New symptoms appearing after weeks with no cannabis

[nothingbutbluntz]

I was an avid cannabis user for the past 4 years, had my psychedelic experiences starting about a year and a half ago and ending 3 months ago. I have had many high dose mushroom trips, and many acid trips that add up to about 50 tabs over the 1.5 year period. I noticed HPPD symptoms about 3-4 months ago, with textures swirling around the what i would assume are blind spots in my vision (check my other thread for more info) patterns in trees, mild palinopsia, patterns on any textured surface, mild visual snow. I stopped smoking cannabis in the last weekend of october, after smoking daily up until september and only smoking on weekends in october. A week and a half ago, I started taking Valerian root to help with my anxiety. It has been working very nicely. I didn't take my valerian root saturday morning because I had to go to my zen buddhist temple and I did not want to be drowsy during meditation. I took my valerian root a few hours later. In the days after that saturday, i have noticed starbursting and halos around lights which were previously either not there or mild enough for me to not notice. Does anyone know why this is happening? again, have been sober off weed for a few weeks, stopped drinking caffienated beverages and have had a few alcoholic beverages over the past two weeks but nothing too intense (except for halloween night)

Any ideas why this may be happening?

[brake]

You aren`t the only one dude. I quit coffee, alcohol, and all drugs yet I still notice new visuals once in awhile. Sorry I don`t know why though.

[wooshka]

I'm sure it's to do with dopamine, I was an everyday smoker also, then quit. Couple weeks after, I noticed a dramatic increase in visuals. 

[nothingbutbluntz]

How long ago was that?

[wooshka]

I quit smoking on the 5th of July, was on valium for a month, soon as I stopped taking it, then my visuals started to increase daily. 

[etardnow]

Same with me. I had remaining popcorn ceiling visual after shroom/lsd but i still smoked weed daily (didnt know about hppd). I had to stop smoking due to a 'vacation' overseas. After arriving overseas, for about a month i had physical symptoms ranging from general weakness to new moles,cherry angiomas, etc. I was later prescribed some anti-dopamine meds for the random physical aches here and there. Lo and behold it coincided with the development of new visual symptoms of starbursting, halo, ghosting, etc and it progressed to worsen from there for a few month. (now in my 6th month).

 

My theory is that I 'contracted' hppd with LSD but my daily weed smoking was keeping it under control due to feeding my brain dopamine from the weed. The stopping of weed combined with the reduced ability of producing natural dopamine/hppd started random physical symptoms. Then taking dopamine antagonist meds fucked it up even more. 

[nothingbutbluntz]

Can someone send me a link to a study or forum post telling me exactly how hppd works on the dopamine system?

[etardnow]

if only we knew..... lol 

we dont even know exactly why/how some meds work on dopamine receptors.

 

we can only derive from our reactions to meds like risperidone which worsen many hppd-ers and is a dopamine antagonist.

 

its also commonly known that adderal can worsen our hppd. adderal is 

This mixture acts as a dopamine releasing agent, dopamine reuptake inhibitor, norepinephrine releasing agent, norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor and can be mildly serotonerg

 

 

we also know that much of our symptoms are similar and linked to dopamine disease/disorders like parkinsons and etc. 

 

a lot of our symptoms are linked to dopamine deficiency imo. just search dopamine in the forums and read the posts. even just searching dopamine deficiency symptoms on google produces results that match up some of our symptoms.

[wooshka]

Fuck, if we knew how HPPD works, we'd have a cure by now. But it's a slippery slope, right now, a lot of members are doing current research into how it works - but everything seems to be having mixed results, but I believe we're getting closer. NSI-189 seems to be promising.