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I'm not sure if i have HPPD

I

I'mNotQuiteSure

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Joined
Mar 9, 2017
Messages
35
Hello guys,

I'm 16 years old, and I had a bad trip 2 and a half months ago. The first 3 weeks i was very anxious all the time and had the feeling of depersonalization, but only for two days or something (could've just been from a really bad jetlag i got from flying back from Los Angeles). But things started to get normal after a week. I did have some more anxiety than that i was used to, but not really to the point that i couldn't cope with it. But like a month ago i went to a very large concert (Drake btw, some of you may hate him haha) and the morning after i noticed that my vision was different. Not all too bad, but also not to my liking. At first i thought it was the fatigue (could still just be that) or that i had a shortage of a hormone of some sort. I wasn't really anxious at that time either. But as you may have expected, i'm way to curious and i couldn't just wait and sit it out, that's when i came across HPPD on the internet. Suddently my heart dropped, i thought: 'oh my god, this is exactly what i'm going through right now.' And for those few hours is was really anxious. I don't suffer from DP/DR and my anxiety is at a level that almost any normal person has. I only took a oxazepam once or twice. I did see that my symptoms have decreased a bit the last two weeks, but the only thing i'm anxious about is that i will not fully recover. And i'm not even sure if it's really HPPD.

Psychological Symptoms:
- Mild Anxiety
- I have always been a mildly depressed person.
- tinnitus that i always suffered from, from time to time.

Visual Symptoms:
- Visual static/snow on really dark objects, but also very mild, or when i close my eyes. (in the beginning it was way worse.)
- Positive afterimages (like when i look at bright things, they remain in like my thought or vision idk for about 0,5 seconds.
- Mild trailing (at least i think) because when i didn't read about trailing i didn't even think about it, it could also just be normal

And i have had floaters since i was a little kid, but don't notice them much more than before.

The weird thing is that it has decreased significantly in a very short period of time (considering there are people who cure from HPPD after years and years). And i didn't use any meds. Only the oxazepam twice but that was before the visions got to me. It may sound weird but i spend hours watching videos of TV static on youtube, that may be a factor of decreasing my visual snow at some level. Try it out, it's actually pretty calming in a way.

Sooo, my question is: do you guys think i have HPPD? I've also been a healthy person the last few years. I only drank like four times a year, smoked cannabis twice before this happened, and my diet is pretty healthy. I notice all of my symptoms are very mild, but i'd also like to not have them, it's not that they are really destroying my life or anything.
I got my bad trip from very strong Hasj / cannabis. But i didn't have like really weird visuals or hallucinations.

Will this fully recover? Or at least to a point i won't notice it?

I already eat a lot of food that support neurogenesis, i always really cared for that kinda stuff. A healthy mind is a healthy way of living!
 
HPPD is a perception disorder, which means it has to do with your senses and not really how you feel or think. It also means that it is only applicable as a disorder if it impairs your functioning, if not directly by not being able to see unhindered then by the influence on your mood and motivation from being bothered by your altered senses constantly.

If you are just noticing things out of the ordinary, it's not a disorder and it is also nothing to overreact about. HPPD seems to be a sensitivity in some people and not like damage done by the drug, only exacerbated because of the sensitivity. So if it takes only very sporadic trips to cause visualizations that bother you it is a sign of sensitivity and you should probably decide accordingly how much / how often you are able to trip without it becoming an actual problem.

There is not really that much you can do about it but it should get better over time. Not smoking any more cannabis can be a huge difference though because it exacerbates HPPD type issues.

(P.S.

I detest that the DSM-V speaks of flashbacks in this context. I strongly disagree with this: flashbacks are triggered by associations with extremely impactful experiences in the past, causing you to relive the experiences. It has nothing to do with sensory disorders but with highly vivid remembrance and PTSD type problems. Flashbacks also don't have to involve drugs and don't have to be negative, although due to the nature of extreme experiences they very well may be. I don't know how much HPPD is possible without any drug involvement. If it is a sensitivity, what else could exacerbate it? Exhaustion?)
 
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If you find the symptoms are decreasing in intensity as time passes you don't have HPPD.
 
Some visual snow with sleep deprivation is very common, this will improve as you pay your sleep debt. Sleep well and do some running. Try not to ruminate too much (mindfulness can be very helpful).
 
Thank you very much :) it's not really effecting a lot in my daily life, because i just try to be distracted most of the time. But i suppose if i do have it, i have a bigger chance and maybe shorter timespan for recovery? It's just that I fear for the future...
 
Yeah i haven't got a lot of sleep these days, just that moment in my life that i'm stressing over anything.
 
Also: i only had visual snow at first (at least that was the only thing i noticed) but when i looked it up (hppd) and saw trails and afterimages were also symptoms of HPPD i suddently started noticing them.
 
I have all those visual changes to varying degrees over the day never even noticed them as abnormal
 
It's perfectly normal to notice these effects when sober, they are just artifacts due to the biological nature of your nervous system and eyes. As long as they don't decrease visual acuity you should be OK :)
 
Thanks Sekio :) I also know that the brain has a very significant way of recovering it's self, but it takes a lot of time and effort, but do you think in this case it will heal? I sound really paranoid right now i know ahah. But i don't want any long term damage or something
 
Most cases of hypersensitivity to things like floaters/visual noise goes away with time, usually on the scale of a few months.
 
Pfew, quite a relieve that it is not something very serious. Well.... at least not too serious. I'm just very tired all the time and also stressed out, because hppd keeps crossing my mind
 
The tiredness and stress may make this more pronounced making this issue somewhat of a vicious circle with not that much real bearing.

I have similar 'symptoms' and have for quite a while especially when I trip regularly but it never concerned me and never became a bother. From dissociatives though I have gotten cognitive effects that were impairing, although some can be funny like a stronger tendency to mishear unclearly perceived sounds and words. Eventually that went away too despite a lot of abuse in the past.
I did a test not to long ago that showed that I actually have very low tendency to hallucinate, and it's not that my hearing is bad or I imagine things, but apparently my mind can fill in blanks if I don't suppress that. Hallucinating is actually super common in the sense of imagining seeing or hearing something vividly when what you perceive is incomplete, there is evolutionary advantage to that. Things like floaters etc are even more common, it may matter how good you are at continuously ignoring them, or focusing on them easily. Not worrying about it by default is a good first step. If there would ever be a serious problem, rest assured it would not require that much conscious focus. But reading up on visual artifacts (or checking out a youtube video - sekio posted a nice one sometime) may also help to easily differentiate between phenomena so that you can start to ignore a lot of them without a worry.

It may seem strange to just 'act like nothing is wrong' when you notice more sensitivity to things like after images, but up to a certain level this can still be benign and not distracting enough to take seriously. In my view, a disproportionate reaction: HPPD type problems just from tripping once or twice, warrants taking measures. But if not then going into a persisting state of anxiety or panic over the thought that you will never be the same as you once were can be unnecessarily detrimental in a remarkable way. This would disregard the question whether you can afford to be different than you were if it's not dysfunctional, and the question whether it is potentially devastating to live like you are healthy and perfect now and every change is a great loss.

But yes it requires some information that allows you to feel that you can afford things like this, and that a fair part of this is natural.

Anyway, don't underestimate the effects of anxiety and stress, find ways to fully relax more often like exercises that achieve and train this. It's really unhealthy to worry about mere possibilities. It's not your fault, but keep an eye on it :)
 
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But as far of the palinopsia (afterimages). Are there things i should or shouldn't do? To like, let my brain rest or something. Like using my phone or try to get less impulses from moving objects, or just my eyes. Or is waiting and just sitting it out the best option?
 
Good question... I'm not sure but I would make sure you sleep well and maybe it's good to avoid too much staring or looking at unchanging things, don't drive yourself crazy over obsessively not staring, but just try not to do activities that unreasonably tax you like that. Your vision starts to do strange although generally natural and harmless things when your visual input doesn't change, although it varies between people how quickly that may happen. Possibly someone will chime in and say that it shouldn't matter all that much as it won't really change the time needed to recover (do we have the data to say enough about this?), but the light of a screen may make the symptoms a bit worse for at least some people, though it's hard to say if it matters for time needed for any recovery.
I don't know that it's true that it is not HPPD if you recover over medium-long periods of time. Of course if this kind of thing is very transient it isn't a problem. Some people that do have it indeed may have it last very long, but it seems like too much to say that this endless persistence defines the disorder. There's persistence and there's Persistence. Regardless, it would be the reverse way of reasoning if you ask me: unless the symptoms are very serious you couldn't say that you apparently have HPPD and therefore it will last.

IMO assume it is not if it is manageable though avoid cannabis, psychedelics, probably also MDMA and various other visually active drugs if you have reason to be worried enough about it getting truly serious.

As I tried to say before: something like having afterimages doesn't necessarily mean that much apart from watching it and taking precautionary measures if it's remarkable enough... but if the afterimages are intense and/or happen constantly rather than now and then, it would make a great difference in leading your life. And the reverse of that persistence thing also seems true: if it is quite noticeable and lasts an unreasonably long time and does not go away despite abstinence that is a sign of having this sensitivity/disorder or at least the predisposition to developing a full disorder if you do not abstain.

None of this is to scary you - just trying to clarify things in general as far as I get what this disorder is.
 
I'mNotQuiteSure said:
But as far of the palinopsia (afterimages). Are there things i should or shouldn't do? To like, let my brain rest or something. Like using my phone or try to get less impulses from moving objects, or just my eyes. Or is waiting and just sitting it out the best option?
Click to expand...

I don't think such tiny things will have much of an effect, just wait, within a couple of weeks or at most months it should disappear on its own.
 
Wheneve i notice them i just training so if i feel like size of objects are off or distance is wacky i walk or if gravity if too heavy or light i lift weights or if i feel dossociated i rap until i feel very contected to finely tuning my body with my mind hard to explain like connected feeling
 
Sort of an update: I can almost confirm my visual snow is gone, I don't notice it anymore. Only when i'm in my room at night, but I remember that i've always had that. As far of the palinopsia, I try to get my mind of it and just focus on the things that are really important. It's just a scary thing to know that you have something no doctors or neuroscientist know. I've been to a neuroscientist yesterday and he was 90% sure it's not a neurological (brain damage/brain tumor etc.) problem. Although it has to do with overstimulation of the neurotransmitters and receptors. He thought the problem was more of an psychiatric problem. He said it was a coincidence that I had this problem, because in the past few months he got 3 other patients with similar problems. Maybe because of all those kids here who use whipped cream gas. I heard that some people also thought they were dying and stuff. I'm positive that I will recover soon! And if anyone with similar problems reads this, just don't worry too much, you will be fine. It just takes time, and as long you are very disciplined to recover, everything is possible :). Just abstain from alcohol, drugs, caffeine and try to be positive. Being sad never helped nobody, and anxiety can be a major factor of not recovering. Anxiety causes stress, stress worsens the symptoms, anxiety plays with your toughts. Also stress is not good for your brain ;). Try to eat healthy and don't let this hold you back.

I will post again as soon as i'm recovered.

Thanks for all your help guys :) really appreciate it. (And we all know doctors are mostly useless, nobody knows what we're going through)
 
Right now when i look at the screen it looks like the line im reading is popping out and the rest is blurry and looks behind the line im reading is this a form of hppd?
 
You mean your vision is blurred in the area that you don't focus on? Normally blurry vision isn't HPPD related. A lot of the time it's stress/anxiety related because of the flight-fight response. This will subside when you have enough rest and decrease your stress levels. It can also be an infection in the eye, but I think you would notice that. Anxiety/stress can also stimulate floaters/stars/halo's/shimmers and some of the time also accompany dry eyes and irritated eyes (eye fatigue) but in this case I think HPPD is not the case. Just don't worry too much about it, it will subside. Maybe not immediately, but it will fade away surely. And even if it is HPPD (I believe it's not) 50% of HPPD sufferers recover before or in 1 year. The stories you read on the internet are mostly people who have it the worst and did stupid things to make it long-term (like keep using psychedelics, didn't search for help). I believe that it can be cured in a short time, it's just the effort that you are willing to take, and don't be negative about it.

Stay positive! One day you will think: 'why was I so worried?' I'm already at that stage right now, and i'm 99% sure I will recover within the next 2/3 months (not only from the palinopsia, but also the physilogical damage like depression and mild anxiety).

I wish you all the best!
.
And if you ever feel upset or scared, message me!
Life is too beautiful to be scared. You should feel blessed that you're here!
Byebye
 
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