Puppeteer

personally i'd calculate the maximum amount of time you think you'd be able to deal with the side effects you're experiencing now, including the time needed to taper off in the event that things don't improve, and decide whether giving it that chance is worth that down time or not. who's to say you won't be feeling better in a week or two and able to go on with taking it as normal? or even feeling better than you were before hand? for me, given keppra's reputation in HPPD treatment, i'd definitely be willing to endure the side effects for as long as i could realistically allow for the chance of getting some results, but of course i don't know how dire your situation is with study and such. seems like it'd be risky to start taking those other potent medications this early on. you won't be able to accurately determine which effects are keppra which aren't, and there's a chance combining them with keppra will alter their effects. perhaps after you've been on keppra for a few weeks and have a decent understanding of how it effects you? given modafinil's distinct and immediate effects, being able to be taken on an as-needed basis etc. i suppose there wouldn't be too much harm in seeing if that helps with the lethargy or not. i wouldn't add lamotrigine to the mix - it's not going to provide any relief from the keppra side-effects and obviously will also make isolating the individual effects of each drug impossible. if you mean taking it instead of keppra, it might be worth a shot - a few people have reported success with it in HPPD (i'm on it currently and unfortunately can't say that i'm one of them) and you can safely add keppra to it at some point in the future. it also carries risks of unwanted side effects, though - outside of the notorious rash, depression, slowed cognition, memory issues, etc. slowed cognition is the most concerning one (though thankfully temporary), and is far less frequently reported with keppra (people have even reported a nootropic effect from keppra, though naturally that's not something to count on happening). are you taking a high dose of B6 in addition to your complex (or whatever you're getting your B vitamins from)? B6 is the one people really stress taking if you're having issues with keppra, though i'm sure you're aware of that. best of luck dude.

Is it ever. I was so convinced that because it was so cheap, legal in a bunch of places, and not as "good" as acid that it had to be safe. And I kept fucking using it even though I never really enjoyed it and had one really bad trip on 2000mcg, just because I had so much around. Ah, naivete.

Dang, I always assumed a thread like this would go down really badly. Best of luck though man!

Thanks once again for your response. Last year I started using piracetam after I developed what I now believe were my initial HPPD symptoms, though which at the time I thought was just severe anxiety/depression kinda stuff. It made me feel really positive and awesome; it felt like I'd just been pulled out of hell and back into myself. Afterward I used MDMA twice and 25-I-NBOMe, MXE, and 2C-B once each (as well as cannabis and alcohol a bit) - MDMA was by far the most damaging of those - and I was thrust right back there and then some. There was a period of a month or so afterward that I used Ritalin in some attempt to solve the cognitive issues I was experiencing. I was using piracetam throughout and definitely kept it up for at least a little while afterward. I'm pretty sure I tried it periodically at least once or twice afterward as well - memory's very fuzzy. Point being, there was definitely a time I was using it on its own and not getting much out of it at all. I'm sure many others have experienced this as well - god knows most people here have done a lot of experimenting, and piracetam's pretty much the first thing you come across when researching supplements that improve cognition online. Do you mind if I ask what drug(s) caused your HPPD?

Hey wooshka. Odisa made a thread for his coluracetam trial here: http://hppdonline.com/index.php?/topic/2236-the-big-if-coluracetam-trial/

Thanks for sharing your experience with piracetam, Venit. I'm glad it worked for you! Perhaps I'll give piracetam another shot the next time I'm clear to trial something new. Hope you don't mind if I ask a few questions. Have you needed to supplement with choline at all? Were you experiencing DP/DR chronically for the past year prior to starting piracetam? Were you experiencing other cognitive difficulties (poor memory, poor concentration, brain fog, etc.) and if so have they been improved by piracetam?

The pattern effect for me is pretty mild and only really happens when i focus on very visually "busy" things - fields of grass, distant trees, carpet, etc. It feels kind of like my brain cant properly process the complexity of what I'm looking at so it looks more stark and repetitive, to some extent. Reminds me somewhat of an effect in older 3D video games, where the illusion of varied 3D foliage was created by repeating the same 2D texture over and over again at various depths. I don't know if this is the kind of patterning stuff that happens for you - when I look at a solid coloured wall I only really notice visual snow.

As far as I understand 25mg is very unlikely to do very much in most people? I thought I may have been noticing improvement at that dose but it was so slight that it wasn't of any real benefit. Have you considered upping your dose? 100mg is pretty much the minimum cruising dose, and 200mg is by far the most common. Some people don't notice improvement til 300 or more. Anyhow, I'm still holding out hope. Like Keppra, this is something that for a lot of people can take some time to kick in.

That's too bad dude. Always sucks to hear about Lamictal not working, especially given that's what I'm on at the moment. ah well; it definitely seems to be doing something at least, but certainly nothing groundbreaking. Having heard that a combination of levetiracetam and lamictal is very often prescribed in those with epilepsy, generally without a hitch, I'm wondering whether adding a smallish dose of Keppra would be something to try - perhaps there'll be a synergy of sorts, or if I'm going to respond to Keppra better than Lamictal I'm sure it wouldn't be a huge problem to be on both at a time. Of course, I'm wary about being on too much at once, and I'll definitely have to get my psych's opinion on it. It'd just suck to get to the end of 6 months like you and then find out if I'd been on Keppra the whole time things would've been very different, or vice versa. But I guess that's just how shit works. Sorry for how derailed this thread's become! Haha.

Hmmmm. I bought some green tea powder after someone on Longecity said EGCG had significantly improved some memory issues he'd experienced after drug use (huuuuge long shot I know but I figured at least I'd be getting all the other scientifically-established health benefits) but I've been on the fence about taking it since it seemed to be causing anxiety. These days of course it's hard to be sure what's doing what, but I assumed caffeine was the likely culprit. Thing is, I've just compared the caffeine content of the dose I've been taking, and supposedly it contains a fraction of what a cup of white tea would be expected to contain on average (6mg for the powder vs. 10-20mg), yet I can drink white tea without a hitch. Perhaps it's the placebo effect at work, though I wouldn't put it past a company like purebulk to put an inaccurate measurement on their packaging. Once I've sussed out tianeptine (started properly today!) I'll have to do a thorough analysis of this because I'd really like to use it, if only because I'd rather not let it go to waste! Maybe the apparent synergy between theanine and caffeine it's what's lacking; I'll have to try dosing a small amount of l-theanine with it and see if that makes any difference. Surely green tea powder would be a good way to see if green tea's of any benefit for those who seem to be on the fence about drinking a heap of tea on the daily? Has anyone already tried it and gotten any noteworthy results?

Those who drink green tea regularly, do you not find that the caffeine messes with your HPPD? Caffeine makes me feel fuzzy and anxious so I tend to only drink high-grade white leaf tea (all the bagged whites I've tried are pretty shit).

Hey. I've been dwelling on a certain issue for a while now and was hoping for some input. I've mentioned this in passing, but one friend of mine was instrumental in me developing HPPD. I've always had a lot of trust and respect for him, and held his intellect and companionship in high regard. Once he'd stumbled upon psychedelics, he pretty much took them on board as his area of expertise, researching them perpetually (PIHKAL and TIHKAL and so on), discussing them in a positive light all the time, saying he was determined to become a psychopharmacologist, frowning upon people who didn't respect their use, etc. I had faith in him in all of this as he's a very intelligent guy, and he was very confident in all these opinions and such. Without his constant praise of psychs, telling me I needed to try things, telling me we needed to trip together, sharing his wealth of knowledge about certain drugs constantly and such, I'd never have used psychedelics at all. He was the one who provided me with 90% of the stuff I used. It was even after I'd gone through a bout of pretty severe depression that lead to me dropping out of school (which had only happened after we'd tripped a few times, though which I attributed to reasons other than that) that he kept on insisting. Of course, I was interested and a fan of the stuff. I had failed, probably on some level refused, to attribute the issues I was experiencing to drug use. I wanted to keep on tripping. I'm definitely not innocent and 100% a victim here at all. But anyone with the level of knowledge he had me convinced he had would surely have recognised that I was not a person who should've kept on using anything of the sort. He had HPPD symptoms too and he assured me they were nothing to worry about. Even when I did research things, a big part of the bias I'd display in only acknowledging the positive aspects of things, thinking shit wouldn't happen to me, etc. was due to my confidence and trust in him. That MDMA would be beneficial for me, that 2C-B and MXE were really mild and safe, and so on. He'd discuss doing things, and there'd be this intense pressure, and I'd tell him I had faith in him and we'd go ahead. I know a big part of this is my naivety in being so confident in someone who in retrospect really ought not to have been trusted anywhere near as much, and the adage "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" definitely applies, but the fact is that he was still very reckless in what he was doing, and I think he had a responsiblity to me as a friend in whom I had so much trust and who had convinced me of his trustworthiness in this matter to keep me safe, and he failed at that spectacularly. It's just so frustrating to know that without his influence in my life, I would never have been here. I would never have lost over a year of my life and counting, damaged my friendships and education and so on. And he's never mentioned this. Never acknowledged his role in me winding up where I am. Do you think he ought to accept partial responsibility, and acknowledge that, and apologise? Or am I being dumb? Do you think the onus is all on me because in the end I'm the one who decided to take the drugs and I'm the one who allowed myself to develop that trust and confidence in someone? Nowadays I can acknowledge that as someone so aware of his own intelligence, he needed to have that confidence and knowledge to justify his slowly growing desire to abuse drugs. By adopting the identity of some kind of Shulgin protege, frequent recreational tripping became an intellectual pursuit rather than a risky habit. I feel like his insistence on my involvement was largely a part of backing up that confidence. Throughout the years of our friendship it's become apparent that he's pretty damn narcissistic and manipulative, and he wields his intelligence very well in imposing those traits on other people. When we talk and hang out now he'll often discuss how anxious he is and how he feels like he needs to get on antidepressants. Very little of our interaction will centre around my situation. I do my best to tell him what I know and what I think's best. He and his girlfriend smoke fucking loads of weed, he's still keen on using psychs and is about to start growing shrooms, etc. I can't help but feel like he's crashing and burning, but my gentle attempts to influence him away from it have done very little. It's awful but a part of me feels like he deserves to deal with something as severe as I have, but of course I could never really wish this on anyone. I don't really know what's best to do. I'm so fucking angry at him for so recklessly assuming his knowledge was thorough enough to assure me that I was perfectly safe, but of course he's prone to making mistakes like anyone else. Hell, I sold 25-I-NBOMe to a couple of friends, and gave some to a couple others, so I've endangered others as well. But I feel like he should've broached this with me. That he deserves to take some responsibilty for my situation. And he hasn't and I really don't think it's even crossed his mind at all because we're close enough that if it had he would've brought it up and that sucks. But then I'm not sure if I'm being dumb and entitled, and whether I should just do my best to forgive and forget. In any case, I feel like he's someone I need to distance myself from. He's just a pretty negative guy generally, can be very insensitive and judgemental, jealous, demanding, snappy, oblivious to others emotions, and so on, and I just don't know that I can every really properly trust him again. I guess the question is how much to distance myself from him, given that I'm already pretty socially evasive and he's one of my few remaining friends. Sorry for my insomniac ramblings. I'd really really appreciate some input, others' stories of this kind of stuff, etc.

Yeah, dude, you can't just postpone dealing with HPPD until it's convenient for you. It's something that can and very likely will increase in severity the more you use anything implicated in causing or exacerbating it. August last year I had minor visual/anxiety symptoms but was generally optimistic and productive and enjoying life, a friend convinced me to trip a couple more times, and that's where it all went tremendously, horribly wrong. I've spent over a year out of action and my symptoms have barely cleared up at all, and now I've got the inherent HPPD hypochondria, fucked up friendships and family relationships, depression and anxiety, shame, an entire lost year of study/work, etc. to deal with on top of HPPD itself. A lot of people on here, and likely many who aren't, have gone through very similar things. It's just not worth it. Your brain's clearly not cut out for psychedelics, be grateful for the warning you've gotten and find something else to do with yourself. If your friends don't understand and don't do their best to not tempt you, cut them off. Can you drink and still feel okay? Smoke weed and still feel okay? Then stick with those (though even weed is a possible risk). No matter how much you're in the mindset that drugs are a quintessential part of enjoying your youth - and we've all been there - the fact of the matter is that they really aren't. There's so much more to do in life without taking such a destructive gamble. You know what is essential to enjoying your youth? Not developing an excruciating, potentially-permanent mental/perceptual disorder right in the middle of it. There is no trip worth the agony of HPPD.

Hey man. I've definitely seen your name whilst lurking older threads and your posts have been useful to read! Awesome to hear that you're doing so well, I think hearing success stories like yours are crucial for us still in the depths of it to become success stories ourselves. Mind if I ask what your symptoms were like at their worst? Particularly, how severe your DP/DR was? How long it lasted? How quickly it faded and whether anything in particular caused it to do so? Etc. etc.? Without DP/DR and its suite of comorbid symptoms I'd be able to live pretty happily/normally and I'm sure a lot of others would say the same. Thanks a bunch for popping in.

Figured it might be useful to bump this.

If there are any lurkers from Sydney here, I can highly recommend trying to get in contact with Professor Ian Hickie at the BMRI Camperdown. He's knowledgeable, highly intelligent, warm, efficient and very understanding. He fully acknowledges the existence of HPPD and its various possible causes, and is open-minded, progressive and very thorough with treatment. He's done his best in treating me, and I have absolute trust and confidence in him. He's a difficult person to get referred to (self-described as a person people wind up seeing "when things get really complex"), but for HPPD I think he's probably the best person to see in Sydney.

Hey man! Sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience; HPPD really isn't a pretty place to be. I really commend you on your cautious approach to drug use, it's just such a damn shame that a first trip can throw you right into the midst of it. It's hard not to feel somewhat bitter toward those people who manage to trip regularly on a whole host of stuff synthetic and otherwise and get along just fine, haha. 25-I-NBOMe is a pretty nasty beast; a bunch of stuff lead to my current HPPD situation but it was definitely a prominent catalyst, and there are plenty of stories of it triggering HPPD symptoms around the net. The "it's legal therefore it's safe" attitude, supported by many a self-proclaimed "psychonaut" around the net, has certainly put a lot of people in strife. I'd take comfort in the fact that you only tripped once and that it was only one drug involved; those cases tend to be the least prolonged and are easier to understand the extent and cause of (though it's never especially clear with HPPD). As for what to do, it's generally the common sense stuff that helps most. Eat well, sleep well, exercise, study, keep up your hobbies, get out and see friends, etc. Avoid all recreational drugs as well as you can; pretty much anything in this category has the potential to prolong and possibly worsen your symptoms. The way I look at it is the more you avoid them now, the sooner your symptoms will clear up and the sooner you'll be able to enjoy them without the baggage of HPPD. Stop yourself from getting too caught up about it all; often the more you think about it, the more catastrophising you do about the situation, the more regret and anxiety you feel, and the more your life will get less enjoyable. Anxiety is implicated in causing symptoms to worsen and triggering/exacerbating the cognitive, DP/DR side of things, and it's a very easy trap to fall into - feeling horrible and sorry for yourself. At the same time, you might want to look into treatment: there are a few drugs whose names get tossed around here that you might try to get prescribed (I'm sure you've seen a few of them mentioned already). There are various supplements/nootropics that might be worth a shot, some people have had positive experiences with a variety of such things. Again though, be cautious about micromanaging your cognition and symptoms; it's enough to drive you insane! Perpetually monitoring the severity of certain symptoms, whether some supplement is doing a certain thing, if your memory is optimal, etc. will only worsen the impact it'll have on your life. In a lot of ways the most productive response to HPPD is just to do your best to ignore it, just accept the symptoms as part of your current experience and go on with life as normal. Possibly easier said than done, but the closer you can get to achieving this, the closer you'll be to getting on with life as normal, and hopefully recovery!

Hey Odisa! What dosage were you taking? And it certainly sounds like any reversal of stress-related neuronal damage would require some time to occur - and who's to say whether that'd have much to do with HPPD anyhow. Honestly, I'm primarily interested in it for the anxiolytic and antidepressant qualities without the risks that rule SSRIs out, rather than expecting any noteworthy change to HPPD symptoms (though of course that'd be nice!). It's tempting to order some given how easily available it is online, but I'm holding back until I'm certain it's worth a shot - ruling out any potential interactions with lamotrigine (which unfortunately doesn't seem to be doing much even at 100mg BID)/supplements/etc. Given the vast range of pharmaceuticals/supps that are discussed on here I'm surprised that the only real mention of tianeptine is from you earlier this year.

~

I stumbled upon discussion of tianeptine whilst lurking the usual haunts, and I've been gradually gaining interest in it. Don't quite have the wits about me to construct a well thought-out analysis of its benefits, but I'll cite a few things and hopefully a few of you can look into it and share your thoughts. I know Odisa tried it for a little while, but it sounds like administration for 6 weeks+ is necessary to experience the full effects. Tianeptine is the only known SSRE - a selective serotonin reuptake enhancer - i.e., the opposite action to SSRI class ADs. While common sense would perhaps suggest that this would exacerbate depression, the opposite is true. Many a source cite this apparent disparity as an indication of just how complex and poorly-understand the mechanisms of depression are. From Wikipedia: "Tianeptine reduces the effects of "serotonin in the limbic system and the pre-frontal cortex, giving rise to a mood elevation, unlike the mood blunting associated with SSRI". "[Tianeptine is] a neuroprotective antidepressant that reverses the neuronal damage and lasting misery caused by chronic, uncontrolled stress. Tianeptine acts both as a non-sedating anti-anxiety agent and a non-stimulating mood-brightener." (from tianeptine.com, which isn't a commercial site despite its name; it's actually a branch of David Pearce's Good Drug Guide, which is a great resource generally). This is reflected by a couple of animal studies. "The use of tianeptine is not associated with the adverse effects commonly reported with tricyclic antidepressants (sedation, effects on attention and memory) or SSRIs (sexual dysfunction, nausea)." (source). One thing that jumped out of me was a patent filed in 2005 (so potentially not worth much, as I can't find much else about it since) titled "Application of tianeptine in preparation of medicine for treating or preventing MDMA nerve toxicity". Thought it was worth throwing out there as I know a few of us have MDMA to blame for a lot of our HPPD issues. Anyhow, there's a lot more that could be added to this but I need to be off; I'll probably return to this thread soon. It probably doesn't need to be said but take all this with a grain of salt; it's definitely not a constructive mindset to be hopping from one potential cure-all pill to the next and I'm still trying to break away from doing so myself. I think a lot of us just need to accept that there probably isn't a silver bullet drug-wise, and quite possibly nothing close to it, like Keppra is for the lucky few. Also, ever the optimist, this thread only deals with the positives I've read about; haven't encountered a lot of negative data but like everything it's gotta be out there. A few people have had lukewarm or unpleasant reactions to it. Those curious should definitely look into it for themselves; www.tianeptine.com is a very thorough and interesting read, as is this study aggregation/analysis: The neurobiological properties of Tianeptine (Stablon): from monoamine hypothesis to glutamatergic modulation. Hope everyone's doing well!

Hey, yeah, I'm aware of Ritalin and Cymbalta generally being recommended against with HPPD (wish I'd known when I was taking the Ritalin, hah) and being known for worsening symptoms, I guess I was just hoping there might be a more thorough explanation and therefore a clearer path to reversing the issues. Definitely wishful thinking; by now we're all aware of just how ambiguous and random this stuff seems to be. Thanks very much for the response though! I'll add it to the list of things I need to let go of worrying about.

Just popping in to ask a question that's been niggling at me for a little while. Last year when I hadn't concluded that my primary issues were HPPD-related I was convinced that I had ADHD-PI and that that was the source of my concentration difficulties and such. Naturally I decided that Ritalin/methylphenidate was worth a shot because more drugs is always the answer and procured some from a friend's brother. I took it for a month or so at 5mg BID, though occasionally I'd take a 10mg dose instead if I felt particularly tired or just wanted to experience the effects I guess. Eventually I let it go because it wasn't doing what I wanted it to do, or would make me feel "artificially happy", or anxious, or irritable. I'm pretty certain that my trails only started when I was using it, and they've persisted to this day. Additionally it'd seem Cymbalta brought after-images and starbursting into the equation. Is this possibly just the oft-mentioned worsening of symptoms over time with my noticing just happening to correlate with the use of certain things? I'm inclined to think that's not the case, but it's so difficult when your cognition's shot to be 100% on when and why this stuff begins. Cheers. Hope everyone's doing okay.

For anyone curious, nothing much seems to be happening so far - I've been on 50mg BID for five days or so and can't note anything really, just the persistence of the usual issues. Not that there's really any cause to have expected much this early on, of course. I did a spot of reckless drinking over the weekend and I've felt somewhat dazed from that, plus the following day I managed to lose a bag containing a lot of valuables - laptop and accessories, clothes, etc. as well as my supplements and medication, which has put a pretty significant dent in any optimism I had. I've called most of the places it might have wound up were it to have been found by a respectful, responsible person, and it hasn't shown up. Seriously, fuck people. Anyhow, I digress - that caused me to be off the lamotrigine for a couple of days and I'm not sure how much that might impair the course of treatment, but I gather not too severely. So long as side effects don't pop up I suppose I'll likely wind up on 200mg for a while and see how that goes. I suppose one thing possibly worth mentioning is that I have this one odd symptom - a CEV that I noticed when falling asleep wherein a faint white "ring" would appear in my periphery and then shrink inward until it faded, then this would repeat, etc. I didn't really keep tabs on it since it seemed fairly benign and was pretty constant, but since being on Lamictal it hasn't been happening. I'm pretty confident that that's only been the case since I started treatment, but I'm not 100%. At any rate, all other visuals remain constant. Hope you're all well.

Mate, HPPD is an unpleasant disorder but it's not a catch-all explanation for any and every unpleasant bodily issue you might be experiencing; its range of symptoms is pretty specifically limited to cognition/sensory issues. The symptom of "head pressure" is often connected with headaches, tension in the neck/shoulders, etc. and the issues caused by HPPD, i.e. depression, anxiety, stress, sedentary lifestyle etc. can all lead to somatic issues but you really can't place things like diarrhoea and shortness of breath (I'm assuming you mean generally rather than anxiety-related) directly under the HPPD symptom umbrella. If it's caused by a medication you're taking for HPPD, then it's a side-effect of that medication, not an extension of HPPD. If you're experiencing it independently of medication, then you have HPPD and that issue.

Hey, I'm in Sydney, Australia, so that might impair communication somewhat. I've decided to take a break from checking the forum out for a month or so while I titrate up to a therapeutic Lamictal dose, but if you want to contact me in regards to this stuff I'd be happy to contribute whatever I can during that period. My email address is lachlanlordmartin {at} gmail {dot} com.