PTSD's relation to HPPD

[miketusa]

    Ive been thinking about this a lot. I spent the last two weeks smoking pot with my brother. I dont know what happened, but after a few days I suddenly started enjoying it immensely again. Whats weird about it is this. At first it was making my symptoms a little worse. But for some reason I kept smoking. Soon I was enjoying it, it felt like it used to. It was like I made peace with it. Anyways, this week I have been working a ton and Ive been feeling really, really good. I had a little DP this morning, for the first time in a long time. But I kinda just knew it would pass and it did. As of now, my symptoms are suddenly at an all time low. Im feeling more and more like my old self as the winter comes. Its amazing. AND the only thing I did differently was smoke marijuana a lot. ITS SO WEIRD. 

 

I think theres a lot more PTSD involved than we think. I means its literally the only thing I can attribute my suddenly chilled out symptoms to... That and Ive been sleeping less, getting up early a lot, and eating a lot, lot less.

 

Which is literally all the things I was told not to do by people. Im not saying stop eating, smoke a ton of cannabis and never sleep, but it is extremely intriguing to me.

 

Hopefully the changes continue to better. I am on some Tramadol right now, so maybe thats making my visuals better, though usually it makes them worse.

 

 

 

This disorder is so god damn weird, I really dont know what to think about it anymore. It could be im just suddenly getting better, but I dont know. My job also requires a ton of focus, and lots of counting. Insane amounts of counting. I do inventory for a company called RGIS. So maybe thats helping too?

 

 

Any thoughts guys?

[andrewcb]

My buddy got some HPPD/DP/DR like symptoms from smoking weed, not sure exactly since I wasn't in his shoes but I know he was experiencing stuff out of the norm and he said he just kept smoking by himself and smoked a ton and it finally all went away Me personally, I like to be in reality and for some reason weed just takes me to a place I don't want to be, I feel like I am a borderline schizophrenic on weed, but like my buddy I can smoke it by myself, just not around people, that is when shit hits the ceiling.

[miketusa]

See thats weird! I got my Hppd from marijuana, or at least it was dormant and weed brought it out. And for a while I had the exact problem you have. I would freak the fuck out, and end up in a weird mental place. But recently its all subsided. Though my visuals and tinnitus are acting up right now, but I blame the tramadol on that.

[etardnow]

I've always had a theory on the benefits of marijuana and HPPD. 

 

My HPPD started with very very minor text movement after my first LSD trip. I was smoking pot daily and I attributed it to afterglow and didnt even know what HPPD was. 

 

It was only when i stopped my daily pot smoking due to a trip to overseas that i started to get sick and then a month later(i had general sickness the whole month),  double vision, ghosting, halos, etc.

 

After reading several other stories relating to the cease of marijuana use and worsening of HPPD symptoms, my theory is that I was dopamine deficient but the weed was able to supply that dopamine. Stopping it caused the symptoms of dopamine deficiency.

 

As to why i got dopamine deficiency, weed and drugs might be a good reason so i dont know if continued use is a good idea :\ Though if i was guaranteed improvement, i wouldnt mind smoking weed everyday for the rest of my life

 

One of my many theories -.-

 

* also just remembered the reports of MDMA and reducing of symptoms for several days and my theory can be applied. though i know 2 shits about brain science lol. 

[andrewcb]

Yeah I think weed caused mine too. I would like to know who here wasn't smoking weed when they were rolling or tripping when they got their HPPD. Now that I look back on it I can remember a few times weed put me in a funky place. I literally put away around 500 tabs in 6 months, yeah it was bad, but never had problems while I was on X. It would be the next day or night when I would wake up and smoke I would start tripping, I mean full on hallucinations, usually I would wait for night time and smoke by myself and just chill outside and I would see shit, most of the time it was amazing shit, a very few times it wasn't. The worst was when me and my buddy were driving, I was passenger, day after a hard roll and I just ripped a few off the bong.....I was fine until we got down the road about 30 minutes later when everything went 2d on my ass, even I thought I was 2d lol, It felt like the world was a popup book while we was driving and I felt like a noodle, I told my friend to pull the hell over and I jumped out the car and had to catch my breath lol, I went 2d a few times on weed. Also when I got my HPPD, I was rolling, (dirty pills they had that designer drug piperzine? or something in them, they were green transformers cut outs and let me tell you cut outs you don't ever want to do they are not mdma 90% of the time and if they have any mdma they have pipe in them too which is dangerous but a wicked trip/roll) and I took 4 green transformers after I drank a 40 oz of budice, was fine up until the moment I smoked hash, all hell went loose. Shit was 10x worse then it is now when that happened and for the following week. Every time I try to smoke now I can't be around people I feel like a ticking time bomb.

 

Btw how long have you been taking Tramadol and how many mgs? I was up to 300 mg not much I guess by some standards but the snri part or something about it was like speed to me, took a week to get use to it then I leveled out and it helped me quite a bit, I just did my last 50mg yesterday though after a fairly quick taper and hell I feel fine, I think the Gabapentin is working more then anything, 

[miketusa]

Ive been taking Tramadol recreationally on and off for around three months. I also took Gaba less frequently for the same amount of time. Gaba is amazing, but some of the horror stories I have heard dealing with withdrawal scared me away from taking it more.

[andrewcb]

Hell Tramadol w/d stories scared me that's why I quit soon lol but I came off of much harder drugs. I think the w/ds are harsh when you are mentally addicted and feel that you need them. Gabapentin doesn't do anything to me besides the first day I took 2100 mg my standard 30 mg valium a 2 mg xanax half a gram of some scale powder and a ton of beer lol felt fine while I was sitting down but felt like a noodle when I got up haha. Last time I get jacked up in awhile though. Tramadol is some scary stuff it effects to many damn receptors and it is like coming off of 4 drugs at once.

[wooshka]

It seemed that my HPPD was aggravated when I stopped smoking also. Or maybe when I was just that rendered all the time, I never noticed. But I believe there is some truth to what you are saying, weed makes me calm, but I find that after a couple of days, my visuals tend to increase permanently, or well indefinitely for now. But I've been contemplating starting smoking again to a degree where I'm always calm, but I'm not sure if this is a good idea. I got HPPD on the 26th of may, just the purple flashes at night, but I was smoking all day every day until July the 5th, then I stopped because I had a panic attack. Afterwards, I was on Valium for a month, after I stopped the Valium, my visuals started to increase daily. So I believe this has something to do with one, my anxiety, and two like you stated; dopamine deficiency.