Spasms and twitches 1 month after really strong MDMA crystals

[confetti]

I've read up on the recent discussions re: lithium. Seems like an interesting option. ONly thing I don't really understand is how it might my case seeing as I have had little damage done to my overall mood. I'm not depressed per se. More so just annoyed, anxious, bothered, etc. with the ongoing nature of my symptoms.

When I took the small dose in April, I had a pretty typical roll. It took me awhile to come up, rolled for about 3 hours, and had a smooth/unnoticeable comedown with no residual effects or aggravations to my head pressure. I attribute my weak roll to the small dosage, but perhaps it can also be accounted for by my current serotonergic health.

I am a 22 year old male.

 

[futura2012]

Lithium can repair many psychological related issues. In many places it is prescription only. Apparently it helps rebuild a body balance. I think my anxiety is fueled by excess cortisol from a fucked HPA axis function. Lithium is my next port of call. Its one of those things that you have to try. Nothing to lose you just have to be very careful with it particularly if you are dosing yourself. I have managed to bypass the prescription element by ordering lab grade lithium from ebay.

 

[First Bad Comedown]

Hey MasterSplinter - surprised to see you around after so long!
And you got 'nerve' too, being annoyed with people who are desperate.
Anyways, glad to hear you stopped rolling...

Confetti - you are describing a remarkably similar situation to mine.
An enduring form of mild torture.

I had facial sensations and head-pressure until almost the 15 month point, with the worst stopping at about month 11.
The fact that yours are continuing even now does NOT segregate you and make you any different from other stories like mine.
You fit right in, buddy.

Yes, it WILL stop eventually.

Want to know my greatest secret?
Anger.

It always was the clearest cause of change.
A real outburst of rage caused marked neurological changes - permanent ones.
After each episode I would take WEEKS to recover mentally, feeling noticeably less intelligent each time.
The sacrifice in IQ points was correlated with an IMPROVEMENT in anxiety and depression - and a direct drop in head-pressure and facial tingling and micro-seizures.

The surge of dopamine must be the key - as the rewiring of serotonin is undoubtedly inhibiting dopaminergic transmission.
It causes a loss in mental acuity, but a MAJOR improvement in anxiety and other physical symptoms.

No amount of exercise, healthy diet, positive outlook, research, or patience...caused the sheer and incredible difference that freaking out did.

Anger, it turns out, can be a healing emotion.
And many depressed people are simply just very very angry inside.
Depression is a mechanism used to cope with the crippling rage that each of us can posses.

Let the beast out - get angry.
And see what happens to your symptoms.

Lithium is great, because it increases BDNF in the cortex.
This means it regrows serotonin nerves, similar to the way exercise does.
As a confirmation, it improves the prolactin response to SSRIs in non-responsive severely depressed patients.
And even in CONTROL groups it increases prolactin.

This means at the level of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis we have a confirmation.
Lithium improves serotonin transmission in the brain.
And it protects against stress-induced changes to cellular function (gene expression).
Big stuff.

Good luck my BL friends.
I will try to check back in.

 

[savior999]

Hey mates, sorry, i disappeared, I went on holiday and could not write, but i wanted to report that around 10 september (so 5 weeks after the last dose) 99% of the tics were gone. I can now fall asleep normally, even though i wake up often early and my brain starts working impeding me to fall asleep again...but this was happening often even before.
Good thing is that i really don't feel any need to roll again and i practically lost any willingness to take any more X.
I guess this is a good turn around. Otherwise i would have liked rolling once every now and then...but i know myself, i would have done it more often than advised and could have incurred in much more serious consequences.

Abstinence from any drug and physical excercise helped a lot...also vitamin C and Gingko Biloba seemed to do very good.

Thanks all for the support, really appreciated.

Special thanks to FBC, futura and cope

@ Confetti : What impressed me most was your sentence "Now my only anxiety is what is caused by my continuous reflection upon my situation"...i guess this could mean that if you distract yourself and try not thinking about it you should feel better. Did you notice if it is like that? If i were in you i would take a nice relaxing vacation, maybe in some spa and having some massage...it helped me a lot on my first bad comedown.

 

[cope]

hi savior,

thanks for the update and congrats on your progress.

very mature attitude to ditch the x ... life is more than popping pills

 

[savior999]

Hi mates, still having troubles here

What happened is that i gave up also weed and alcohol.

Nevertheless, I still had some minor tics, involuntary jumping of neck, legs and arms some nights and, since i had to go to work the day after, those nights i took some drops of clonazepam (3-8 drops instead of the 20 suggested). I also tried 2 nights a benzo (half pill instead of the one given by doctor). And with both i could sleep.

But i was too nervous the day after and i am too much against medicals and their side effects that i think are worse than the symptoms they are trying to cure, so i decided to overcome it with my own strenghts.

I found a “self hypnosis” healing CD that helped me for some nights, but yesterday, not even the CD helped. I was jumping in bed from 11:30pm to 4am.

Today i am wasted.

I am swimming, intense training monday-tuesday and thursday, and the days of training seem to be the worst ones, instead of helping.

Unfortunately this swimming course is quite late, until 21:30...i know swimming should help to relax me and to tire me, and indeed it does, but often the training is also quite challenging and so adrenalin comes into play too. I think that having adrenalin in my body and going to bed after only 2 hours could trigger my problem. And once i start jumping and worrying, no matter how tired i am, i simply cannot sleep.

I’ve read that suddenly giving up benzo and clonazepam could bring epileptic-like symptoms, but i took so few drops and for only like 10 days in a period of three months, could these be abstinence symptoms, no matter if i took them for such a brief period?

I am also afraid that I am developing epilepsy, i read about this “Sleep Myoclonus” ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myoclonus#Types ) which is strictly related to epilepsy. Could it be the case? And is it true that epilepsy goes away by itself with time? I really do not know much about it and maybe that’s why i am so scared by it.

Amongst the 1 trillion thoughts i had last night trying to understand what’s going on, I realized that on monday after training, tics were very mild and could control them well. Yesterday i could not, and i felt that stiffness and pain at the nape, at the back of the neck, exactly where i was feeling pain when i had my first bad experience.
The difference beetween the 2 days of training was that yesterday i swam some lengths butterfly and my neck got squeezed moving my head up and down, while on monday i did not swim the butterfly.
So i massaged my neck at around 3am and I felt almost immediately better and could sleep after a while.

Does this mean anything ? I’ve been thinking that i could have a physical problem in that part of my neck (hypotalamus?), and squeezing and hurting it brings those symptoms back...i don’t know really, i am so confused right now.

Thanks for any comments, especially regarding epilepsy which is giving me nightmares (when i can sleep).

 

[cope]

Hi Savior,

i am sorry the tics have reappeared.

i am taking a very long shot here but it can't hurt to try this:

i assume after your holiday you got significant improvement of your symptoms ? a lot of sun exposure during that time ?

have you had your vitamin d levels checked ? sun light raises them rapidly.

vit d deficiency can cause involuntary muscle movements.

so if you got some dollars to spare you could get yourself some vit-d3 tabs and take 5000 IU daily - maybe start with 10000 IU for some days, this is considered the highest daily dose to be safe.

take em with your largest meal of the day (vit-d is fat soluble).

again, this is just what came to my mind, holiday=>less tics ...

anyway, cheap and worth a try

best of luck !

 

[savior999]

thanks cope, I didn't check my vitamin D level, but i eat tuna almost everyday so i think i should have plenty (i think also fish oil is in there i guess).

Anyways here in Rome it's still summer, for lunch break i was sunbathing and for the weekend i plan to go to the beach, sun is also very good for mood and surely cannot harm.

Just started taking again Vitamin C 1000mg that for some reason I had removed, like everything else.

Anyways yesterday it was better. In the afternoon i left work and slept 2.5 hours, with a few tics. At night i slept from midnight to 6 with almost no tics.

I still feel a weird sensation on my neck though, where i guess all starts from.

Tonight, if i go swimming, i will go slower and without swimming butterfly.

Let's see how it goes in the next few days with these additional expedients.

Cheers as always.

 

[panos1313]

Hey about the neck thing google "tms syndrome". Basically it is a psychosomatic thing where repressed emotions (usually anger or anxiety) manifest as itches or pain , usually in the back and neck area.
Usually the brain will try to tell you that the pain is due to some physical symptom, but it is not. I have been through it and i have had days where i was in constant pain/annoyment in my back. (when i took some shrooms...the pain went up threefolds which kinda convinced me that the pain was not attributed to some physical sympton). Now some months later (and after acknowledging what the problem is) i barely feel anything even when im stressed.

My opinion is : Do not make the pain a big deal, do not make the tics a big deal, do not make anything a big deal. The more you mentally ignore em and "accept" them, the sooner they will go away. The road to overcoming ANY issue is never a straight line...its always full of ups and downs....aka its very normal to make 2 steps forwards,2 back,2forward,1 back. You seem to have done well so far, keep this up

 

[savior999]

hey man i think you got it right

I just did the test to see if i might have TMS ( http://www.mindbodymedicine.com/q.html ) and result is 7 points so highly probable TMS. That is good news, it means that it's not physical but psychological.

Indeed i've alread started reading some info and they also mention the fact that when u r distracted or ON HOLIDAY the pain and symptoms go away and that is what happened to me last year and also in septemeber.

In the page "TMS personality traits" ( http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/TMS_Personality_Traits ) , i can describe myself as almost all of them, particularly i am very perfectionist and i guess i should stop that and starting to take life more easily.

I have printed also other 15 pages that i will read during the weekend.

Meanwhile thanks a lot for the suggestion, it could really be the solution to all this.

By the way, yesterday, after a mild training, i could go to sleep at 11:30 , had just 2-3 mild tics and then could sleep well.

 

[panos1313]

hey man i think you got it right



Indeed i've alread started reading some info and they also mention the fact that when u r distracted or ON HOLIDAY the pain and symptoms go away.

It is very true. Every time i would leave for a weekend or mini-vacation just to visit my hometown, the TMS symptoms would go away...only to return when i resumed my normal life.(TMS symptoms would ago away while drunk too)

As for the tics, usually my tics ( not related to tms, but also psychosomatic induced by social anxiety) would become worse when i exercised...i guess all this adrenaline aggravated em, but i still felt better.

 

[constantbrainzap]

would love to get an update on this thread... i've been experiencing very similar brain zaps 1 month after my first and only experience with MDMA, and it is extremely unnerving.

 

[savior999]

Dear All,

It's always nice to get back here with some update. Here it is.

In the last two years symptoms gradually faded away 100%. In the last few months I had reached NIRVANA :D , being able to sleep without any issue. I am praciticing a lot of Kundalini Yoga since March. One month ago i even quit smoking marijuana (i used to smoke a very small joint everyday before going to sleep).
I am also reducing alcohol a lot, because it conflicts with my yoga aims. It unbalances all the work done with my classes.

During yoga i often feel pleasant healing shivers going up through my spine and behind my neck.

On friday i went to the beach and played beach volley after a long break....then went out for dinner and i drank wine (1 litre more or less, but in 4 hours), and could sleep normally that night.

Yesterday and the day before yesterday, I went to a lake with a friend of mine, did not take any drugs nor alcohol, and played volleyball again. Before going to sleep I was playing around with facebook and stuff, as I often do.

There was also a party starting at the lake, and they even offered me some MDMA. I immediately replied that i can't anymore, but that if i did not have this experience, i would have taken a little, and that i was very sad that, because of my mistake, now i can't have any.

This friend of mine was quite annoying and attacking me a lot. In the past i would tell him to fuck off immediately, but now with yoga i've learned to avoid negative thoughts and decided to just let it go.

In the last two days, surprisingly enough, i had those tics coming back. I think i realized (i may also have mentioned before) that for some reasons while falling asleep, my breath stops, and it is like if my brain gives me a zap to remember me to breath again.

The day before yesterday, after 2 hours of tics and twitches, i got up, had a camomilla tea, watched tv one hour until i felt sleepy again, then went to bed and fell asleep quite easily.

Last night this trick did not help either. I had other 1-2 hours of tics. Then i fell asleep at around 4.

I am quite worried again now because i did not overdo anything. I did not eat any different food than usual.
The only thing i've added in my daily activities was volleyball, but i don't understand how that could cause my symptoms to re-occur.

Or maybe just thinking about that party and the MDMA was the cause ? It seems a bit exaggerated.

Maybe, as reasonably mentioned by FBC and Panos some posts before, it might be related to anger, in the sense that I repressed my reactions towards this friend of mine and did not tell him anything ? If this is the case i should find a way of reacting that would not conflict with my yoga principles.

I will try to think better about the possible causes and would be glad to have also your point of view or any comment.

I will not play volleyball anymore and will see what happens.

Today the back part of my neck is quite stiff and unpleasant.

I hope it was just these 2 days and tonight i will sleep normally but will keep you updated.

Cheers all

EDIT: in the afternoon i could not sleep becuase of tics. I was thinking it can be something physical. I remember i had the same problem with swimming butterfly, bending my neck backwards seemed to squeeze some point that would cause the symptoms to get worse. Maybe i did the same jumping and rolling when defending and receiving playing volleyball.

EDIT 2: so yesterday i had a relaxing day, just stayed home, also because i was tired. At 10Pm, before going to sleep I had a camomilla tea. On the sofa sometimes i felt muscles on my arms twitching a little so i think the volleyball left some tension in my muscles, since i did not play for a long time.
At 10:30 I went to bed. I had maybe a couple of very small tics, but not real "jumps" as the previous days...in fact i could sleep well afterwards. I went to bed with the state of mind that if it happened again i would try to ignore it, without changing positions one hundred times as usual.
So i think it definitely has something to do with the mood and state of mind. But there might be some physical aspect that triggers it, at least in my case.
I hope it was just temporary as i suspected.

 

[LukeAG89]

First of all thank you for your wisdom here.

Currently going through what I expect is exactly the same as you did/are.

I have 5htp but I was on an ssri for just a week and stopped 2 weeks ago. Would I be ok to go ahead and start 5htp tonight with no chances of serotonin syndrome?

 

[Mazzab]

First of all thank you for your wisdom here.

Currently going through what I expect is exactly the same as you did/are.

I have 5htp but I was on an ssri for just a week and stopped 2 weeks ago. Would I be ok to go ahead and start 5htp tonight with no chances of serotonin syndrome?

Oral 5 Htp has been shown to have little bioavailability. So safe. Probably. Is it going to help...probably not.

 

[terarc]

You can increase 5-HTP bioavailability by co-administration with 400mg EGCG (green tea extract). I'm pretty sure 5-HTP does something, as it causes teeth grinding during sleep and light brain zaps before sleep (like 10x less powerful than MDMA zaps) if I take it in high amounts for too long... which obviously seem physical and are unlikely to result from placebo as I wasn't expecting them, I was only expecting mood increase and reduced appetite. For what it's worth though I do find it useful for a few days post-MDMA in staving off mood dips, it'll do you no harm to try.

For curing actual damage from abuse though, maybe St Johns Wort would be of interest to you, increases serotonin and is similar to SSRIs but has a few helpful other properties namely increasing 5-HT receptor density (could help at least partially undo the damage MDMA has done, in theory), and also has very few side effects or withdrawal unlike SSRIs and related pharmaceuticals. When you've tried 5-HTP have a look into it, better to start with herbal things like this before moving on to more powerful prescribed drugs IMO. Personally I have used SJW in a period of feeling in a funk that may have been MDMA related (not 100% on it though), and I thought it helped for sure. I think it takes at least 3 weeks for neurogenesis to occur though and you need higher doses than it says on the box, like around 600-900mg per day or more, split into 2 or 3 doses. There's a good few studies on it on the NIMH website somewhere but I don't have a link handy

 

[savior999]

First of all thank you for your wisdom here.

Currently going through what I expect is exactly the same as you did/are.

I have 5htp but I was on an ssri for just a week and stopped 2 weeks ago. Would I be ok to go ahead and start 5htp tonight with no chances of serotonin syndrome?

If it stopped 2 weeks ago i would suggest you not to take anything. Brain (and our body in general) is a miraculous machine and can heal itself in many ways. It just needs time. And an healthy life. Sports help too. Anything that engages the brain is good.

I am avoiding chemicals at all, and I am perfectly fine now. I do not have any more symptoms. I just needed some time.

Not smoking anymore but drinking whenever i want.

Cheers guys, don't overdo it.

 

[laxislifedude]

Hi there. I have a two issues. Was wondering if your input could help me. Thank you in advance.

Issue # 1: Back in August of 2013, I snorted MDMA. It was only the second time I had tried it. I definitely know I did a good amount with one line, but I honestly have no clue how much it was in terms of its weight (Stupid!). I came back from that trip with severe congestion for the next 3 weeks. Saw an ENT and said it would go away shortly. It did.

About 4 months after that (December 2013), I began to notice dryness in my mouth, especially after excessive talking. By January 2014 it had become terrible. I trucked through the next several months with pain, mainly from my oral tissues being dried out. I finally went and saw a series of doctors in August of 2014. They all stated there was no dryness at all. Well fast forward to July of 2015 when I saw a high up specialist. She confirmed that my saliva glands are not functioning properly. Autoimmune tests came back negative, which I was happy about. Anyway, is it possible that the MDMA could have had an effect on the function of my saliva glands? I still feel dry mouth to this present day.

Issue #2: In August of 2015, I took .2 of MDMA orally. Great time. About a week later I started feeling head twitching and pressure just above and the to front side of my left ear. Really freaked me out. I looked online and decided to take 5HTP. Within a day of taking it , i started to develop jaw muscle spasms on my right side, while still having the head pressure and twitches on my left side of my ear. It's been 3 months with little improvement. I do feel a lot of anxiety and especially guilt between the facial twitches and the dry mouth. Is this something the MDMA caused? And can my body recover? Does anxiety play a role, because I do feel severely anxious and worried about my health? Thank you for any help you can give me. This has been a nightmare experience for me.