brain swelling sensation - serious question!

hello,
a few months ago, while rolling on a single pill I believed to be MDMA (it was a Rolls Royce from NYC), I felt as if my brain was swelling and pushing up against the inside of my skull.
this feeling was accompanied by some bizarre closed-eye visuals, a bit of a headache in the back left side of my head, and some general panic.
I took a xanax to try to get a grip and kept sipping water throughout the ordeal. it did eventually pass, but I'm curious if you've any idea what I experienced and if you think it might happen again.
I wasn't dancing like a maniac, I didn't have too much or not enough water, and I wasn't using any other drug concurrently. I had never had the brain swelling feeling before, nor since.
I do generally have sinus problems and get vertigo occasionally - my ENT suggested I might have had a middle ear infection and some fluid retention which caused my equilibrium to be thrown off and my head to feel "full" even when I'm not on any sort of substance at all, so I thought perhaps this might explain the spongy, expanding feeling I was having that night, but I'd like to hear another opinion...
thanks so much for whatever insights you might be able to provide.
vertigo

Thanks for posting this.. I have gotten 2 times the biggest headace when rollin'! I don't know why!!!! not for long but it feels like your head will exploxed =(

just a thought but could it b cos E speeds up heart rate therefor pumping more blood resulting in headaches ? since headaches r caused pretty much the same right ? correct me if im wrong

ive had headaches similar to this when ive had stronge acid it passes about 30 mins later it feels like someone has put alot of pressure on your skull , just my 2 cents

i've gotta agree with vertigo here, this is not a headache we are talking about... its just a great pressure in you head, like your brain is too big.. for me it wasnt a painful feeling, just extremely unsettling...
and this was after an australian white olympics, which rumour has it contained PMA...
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.... he who makes a beast of himself, rids himself of the pain of being a man...

awhile back my friend took her first cap of e and she was fine for awhile and as soon as it started to wear off she took a half...
..
later on in the nite..
one of my other friends came up to me and said that she was in the hospital...
she had major brain swelling she coulda died....
it also was really close to goign to her spine or something like that......
we brought a pill to the hospital....
they took it apart and found PCP!!!!!

yes johnboy, that's exactly what I'm talking about... the pressure inside pushing out... it definitely was not a headache at all, and I even had a tiny headache at the same time I was experiencing this sensation, so I believe it was another thing entirely.
I am not familiar w/ PMA - what is that??
the PCP thing makes me wonder, though, because I saw some extremely phuct up closed-eye visuals that night that disturbed me to no end. I was floored for a while, not feeling very lovey or dancey... just couldn't keep my eyes open and kept thinking, oh god, this isn't happening.
I asked my gf if there was blood coming out of my ears at one point, because that's what it felt like - wet & mushy.
it scared the living hell out of me.
so, what's up doc? any ideas?

ummm not much help on the swelling thing but oyu do know that you are supposed to get closed eye visuals on X right?
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AleX
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense"
- Buddha -

TAC,
yes, I normally love the visuals I get, but these were unlike any I'd had previously or since. they were scary, morphing, disturbing things like mechanical bugs turning into little robots then busting out of people's cheeks, then the person's face would morph into someone else's face and the cycle would shift and repeat in a slightly different way, interspersed w/ scenes that could have been taken from the beatles' yellow submarine film (which I haven't seen since age 4 or so I think), then turning into more mechanical bugs and robots made up of shiny plastic/metal type material - very foreign looking.
basically, not the usual sort of visuals I've come to know and love.
that whole night was just completely different than any I've had.
anyway, visuals aside, it's the brain swelling feeling that still has me shaken up about it. I don't ever want to experience that again.
thanks for the ideas, though! and please keep them coming! is there a doctor in the house???
vertigo

raverdoc, are you there? I'd still really like your take on this!!!
thanks!

Well.. a reason for your swelling can be too much water In your system.. If you hydrate yourself too much.. your head/brain does retain water.. so be carefull...

Hi, sorry to take so long to reply to this thread.
It's a confusing story, and I have to confess I don't have an easy answer for why you felt as though your brain was swelling (and the above user is correct that water intoxication from psychogenic polydipsia can be fatal and cause brain swelling, although I have never heard of brain edema causing sensations like you describe).
I'm tempted to say that your E was adulterated with something else; those visuals sound very unlike E to me. I know of no common street drugs that alter the vascular permeability of the brain; many, however, like PCP and even E itself to a small degree, can alter heart function. This could lead to a decrease in the blood flow to the brain (although unlikely, as the brain is in normal folks quite good at self-regulating), which could cause headaches or strange sensations.
But these are speculations. Are these headaches/feelings only when on E? Only when on one kind of pill? Are they on one side of the head or both? Do they make you sensitive to light and sound? Accompanied with nausea?
I'll do some reading, but off the top of my head I don't have a great answer for you. Just be safe and trust your supplier...
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be safe--
raverdoc

This is similar to what I was trying to describe in the MDMA backbones post. When I was on the E I could feel a pressure, and what seemed like a headache (though I was actually feeling quite numb) up in the left side only, of my head. It seemed to be at the top. Only this area was affected. The pill was a bit smacky, but not really smacky. I didn't get any hallucinations, but light coronas were bigger. THe pill was a white butterfly from Brisbane, aus. Maybe Johnboy might know?
Ever since that E, that part of my brain has done funny things when I get head rushes (not from dehydration or anemia, I mean the sort of rush you get from a drug, like WHOA!!!), that particular area responds either later, earlier, or not at all. There's no impact of it in my everday life though, so it doesn't bother me that much, and it is very slowly getting better (it's been 6 months).
And Vertigo, PMA stands for ParaMethoxy(I think its Methoxy)Amphetamine. It's related to E, but is apparently six times stronger. Do a search in the Australian/Nz discussion and you'll find some info. It has caused deaths.
I was also wondering if stereochemisty had anything to do with only the left part of the brain being affected. I tend to doubt it, but it could be a possibility. I do know that with some medicine, cis type molecules can cause cancer and trans type molecules do not (or is the other way around?).
Thanks

no i cant really shed much light on this... that reaction is just one of many strange reactions i have been hearing lately, to a wide variety of pills... basically i thnk there is a hell of a lot of back yard chemists putting god knows what in locally made pills.
here's a new story about PMA deaths, its the usual media hysteria but gives the basic facts.
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n902.a04.html
and another, notice how they dont even say what the symbols are, wouldnt want to keep anyone safe from them or anything...
http://www.optusnet.com.au/news/story/1,1231,17091,FF.html
heres an article abstract that might help
http://www.jatox.com/abstracts/1998/mar-apr/simmiab.htm
[This message has been edited by johnboy (edited 09 April 2000).]

Notice how in the Optus story, we hear about the effects of PMA and they sound surprisingly like the effects of Ecstasy (MDMA).. heh.
mona.

Correct me if I'm wrong doc, but there are no nerves in the brain...therefore if the brain is injured or swelling, we wouldn't be able to feel it anyway.
A serious sinus infection or inflamation would cause the feel of your "brains expanding" but as far as nerves in the brain, there are none...same with skull...that's why they can perform brain surgery with you awake (the just anestatize the skin and tissue)...that and plus they keep you talking to make sure they don't fuck up...
Vertigo...I can't relate to that experience, but I'm assuming it was a one-time ordeal for you? I think you'll be alright but if it really freaks you out, perhaps you should ask your family doctor if everything is cool. Go in for a physical and don't bring it up right away...I think you'll find a lot of doctors are very confidential and non-judgemental if you tell them about any substances you use.
Good luck gurl! *HUGS*
Jim

As for the original post, it doesn't sound like this applies...but while we're on the subject I might as well educate you all about a specific incidence. In 1995 a girl in the UK named Leah Betts made headlines when she died form taking one tablet of ecstasy. Obviously, it was bullshit. She was 18 and the press jumped to the opportunity to make X seem like an instant killer. It was true she dies after taking a tablet...but that's not the whole story. The media made her out to be a perfect angel who died from one tab, but in addition to the tab she took with friends on her birthday she was drinking, smoking weed, and on regular speed. BUT none of that was the cause of death. She felt like shit during the ordeal as one would imagine and decided to try and drink water to try and curb the side effects because she heard about how water is supposed to supplement e. She drank 7 liters. Her liver couldn't handle this volume of water, her blood diluted, causing her brain to expand in her skull where naturally there is nowhere to go but down - right into her spinal cord, where it was impailed. Leah Betts experienced what many doctors have described as the most imaginably terryifying, excruitiatingly painful death possible, because she drank too much water.
Moral of the story - you CAN drink to much water, and drinking water will only fight dehydration, not bring you down off e. Medium glass per hour ppl take care.
KoSMiKaL

Just backing up Kosmikal here.
Water doses. If youre dancing, you need about 500ml per hour (don't yankie volumes). If your'e not dancing then it's 250mL per hour.
Have fun pplz

thank you all for your responses...
well, I've been to my family doctor, an ENT, a neurologist, and a psychologist trained in migraines and head trauma. the verdict is that because I have long suffered from migraines, this incident could also have been a form of a migraine that struck me in a different way than normal.
a simplified version of the way it was explained to me is this: it is possible that vasoconstriction and vasodilation of the blood vessels in my head occurred more rapidly and in a shorter time span than it usually does in an ordinary migraine.
so, while I didn't perceive that I was having the typical sensations of getting a migraine, in all actuality, I more or less did, but didn't realize it because everything was happening at the same time.
I've been prescribed Midrin, which should take care of any migraine-like activities that may occur in the future. also, the psychologist is going to be working w/ me to teach me how to redirect the blood flow from my head to my hands (!!!) when I feel the all-too familiar symptoms coming on to see if I can get to the point where I don't require any medication to do this. it sounds pretty cool...
oh, someone else mentioned something about the left side of the head... my usual migraines are almost always located there. one of the docs told me this is interesting because the area I pointed to is an area he said has been identified "mystical" experiences it figures...
thanks again for everyone's thoughts and help.

Ok, I know this was posted a long time ago, but i'm bumpin it cause I have the *exact* same problem. I have been having those "swellin sensations" 24/7 for over a year now. I have been through the whole doctor mumbo jumbo, and I still haven't gotten any results. So Im curious Vertigo, how have you been? Did the med. work? Hit me up.