I really find it hard to believe that anyone could feel  and think like I do without taking drugs. 

As i was saying, for us,  stacks all the noise of the trip memories... and the anxiety loop.

Once you get rid of this loop, and realize the condition may actually have not much to do with the substance you took (could have been anything else), you be left with a clear VSS pattern

The same "persisting hallucinations",  are experienced by anyone who has Visual Snow Syndrome. Shall we keep calling them "hallucinations", by the way ?

17 minutes ago, TryingToHelp said:

Or possibly it is a heightened awareness of visual snow brought about by fear and anxiety caused by the drug taking history.

All people have visual snow, it is a natural phenomenon inherent in the physical structure of the eye. 

The human brain can be trained to notice aspects of vision more, e.g. a trained soldier spotting snipers. 

Hence I think it is likely that a hppd sufferers brain is in some way trained more than that of a non sufferer. It subconsciously picks up the visual snow more than a non sufferer and gives it an unwanted high place in the consciousness of the sufferer.

The solution lies in ignoring or reversing that training.... hard to do, try eg getting a war veteran to not jump to alert when they hear a firework or something. 

There is little snow and floaters that many people have at some point in life, and there is Visual Snow Syndrome : 

It's definitly not a little inconvenience you can just learn to ignore and practice yoga over it : 

https://www.visualsnowinitiative.org/diagnostic-criteria/

It's a physiological condition due to hyperactive visual cortices

In the end, i believe Hppd is Visual Snow Syndrome.

VSS can be triggered by many unknown factors, antibiotics, infections, and so on...it's still pretty unclear.

I believe "drugs" is one of the triggers amongst others : MDMA, LSD, Magic Mushrooms, Ketamine, and so on...

Except in the case of hallucinogens, VSS stacks over this drug use background.

 and confuse us even more in the diagnostic, as it takes a few months to totally evacuate side effects of hallucinogens and what i will call over all , unhealthy lifestyle .

The time to recover, and get back on your feet ( doing sport, quitting all drugs, getting good food habits, ....) , you will be only left with a full blow "ordinary" and characteristic visual snow syndrome, that will be feeding the anxiety loop already introduced by the drug experience, specially in case bad trip occured

When you contract VSS by other factors,  without having used any strong psychoactive, the path stays hard, but definitely less questionning and odd.

And the process to acceptance is faster and less anxious.

To me , it's so obvious :  The problem with the HPPD community, is that many of us will also confuse and mix/add light or heavy mental pathologies to the VSS, because, we (drug experiencers) are in some way more sensitive and outofthebox in the first place.

That's what's make it so hard to define and confusing because we have more variety and cases reported that not always match the proper symptoms reports

More than ever, we should look closer to the VSS research, and team up, as the way we contract it, should also lead them to more find more clues.

For reference : https://www.visualsnowinitiative.org/diagnostic-criteria/

Just wait 60 to 90 days, chill and get good emotions, stay with loved ones and avoid stress.

It might just vanish in one second as it came.

That's exactly what i do since 20 years.

My brain is similar as a child one, I have an unquenchable thirst for new things to learn.

I guess that's what made me "successful" in my lifestyle.

Never tried real meditation , but i will try to .