HPPD 13 years, some observations

[Gill82]

 I don't think this is ever going away in my case.  Of course this is just me, I'm not saying it won't happen to others.   Seems like a permenat disinhibition in the brain.  Good news:  I'm rarely bothered by it anymore.   But there was a flare up today which is why I thought about coming here.  It's amazing how sensitive the brain is to chems with HPPD.   All I took was a nutritional supp for recovery that was L-glutamine and taurine.  Woke up in pastel/cartoon colored world.   That's okay though, my HPPD symtoms always get better after these temporary flare-ups.  Never have gotten worse overall. 

I think the thing that helped me most was dealing with Depersonalization and Derealization.  In the first few years I thought DP/DR and HPPD were a single condition. They seem connected, yes, but I was able to greatly reduce the DP/DR. Once this happens, and I no longer felt like I was looking at the world through a bubble, the HPPD symtoms became less noticeable and more in the background.  So if I could give any advice , it would be to go after the DP/DR.  You may not even realize that this is what is giving you the most problem.  I didn't... just thought it was all HPPD.

How to deal with DP/DR...  people have a lot of different suggestions.  Obviously avoiding drugs/alcohol...reducing anxiety, specificly ,  OCD-type.   Once I reduced this, the DP/DR reduced.  And an SSRI sertraline I took reduced it alot.  Unfortunately ,  I avoided SSRIs for years because people said they usually made symptoms worse.   It did, in the beginning.  But I decided to stick with it and after several months my DP/DR was greatly reduced and so was my obsession.   So I wouldn't discount this type of med. 

Good luck to you all...