MDMA Recovery (Stories & Support - 4)

[Amml]

I really have to try harder at this.....I just can't shut my mind down..... And when I start to drift off I feel pins and needles and I wake up. Now the tinnitus is raging and wooshing to boot. I'm consciously keeping myself awake it's weird. I have a physical on Monday.... I'm going to ask about something else, maybe trazodone. The first comedown and the second (after the second bachelor party), I took lunesta for 3 days each.... Seemed to help set me back on track.

Had the same feeling but without the tinnitus. There was just no way to shut down for me, not sport or even drugs could help me to come down, my mind was constantly full onset and my body felt like petrified, not even a wellness holiday helped me. But this dramatically improved. It comes slowly but soon you will be able to find your peace again!

 

[fnono33]

Thanks fnono. My bed has become a coffin to me, I'm deathly scared of it lol. The people around me have had enough and don't want to hear it anymore.... Wearing my welcome so to speak. I just want to sleep like I used to w/o meds, I'd give anything, even an arm or an eye lol.

Do you have tinnitus? Hows the trazodone going?

I dont think I have tinnitus. I guess if I had it I would know. I think I had it slightly at the beginning...where my air conditioning felt like it was right on top of my head making noise. The Trazadone helps me a lot for sleep. Still getting about 5 to 6 hours a night. But I'll take it for now. I definitely hear you on people getting tired of our act. My poor parents are pretty annoyed but they try to be supportive as well and I know that they love me. I had a talk with them last night about positivity at encouragement at home I think my mom would be happy if I lived in the psych ward sometimes...

Before the caffeine, sleep was such a relief, but after my symptoms have become worse at night instead of better. Better the last couple weeks though... It's all so frustrating. Not being in control of my body is so hard to deal with. My appetite went back to 'normal' I guess, instead of binge eating all day. But, I get some stomach cramps and diahrrea now. haha, it's such a roller coaster this thing.

 

[ADubbs]

www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/631239-Serotonin-syndrome-from-mdma

Cotcha, here's some posts from FBC. Pretty detailed on the suspected damage.

 

[socrilus]

@cotcha
Thanks for the clarification. So basically yea I understand it as quieting the thoughts about the mental pain. But what about getting rid of the mental pain itself right which would in theory automatically quiet the thoughts.

I've experienced that with exercise and also using Klonopin occasionally. The symptoms evaporate and with that all LTC thought patterns automatically seem to reverse themselves for that time period for me when the exercise endorphins or the GABA from the Kpin "is active". Idk if others have had such a fortunate experience with it but its habit forming so I can only use it here and there.

 

[ADubbs]

Cotcha, what are your thoughts on antipsychotics and remeron increasing HPPD? They seemed to have helped you, and you stated you had HPPD.

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

I don't know if I would hold FBC in such high esteem.

Depending upon how much neuroscience you learn, you'll see different conditions in very different ways. The knee jerk reaction that an LTC is from neuronal degeneration is indicative an unsophisticated understanding.

And then, to go around telling everyone that MDMA has damaged their brains isn't a good idea regardless of whether it's the truth. For starters, the phenomenon that is an LTC occurs with all sorts of substances that are known not to be neurotoxic (although these LTCs are less likely and less frequently reported). LTCs have also been known to spontaneously resolve, which doesn't fit with the neuronal degeneration hypothesis of LTCs.

There are other explanations for LTCs that do require venturing outside the narrow "MDMA damages serotonin" sort of explanation that one first arrives at as a coffee shop neuroscientist, but most people never get there. I imagine the LTCs resolve long before that stage of understanding and then they're moving on with their lives.

Hopefully someone will come along in time and they will have an even more sophisticated understanding, and then I'll get knocked off my pedestal

 

[ADubbs]

Lol, I agree. I certainly think something is screwed up with the serotonin system, but it depends to what degree, and it likely isn't any real damage. Even that study where they injected rats with MDMA....their serotonin systems didn't grow back the same, but I think their systems grew back to where the rats could function normally.

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

@cotcha
Thanks for the clarification. So basically yea I understand it as quieting the thoughts about the mental pain. But what about getting rid of the mental pain itself right which would in theory automatically quiet the thoughts.

Nothing would make me happier than to give everyone here something that would automatically get rid of the mental pain (and then hopefully the excessive thoughts) but unfortunately we're not quite there technology wise, so we've gotta work with what we've got (cardio/meditation and the current state of medications).

That being said, it could be that the excessive thoughts are in and of themselves contributing to the mental pain and seeming unrelated symptoms. The default mode network, an area of the brain implicated in ruminating depression, seems to be quite overactive in many mental illnesses (depression/anxiety for example), and treatments that focus on deactivating the default mode network can be quite successful. Mindfulness is the best example of such a treatment I think. Neurofeedback would also be another example that would be good to try if mindfulness doesn't work. Neurofeedback is essentially technology enhanced meditation.

Edit: essentially what I'm saying (rather poorly saying) is that abberrant activation of the default mode network leading to excess thoughts as one symptom might also be causing the mental pain if the default mode network is activated long enough (it could lead to physiological changes that cause OR perpetuate the mental pain) and meditation might not instantly cure the mental pain but with time it could reverse the physiology of excess thoughts and default mode network activation. I hope that makes sense.

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

Cotcha, what are your thoughts on antipsychotics and remeron increasing HPPD? They seemed to have helped you, and you stated you had HPPD.

Mirtazapine is pretty unique, I would expect it to help HPPD a bit but that's my experience. Depends upon what dosage I suppose, higher doses where it becomes more adrenergic I would expect worsening of visual symptoms given that people report worsening of HPPD with anxiety. Mirtazapine helps me sleep and that helps my HPPD so that might be my uniqueness if other people are reporting worsening of HPPD with mirtazapine.

On the other hand Risperidone (anti-psychotic) helped my HPPD even though there are clinical case reports of Risperidone worsening LSD induced HPPD. This could just be me sleeping better though. Risperidone worked great for helping me shut off my thoughts, although at higher doses like are used to treat schizophrenia, it can cause dysphoria/anhedonia and movement issues. I personally never had any issues besides sedation, which of course I desired.

I remember now we were talking about loud noises startling the other day so I'll mention, anti-psychotics pretty reliably raise pre-pulse inhibition, a measure of acoustic startle reflex that is often talked about in sensory-gating/sensorimotor gating disorders and schizophrenia. HPPD is thought to also be an issue with sensory gating, and some of the genetics that overlap with sensory gating issues probably overlap with pre-disposition to developing HPPD, like the gene for the 5HT2A receptor, the principle receptor responsible for psychedelic's effects (and MDMA's major metabolite MDA is also active at 5HT2A). Risperidone is a major blocker of 5HT2A, mirtazapine is as well though you may not see significant 5HT2A blockade until you're at higher doses, and then other effects are confounding.

So personally Risperidone helped me a lot although its not a drug I would want to be on for decades. But I retained the benefits of having been on it. A lot of the benefits of being on anti-psychotics are probably genetic in origin (same with anti-depressants), and thus these aren't benefits that are going to just disappear when you taper off the drug, as opposed to what FBC has said about medications for schizophrenia and depression making the diseases worse in the long run, which I have to whole heartedly disagree with.. Very ignorant of him to say.. But your mileage may vary, everyone is a unique snowflake. 0.5mg - 1mg risperidone is also going to be astronomically different than 4mg risperidone. At the end of the day the doctor is the one to talk to. My two cents is that if insomnia is causing a lot of the issues and you want a longer term drug for insomnia (one that will leave lasting beneficial effects), Risperidone is probably the one I would choose. But it is an anti-psychotic and they're not to be taken lightly.

As always any questions are welcome. Also guys I'm sorry if this is getting too neurosciency and shit.

Edit: I managed to find this old study I thought you might be interested in related to acoustic startle after MDMA abuse https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14970829 - "These results suggest that the functional consequences of chronic MDMA use may be explained by 5-HT receptor changes rather than by a chronic 5-HT deficiency condition."

 

[ADubbs]

Awesome posts cotcha, thanks. I dunno, just taking the Remeron worries me that's all....did the HPPD for you happen right away. Or did it get worse before it got better? Honestly when all this happened I thought I'd be better by now, but it is what it is.

I love the neuroscience stuff, keep it coming. Interesting to note about the sound study.... So if we're having tinnitus, it means there's no damage?

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

I seem to remember finding myself HPPD in the morning after a long night when it first happened, but I can't remember too much about mirtazapine and HPPD because when the HPPD was more severe. But I still have it mildly and mirtazapine doesn't make it worse.

Tinnitus is a little different because there can be musculoskeletal contributions oftentimes, for example clench your jaw and see if it gets worse. But that sort of "not filtering things" very good aspect will sort itself out with time from what other people have said, and people get that from lots of other drugs. Even cocaine for example. For me it's hard to say because I have hearing loss and then jaw problems so I can't separate what's real tinnitus and what's from drugs but I can at least say mine has gotten quite a bit better.

 

[ADubbs]

I seem to remember finding myself HPPD in the morning after a long night when it first happened, but I can't remember too much about mirtazapine and HPPD because when the HPPD was more severe. But I still have it mildly and mirtazapine doesn't make it worse.

Tinnitus is a little different because there can be musculoskeletal contributions oftentimes, for example clench your jaw and see if it gets worse. But that sort of "not filtering things" very good aspect will sort itself out with time from what other people have said, and people get that from lots of other drugs. Even cocaine for example. For me it's hard to say because I have hearing loss and then jaw problems so I can't separate what's real tinnitus and what's from drugs but I can at least say mine has gotten quite a bit better.

Yeah mine doesn't get louder upon clenching my jaw. I also really only hear it at night or in quiet rooms. I dunno, we'll see what Doctor Abraham says about all this I guess.

 

[Anonymous0151]

I was taking ectasy for the first time like a half a day or every 2 days for about 8 months im also a lightweight and new to all this

One time I had a really really bad trip this was my first time I took half a pill with about 30 people in a park only knew a few of them it made me feel really good because ive suffered with anxiety all my life from as far back as I can remember anyway I took it every one was running wround bare foot around this park at about 10 pm or later was having a good time but my heart was doing 90 we was looking for someine smoking weed we found someones mate 2 lads smoking we thought it would give us even more of a rush bare in mind am a lightweight and its my first time on everything we went over to these 2 lads who was my friends mates we see there smokin it was weird tho one of them was bein sick we just thought they was high as shit so me n her get the massive blunt it was in them extra large papers she only takes about 3 pulls because she toook about 5 pills I didnt think it would make me trip cause I only took a little of a Gary an ill be fine I end up smokin the whole blunt to meself I feel it start to kick in I finish it as fast as I could to go back to me mates as I stand up I feel fine then I runn over to me mates lookin like some kind of penguin can't feel fuckall in me body run about 30 meteres to the big group of people everyone is high on weed n pills can't really see that they are high as I stand still I feel a masssive rush of shit in me brain I can feel everything going into my brain I can feel me body moving blood around I can feel the tension jn my muscles I can feel every vain in my body every bone then I feeel this rush out of nowhere everywhere I start to shake like a leaf literally I can still feel that feeling in my body everytime I think.about it im forgetting how to move its been about 5 minutes everything hits me quickly im shakin more and more cause I can feel the shit hitting me it felt like there was billions of bugs runnin round my whole body even in my brain and in my vains now my eyesights shaking im seeing peoples faces but staring at them just shaking I can't control fuckall people are slapping me pinching me am just sitting there telling everyone im trippin out I can hear my voice echoing even thinking about it all that feeling comes back everyones bitch slapping me I can't feel nothing im asking people to try and knock me out there punching me as hard as they can I.can't feel fuckall I cant remeber what happened afterwards I just ended up in a train.station with only the ones I knew I was still high but not that high I felt like I wasn't even.there it turns out it was some legal high (spice) this was last year in september im still fucked up from it I feel like I am still therr and nothing here is real like im still trippin out

Dont do.drugs kids unless somebody looks after u I was 14 not even my mates was looking after me was just asking am I okay an my best mate did nothing im thinkin I looked normal outside tripping the fuck out inside

 

[Anonymous0151]

Sorry about no punctuation. I didnt even notice I wasnt putting them in, and the side effects now are worse, I was taking more ectasy I went on a bender for months with loads of weed and ecstasy everyday. I have worse side effects because of my age, the first time I did weed it was laced with something because everyone was cartoons I was hallucinating bad I didnt realise what I was doing my brain wasnt working telling me not to do anything. I was on a comedown everyday my moods was everywhere, it was good in a way because I had no anxiety, but its sad I have forgotten who I was before I dont have feelings anymore or a mind its just my voice telling me what to say yeah, so im fucked up now everyone who I was with was alot older than me 16-19 year olds, most of them slags and other shit happend but thats another story. nobody knows anything that has happened so I dont have any help with any of it ,PTSD no therapy medicine drugs or anything and I dont do any drug atall anymore so the stress is really bad, my emotions are numb I can't feel anything, I was even suffering from depersonalization at one point. Im 15 now I need to choose my "friends" abit more wisely

 

[fnono33]

@cotcha
Thanks for the clarification. So basically yea I understand it as quieting the thoughts about the mental pain. But what about getting rid of the mental pain itself right which would in theory automatically quiet the thoughts.

I've experienced that with exercise and also using Klonopin occasionally. The symptoms evaporate and with that all LTC thought patterns automatically seem to reverse themselves for that time period for me when the exercise endorphins or the GABA from the Kpin "is active". Idk if others have had such a fortunate experience with it but its habit forming so I can only use it here and there.

I thin I'm going to switch over from ativan to Klonopin. Probably not, but is there any reason to believe that a massive dose of Klonopin would reset my brain? Similar to the theory that a massive dose of vitamin C over a twelve hour period would reset the neurotransmitters?

 

[CloudIX]

I really wanted to share this with everyone in this thread. I know what you're going through and I know how hard it is. Just a few weeks ago, I was going through a hard time and stumbled across this book. I downloaded the audio tape, layed in my bed and listened to it. Took me several days to take it all in, but I can honestly say that it had been the most helpful thing with mentally getting my head right in my two years since my LTC started with a panic attack. It's not a cure, but its made life a hell of a lot better.

https://www.amazon.com/Worry-Trick-Brain-Tricks-Expecting/dp/1626253188

 

[Amml]

I thin I'm going to switch over from ativan to Klonopin. Probably not, but is there any reason to believe that a massive dose of Klonopin would reset my brain? Similar to the theory that a massive dose of vitamin C over a twelve hour period would reset the neurotransmitters?

I think this is not actually a good idea, it may cause an inbalance that holds on for a longer time. Maybe you should try to fast for 1-2 days, fasting always helped me a lot and made me feel much better.

 

[socrilus]

I thin I'm going to switch over from ativan to Klonopin. Probably not, but is there any reason to believe that a massive dose of Klonopin would reset my brain? Similar to the theory that a massive dose of vitamin C over a twelve hour period would reset the neurotransmitters?

Never heard of the Vit C theory. I take Vit C daily since supposedly it helps over time which I do believe but I never heard of some instant relief thing.

Don't think massive Benzo dose would help either and I would never do it for fear of a rebound effect. What I meant was that for the duration of action (Kpin is long acting benzo I think?) all my symptoms are vastly improved and with the symptom improvement, the thought patterns automatically resolve themselves for that time period while its active. I don't take it everyday. When it wears off the symptoms come back and then the usual thoughts of "when wil l get better".

I was just making a point that the way you feel can create the initial impulse for negative thinking about the way you feel itself. Whereas traditional cognitive behavioral theory says its the way you think that results in how you feel. Basically I was just saying the only reason for my worrying thoughts etc is the way I feel in the present moment itself. I was just saying how resolving the way I felt even though its temporary and not a long term solution simultaneously got rid of the negative thinking.

Which is why I don't believe these are "deep rooted" thought patterns. If that was the case then feeling better would still resolve in the same negative thinking but it doesnt.

Im just saying normally it takes A LOT to cause anxiety/depression in someone. It doesn't come on overnight like it did for a lot of us me included. Its why the whole "deep rooted" thought patterns stuff makes no sense to me personally

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

I think Klonopin would indeed be better. But I definitely wouldn't go with the massive dose idea. Instead I would try a lower dose daily for a while to help you get some sleep, and hope that you reset slowly but surely with that sleep and calmness throughout the day. That would be a good time to practice the mindfulness as well if you were feeling up to it.

 

[ADubbs]

Tinnitus is horrible today, 0 sleep last night on 15mg remeron. Doc says to take 30. I have to keep a consistent dose. But I'm scared to go up. I can't do this anymore. All I do is cry. I'm going to run later, I haven't been the best with that so I gotta start again. I'm scared to go on more drugs. Maybe if I just kept a consistent dose with the remeron I'd be doing better. People are suffering way more than me but I can't get over myself and the way I feel. The tinnitus is the worst symptom now it's constant. I hope it's just anxiety but I doubt it is.

What do I do? I was doing so good (relatively) a month ago and now I'm back at square 1.