Help please :(

[Gee]

I am 26 years old now, a female, and haven’t touched hallucinogens since early 2020. I have dropped acid once when I was 16, spitting out my tab half way through so I hadn’t had any visuals. I’ve done mushrooms around 4-5 times in my life. Always had done an eighth but in Covid (the last time I did them) my friend and I took more than usual. It was the first time I started actually having hallucinations that turned scary. I hated it! But my vision went back to normal within a few weeks. Fast forward to now, I found out I was pregnant in January. I’m almost due now, and through all of this time I have been suffering every single day. My doctor thinks that I am having optical migraines every day, but I wanted to describe my symptoms here to see if anybody can relate. At night time when I close my eyes, in a dark room, I get a mild strobe light affect for around 20 seconds or less. I have the white ectopic field vision now when looking into the bright sky. I have a ton of floaters in both eyes, but they do say this is related to pregnancy and water retention so I’m trying to not overthink that. I have felt like sometimes I have mild static, but at other times it doesn’t bother me, it feels much less noticeable in the dark. I get easy after images, that stick around for 20 seconds or less. My pupils are enlarged after the optometrist let me know, so I’m not sure if that is pregnancy related as well. And lastly, the symptom that has freaked me out the most, is when I look in the sky I can almost see a swirling affect from both eyes if I concentrate enough. It’s almost like I have to look for it though, there have been a few times in this pregnancy that it has happened indoors as well, but I can close my eyes, and it goes away. This is the only symptom I feel like I’ve experienced for as long as I can remember, a kind of swirling going on after having been outside all day in bright light. I also feel light sensitive in general, and have a headache almost every single day that could be migraine pain.  I’m just wondering if anybody experiences this or if it truly is more of an ocular migraine issue that I’m experiencing. It’s causing me a lot of stress, probably just because I had such a bad experience on hallucinogens last time. My therapist thinks I have PTSD from it and health anxiety which I totally do.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Gee
Adding

[AF44]

Hi!

First of all, congratulations on your pregnancy! I get a strobe-like effect in the dark. Also more intense visual snow when it is dark, especially when I close my eyes. If I look at the sky I see starbursts and what I call “eye worms.” Like elongated blobs. I get floaters but they are not too bad most of the time. Funnily enough, my pupils are dilated as well, which I didn’t know until my eye doctor mentioned it. Sometimes it feels like I’m getting a migraine (I have a history of migraines.) I get visual snow (mild and not too bothersome.) That is what I experience now even after being in clonazepam for about 14 years. Of course my symptoms were WAY worse, more intense and “extra” before I started on the clonazepam. At first, when I started on the clonazepam, over 99% of all of my symptoms basically disappeared. But since I’ve been on it for so long, I still get symptoms but nowhere NEAR as bad and I basically feel “normal.” 

[SomebodySomewhere]

Based on all the info you provided, no, I don't think you have HPPD.

If these symptoms persist after giving birth, then maybe, but it sounds like your doctor is likely correct imo.