balance

As soon as you wake up, get out of bed! do something though, have something like exercise, read a book anything really so as you have a reason to get out of bed.

Very good result!

i think any of the old timers here can vouche for the statement that after about 4-5 years life pretty much returns to normal, and you can enjoy and live life even with the visuals and other symptoms. last year i had a six month problem with heroin and crack/cocaine, and neither did anything permanent or while on it. i just don't even notice the symptoms anymore. coke, IMO, not telling anyone go blow lines youll be fine, is the number one drug besides opiates and benzos that hppders can do all they want (but shouldnt)

Thank you for your reply. I doubt I will get the chance to do this drug because the impurity in my country is so scarly poor but it is good to know what is a no go and what is a goer, no pun haha

This has been my experience. I liken it to the stock market where I see improvement over the long-term, but every so often it seems to regress or get worse, but when it bounces back, it is better than it was before the most decline..

This seems to be the same for me, I don't know whether or not it is just my anxiety flaring up though which in turn causes me to think my symptoms are worse, but I get times when I feel better, so I'm not sure, it's rather confusing.

Interesting anecdotal evedince that Vipassana mediatation may be something worthwhile for our symptoms..

Post #12 of the thread (thats the only post I read when searching Vipassana on thosewithvisualsnow forum)

http://thosewithvisualsnow.yuku.com/reply/9012/snow-effect#reply-9012

There symptoms may not be caused by drugs, who knows, but they say there vision improved.

I would like to do this but I feel like I would go mad :/

hey dude,

first, congrats on starting the retreat and sorry that you ran into difficulties. wow, i'm pretty tired right now but i've seen your post and will reply properly tomorrow. what i will say is yes, it is incredibly hard and even more so with hppd. i will try to find a document which scientifically explains the various stages of vipassana meditation and the myriad of difficulties which crop up. basically you have to in a way 'submit' to the technique and stay the ten days. I was desperate when i did it, everything i had read said 'make sure you do not leave before the ten days' so i set myself that challenge. I can imagine how frustrating it is to have left early. ok bed will say more tomorrow.

Have you been able to find that document?

High doses of Diazepam and opiates are the only thing that lower my visuals. Clonazepam never lowered visuals for me but only helped anxiety. I'm currently getting off klonopin because I believe it to be a weak benzo in quality compared to Valium. Valium reduces my visuals and my anxiety without totally destroying my memory.

Would doctors change my prescription from clonazepam to valium if I tell them it had a negative affect on my memory? because I take it at night, black out and remember very little the next day. I also notice it affecting my memory day to day, and I only take it at night so if valium has a positive affect on visuals (clonazepam hasn't had any for me) and doesn't screw my memory up I would rather take that!

I've seen some of my visuals begin to diminish only recently and I've had this for 2 years. It seems to me that HPPD is the cause of, not damaged, but altered neuronal circuitry in the visual cortex. In my opinion, the alterations effect the response time of GABA mediated inhibition of excitatory currents that, in an HPPD patients brain, continue to circulate much longer than normal. Some of the symptoms I have (visuals) that, for me, are evidence for that explanation, like afterimages, trails, ghosting, etc. have begun to dissipate. The ghosting is not as pronounced, meaning the double imagery is not as big. The trails aren't as long in my field of vision as they once were. The afterimages do not linger nearly as long as they used to. This, to me, are signs of natural improvement by the brain to fix a broken valve, so to speak, in the visual cortex.

Another argument for easy treatment is that when I combine certain drug combinations (I don't advocate anyone doing this at all so please don't do it) like opiates and benzos, my visuals nearly vanish. I mean almost all of them. The only one that doesn't seem to be affected by any drug is the visual static and that seems to be the visual manifestation of the ongoing excitatory currents in the visual cortex that is always there without needing visual sensory excitations from the environment to manifest into a visual symptom.

But having said all of that, I agree with Merkan. Unless you are devoting a career to the study of this, like David, I think it wise not to dwell on hypothetical questions and especially not on the board where it can snowball.

This seems pretty interesting, from most cases where peoples symptoms have dissapeared/imporved visual snow doesn't seem to leave or it improves but is somewhat still noticeable and that is in most cases, pretty weird. Has your dp/dr also improved? Opiates, benzos and alcohol are great for dp/dr but they haven't been great in the long run.

I think this is somewhat normal, but how vivid are these hallucinations? Before I had any symptoms a simalir thing would happen, I think it just because it is dark and your brain is trying to help you from walking into something or trip over because it has no visual stimuls. My night vision is horrible, I don't get vivid hallucinations but I get moments where my visions goes a bit fuzzy and feel like I'm going to walk into something but I remember having this before these symptoms anyway.

Torches are a great invention, haha!

I don't relate to anything described on that paper.

I also cannot relate to anything in this paper.

Go back to work.

Cocaine, Meth, PCP, "designer" drugs and psychedelics are the drugs i will not touch or not ever touch again. Any stimulant raises Norepinephrine in the brain and this is what causes the increase in visuals. If I were you, I would stay away from cocaine. If you want to have a good time and have some self control, take a couple vicodins. Talk about a vacation from HPPD, opiates are IT.

They are IT but they are not IT for partying, ha.

Always good to hear a success story, and as for the panic attack and heart beat thing on cannabis, WORST expirience of my life, more instense than my mushroom trips, I was so scared that I nearly called an ambulance. Sorry to dampen the thread with that but I can definatly relate, very scary expirience.

Been there done that and i would never bash down on anyone self-medicating.

Just remember that things can get better with meds and when you do and you get off the opiates its very hard to recognize yourself and it can be a hit in the face.

Also i didn't have lots of memories that i could recognize myself with from the periods of opiates. Its like three years of haze that has gone by.

But if the option is full blown DP/DR for a long time then i understand anyone doing opiates, at least until you get an option that can make your better (like future meds).

Of course, but I think opiates are hard drug to work around, the addiction is (from what I can gather from knowing addicts) a lot worse than what we are suffering (give or take some people)

I wouldn't bash anyone down for self medicating, that would make me hypocritical, but I do not codone it, especially opiates.

I miss them and do not do them. Just like most people here I'd say.

''Sounds like your brain has been melted.''

Balance you've always been cool on these boards, but that's quite harsh to say to somebody suffering w/ hppd regardless of their wild stories.

It was harsh and I apologise, I can't help but feel they are taunting our condition though.

I have tried it when trying to decrease my tolerances ( it is an nmda antagonist ) i ramped up my dosage too fast over the course of a week and got a psuedo-psychedelic mindset and bad respiratory depression. I had bad derealization too. I kept obsessing over how my entire life might just be an intricate dream and that i was in a coma or something. I have quite a bit left as i stopped taking it. If you decide to try it, be cautious with your doses because it has a long half life. I went from 10mg to 40mg in a week which was a mistake

It sounds like it is affecting the right areas but not in the positive way we hoped for. How were your visuals affected?

denial, anger, bargaining, depression, then acceptance... heh.

Thats how it goes, ha.

After reading all of the research and literature about the subject, post 1 in this thread was my best guess of what had been disrupted, the thalamocortical feedback loop.

A good and simple summary of David's post would be that the thalamocortical loop, in an HPPD scenario, recycles sensory information throughout the brain much longer than it should. The failure of the GABA mediated inhibitory response mechanism theory for causing the excessive feedback loop makes the most sense to me.

I've experimented with ridiculously high doses of multiple benzo's a few times and, although I passed out from the hypnotic effects rather quickly, what little I do remember is that the visuals were lessened greatly.

Here's an easy read from wikipedia about this theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalamocortical_dysrhythmia

And here a bit more indepth review of clinical studies on the theory.

http://www.pnas.org/content/96/26/15222.full.pdf

I doubt many people are going to want to try a surgery like that (even though I don't think you are suggesting it) especially when this is just a theory, maybe if someone here with parkinsons isn't responding to any treatment and also suffers HPPD might be a good candidate for this surgery, I doubt we are going to find someone like that though.

Yes, large doses of benzos seem to have a positive effect short term (until you pass out). high doses and using them frequently should be avoided though, so no one repeat what shaolin has described here, haha.

Bump, this drug may have a lot of negative hype but I could see it having some treatment value, anyone expirience at all? I am mainly looking for people that have taken this drug while having HPPD but any input is welcome.

Another article..

http://www.springerlink.com/content/24q4064480608258/

I know some of you may be wondering why I am posting migraine links but the fact our visual are so simalir to ocular migraine and this drug has had affect on refractory migraine shows that the same chemical process is being affected here and this drug may be worth trying.

I remember discussing this drug a little bit on the visual snow board but not sure what ended up happening, don't think anyone tried it or it wasn't on the market yet, I'm not sure, I think the discussion was about tinnitus though, which is relevant for most anyway.

(there seems to be a little disccusion here and there about this drug on the thosewithvisualsnow forum, I'd go through some threads but don't have the time, might be worthwhile though if someone else has the time)

This drug seems interesting because for me it seems as if too much perceptual/visual information is coming in and if this drugs mechanism is correct then I think we might see some benefit from this. To test the hyperexcitation theory anyway.

Here is an interesting article in regards to refactory migraine, which from this article explains what that means..

Basilar migraines (originating at the base of the skull) and ocular migraines (originating in the eyes) are examples of migraines defined by the form they take

http://www.ehow.com/facts_5749768_define-refractory-migraines.html

and this article shows evidence in this drugs role in refractory migraine,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19031499

which in turn gives us a link (although not a very strong link, but still something) that this drugs role may have an affect on us, as refractory migraine can be classified as "ocular" and I'm sure many people here have been diagnosed with migraine with aura or silent migraine or something along those lines. I do think this condition is strongly migraine related. What also sounds promosing if this is correct then it differentiates it self from other drugs, I don't think it would be a relief drug but more of a drug that will be a preventitive, so hopefully we've stumbled across something that might not be needed to take daily? who knows though, If I had the time I would look into this some more but I see some promiss here.

I guess all we need is someone whilling to try this drug or to here some expiriences if there is any. I'd like to see where this goes, I might add this to the list of drugs to try.

Codeine and hydrocodone have a a positive affect on my symptoms, and the affect is not just making me high and forgetting them.

Both the codeine and hydrocodone eleviate my dp/dr, the codeine has minimal effects on the visuals though, I have checked my pupil size in regards to this though and codeine doesn't conctrict my pupils very much, so I feel this must be why the visuals aren't dampened, I do think pupil size has a big role in this condition. When my dp/dr is at it's worst my pupils are huge!

The hyrdocodone eleviated my dp/dr also but I did not have a sufficient dose, so I cannot comment on whether it helps my visuals, If I am able to try a larger dose I will post my results.

Too bad opiates are addictive and aren't very nice to move around on, and the tolerance and all sorts of negative factors surrounding them. Otherwise these drugs would be helpful in my opinion, but the negatives outweigh the benefits, which are only short term anyway. I don't think anyone should try these just to see if they help though, these are pain medications and should be used for that.

Bizarrely, I tried some the other day (my "party" friends have sort of branched out, so this was the second time I've done it; I actually approached it as a way to test out my reaction though.)

I did have a few beers, so I was relaxed, and did not suffer any sort of panic or elevated heart rate which would normally scare me. I had no problems with symptoms, in fact I basically forget they were there, and enjoyed myself. However, the next day, and this could be partially due to the beers too, I felt the typical "increase" of symptoms and this weird sort of body buzz.

I went for a run to try and detox and that definitely made me feel better, but the usual next night (that is how it is for me, if I drink the next attempt at sleep is always messed up) ensued and I had to fall asleep to crazy visuals and strobe-like flashes. Not exactly enjoyable.

However, this is all normal for me if I am just hungover from booze - EXCEPT the "buzz" I described. As I have only tried cocaine twice, and never before HPPD, I can not say if that is normal or not...

This is what I thought may be the case, in general anyone (obviously everyone reacts differently)

I had stopped drinking for a very long time and started to drink again and while I am drunk it does wonders for my anxiety but the next day is never good if hungover, no real increase of symptoms and if there is I only usually get this from partying, lack of sleep a hangover and not eating/drinking enough.

I remember a long time back before I would classify my self as having HPPD, I was doing pills (ecstasy, who knows what was in them though) and amphetamine, I noticed from amphetamine use I became highly aware of flashes and snow and all sorts of symtoms i was not suffering at the time, after a few days they would dissapear and I would be fine (although at the time I was under a lot of stress so "fine" is I guess how I was normally at the time, when I was slowly aquring these visual and perceptual symptoms)

I don't think most stimulants "cause" this condition (I'm not saying all, maybe some do) but add a heightened awareness to the symptoms we are suffering.

ghostibator, do you feel as if after taking cocaine it affected your symptoms in the long run or just in short, or not at all?

I tried cannabis at one point to see if it would help, it made my anxiety flair up extremly while my visuals only a little bit, and that was only from thinking about them when I was stoned. I had 3 days until I recovered, I was very sluggish, had major anxiety and could not think. I think it is good to learn whether or not you can take certain drugs (only if you are that way inclined, otherwise stay away! haha)