I'm not sure if this is HPPD?

[I'mNotQuiteSure]

Hey guys,

 

I'm 16 years old and for the past 1,5 month i've been doing a lot of research on the internet about HPPD. I was 99% convinced I had HPPD, but at this moment I'm not quite sure anymore.

 

It all started on the 24th of december in 2016. I was hanging around with a few friends and one of them brought really strong Hash. It was my second time smoking btw. The first few hits were just amazing, i felt so relaxed and it was one of the best feelings i have ever had. But then things started to turn around quickly, i started tripping after taking to much hits. A so called bad trip to be exact. It lasted for about 45-55 mins, but i didn't have that weird effects that evening, that's what i thought at least. I went to bed and i got my first panic attack. The anxiety was unbearable the 3 weeks after. Things started to go better and my anxiety was almost gone. I already made an appointment for EMDR. But then on the 29th of January i woke up with visual snow. My only symptom at that time. At first i thought i had a shortage of a hormone of some sort, but that wasn't the case. Then i found out about HPPD, and immediately thought: 'oh my god, this is exactly what i have.' While the only symptom really was visual snow. Then a week after i started noticing trails because i read about it (not a very smart thing to do). My visual snow went away completely, and so did my trails for the most part (only slightly see them in the dark, could just be normal). I felt 100% cured. 

The only symptom i have right now is palinopsia/afterimages. It's the one symptom i hate the most.

 

I never had DP/DR, except for 2 days after the trip, can't really call it DP/DR after such a short time. Only had anxiety for those three weeks. I am anxious sometimes because i'm a little bit afraid the palinopsia doesn't go away. The images are positive and remain in my vision for 0,5 seconds or maybe less. 

 

Does this sound like HPPD to you guys?

Will my palinopsia go away?

I feel my symptoms were also very mild, but they did annoy me.

I am never going to use drugs again, i'm 1000% sure. 

Is it also true that people who recover from HPPD most of the time don't post anymore because they just want to forget about it or already did?

I hope this will all fade away completely, and it won't get worse.

I don't use any meds, no drugs, no caffeine and no alcohol.

Thanks!

 

[K.B.Fante]

There's not a lot of people here who get HPPD from weed but there's a lot of people on the DP-DR forum who do. Perhaps you have that? You do seem to have HPPD symptoms too though. As long as you're healthy and drug free you should be OK, although it may take a while to heal. 

[I'mNotQuiteSure]

46 minutes ago, K.B.Fante said:

There's not a lot of people here who get HPPD from weed but there's a lot of people on the DP-DR forum who do. Perhaps you have that? You do seem to have HPPD symptoms too though. As long as you're healthy and drug free you should be OK, although it may take a while to heal. 

Yeah i know. This may sound dramatic but i am always unlucky, and that's why i think it's HPPD in the back of my mind. It could also be a very mild case, or just similar and hopefully temporarily symptoms. Palinopsia/afterimages is really the only symptom i still have, which is weird because palinopsia is always a symptom and not an condition. I asked for help on the bluelight forum and most of them said palinopsia will go away by itself. I just hope this is a short-term thing, and i believe it is because i've seen significant improvement. And probably improvement most people with HPPD would kill for.

 

I also believe that HPPD could be divided in two sections.

 

Section 1:

Symptoms: Visual snow, trailing, palinopsia, micropsia and macropsia (Alice in Wonderland syndrome), floaters and possibly photofobia, anxiety, DP/DR.

These people are prone to depression and anxiety attacks, highly sensitive minds, strong emotions, fear of never being normal again, worrying it's permanent and blame themselves a lot for what happened.

From the research i did i can conclude that this is most of the time not permanent, unless if they keep using psychedelics. The brain has a significant skill of healing/recovering/adjusting itself.

 

Section 2:

Symptoms:

Morphing objects, breathing walls, crooked lines, flashes, very vivid vision, seeing organisms/demons that aren't there, CEVs, lucid dreaming, very big fear of going insane, everything moves, hard to see depth, weird large spots in vision, feeling of plastic cap in skull,  sometimes think it's a cool thing to have these disturbances, feeling of frame rate problems in vision. Could also accompany a lot of the disturbances from Section 1.

 

These people are not always anxious, but that depends on the kind of person. They have very realistic dreams and symptoms seem more like a hallucination. Most of the time not because of a bad trip, but because of large doses of psychedelics. The durance of these symptoms vary, some people notice them diminishing after a few months, some people already suffer from them for ages. 

 

I don't believe HPPD can truly be permanent, although there are people who already suffer from it for more than 30 years (I read about a man on this forum that already suffers from this for 43 years). Keep in mind that these trips/drugs alternated your brain in a chemical reaction. That means that another chemical reaction could reverse this. We just need the research and experiments to find a permanent cure. It's a chemical inbalance that just needs to be balanced again. And I consider me having a very similar thing to HPPD (possibly very very very mild HPPD) but i can imagine 100% what you guys are going through. I'm very fascinated by this condition (not really in a very positive way). But i'm motivated to fully recover and find something that may improve life for a lot of people here.

 

I do also believe that a lot of people already have recovered, but don't want to be associated with this disorder anymore, that's why they don't post, they just don't care any more and try to forget what could easily be one of the worst moments in their lifes. Look how many people visit these forums, these aren't all of the sufferers. And the people who suffer the most post, the ones who don't suffer/overcame their suffering/recovered don't post anymore (except for a very small amount of them) because they just don't think about it anymore. 

For example: you don't find a lot of success stories about Anxiety Disorders/PTSD on the internet, while a lot of people have recovered from this! You should take this in consideration when researching HPPD and reading the horror stories.

If you read on official medical websites about HPPD they say these visual disturbances in most cases last from months to years, and in worst case scenario for some people may be permanent. 50% recover in months, 1 in 50.000 psychedelics users get this disorder (don't know if this is measured in years, i think it is). Do the math yourself. How much people are on these forums? These medical websites do need research to back up their arguments, so it's hard to believe that they just post stuff that isn't true. I am in no way a proffesional in this kind of stuff, but when I'm interested in something i'm immediately like really really interested in it.

 

Keep your hopes up! Just keep in mind that recovery is possible. It's just the sacrifices and effort your willing to take, and looooooottttsssss of patience. I know what you're thinking, don't be such a cry-baby because I've only had these symptoms for 1,5 month now and you're already recovering (still don't know if it's HPPD). But it feels like years right now. 

I wish you all the best, I think I'm going to research this disorder when I'm older. You should see this as a very harsh warning, just stay away from alcohol and drugs, please! That's a big part of recovering.

adios!

[jjmcd123]

Hey, here’s a link to a post outlining how I cured my palinopsia: http://hppdonline.com/topic/5907-cure-for-palinopsia/?tab=comments#comment-37262