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5 weeks after mdma/e overdose, really messed up vision and brain

Kentan

Greenlighter
Joined
Aug 29, 2016
Messages
23
hello everyone! (sorry for bad english)

I'm 22 years old and have never done any drugs more than smoking weed a few times before. 5 weeks ago, at a festival I got really drunk at thought It was a good idea to try som ectasy so I took half a pill of it 3 or 4 times during the night while drinking (I think it was some strong pink red bull xtc 220mg or something). I also took an SSRI pill from someone. (Completly fucking idiotic, I know.) We were awake the whole night partying and the morning after and then I began to feel shit. I got some hallucinations, feeling really weird. later that day i puked, was so dry in my mouth I almost couldnt eat. (So I got a big case of dehyrdation, which I tried to balance up with hangover pills) Then the day after that i was feeling better so I started party again, but still feeling messed up (no vision problems at this time). Couldnt really sleep the night after. I then began to feel very messsed up.

The week after I was experiencing a lot of crazy shit. My vision was extremly weird, like blurry/couldn't focus, almost like it couldn't follow properly/ not focused. My head was feeling like totally burned. I was completly dizzy could'nt do shit more than lay in bed. I went to an doctor who took the basic blood samples and so on. He thought it was nothing to worry about.

I tried taking some 5htp because i was heard it could help and i have taken 150mg every day now.

And now after 5 weeks, my vision is a bit better (not blurry). I can see clearly but it is very weird. Like hard to focus and it follows behind. I feel so fucked up in my head it's like i burned it. I almost have like derealisation I think, because of how fucked everything feels. I dont really do much more than lay in bed watching movies/youtube and such. I cant work or anything.

Because of all this I got so much anxiety and so on worrying that this shit is permanent. I'm so scared :( Maybe I got like a variant of serotonine syndrome after all that shit and then this is the after effects?
Will contact the doctor again ofcourse and see if he can send me to someone who knows more about it.

But what can I do about all this? Im really sensitive now so please dont bash me and say Im gonna be fucked up forever and so on. Any advice on how long this will last? I am eating alot of vitamins and everything. I know i completely fuked up so hard, I will never ever be in contact with shit like this again, and take it real easy on the booze in the future.
 
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Don't beat yourself up too badly, many many people have done much worse than you. Things are going to keep improving slowly and steadily, but beware simple things like physical deconditioning from laying down too long. Eat adequate protein, carbs and fats, try to get some exercise in whatever way you can (even small walks are great), and start learning mindfulness to control your anxieties. I highly recommend the Headspace app, and there are lots of great guided meditations on youtube. I personally like a guy who I believe is called Michael Sealey.

The eye muscles responsible for accommodation (focusing on things near or far away) are working just fine I'm sure, but your mind that coordinates those muscles is discombobulated and just needs some time to return to normal. Try not to worry too much in the mean time. 5 weeks in is really early on for recovering from any sort of adverse effects from ecstasy, things are going to keep steadily improving for a great deal of time to come.
 
Thanks for the answer man!

Yeah I will try to get some small walks, and the meditation part. The most annoying part about being up and walking is that I notice how weird my head feels, how werid the vision is and everything. I get like dizzy in the head.
It's like I am capable to walk but everything is sooo weird, out of place, so I get very tired in my mind/head by doing so. Same goes with doing anything else, like playing a game or taking the dishes, I can do it but it's so weird, tough, vision out of place make me dizzy and everything. I am not able to live my daily routine and working is a big no no.

I feel like 5 weeks is a long time and I haven't really seen any improvements the last 2 weeks. :(
 
If the dizziness is worse when you stand up and better when you lay down exercise will be very important, I dare say essential.

Can you tell me more about what happens when you stand up?

I would begin to taper off the 5HTP slowly.
 
Yeah okey

It's like I get a kind of dizzy feeling in the head, and the problems with the vision is much more noticable. It's hard to describe but It's like everything is off, not what it should be. I went to a family party and everything was so weird. I could have conversations but the vision problems and weird feel in the head was so extremely annoying and I got so tired from the experience I just wanted to chill.

Okey, why though? I think it helps some with the anxiety but I'm not sure
 
I just don't know if the 5HTP is doing you a whole lot of good so I would try to minimize the factors affecting you and let yourself return to homeostasis.

I think you should definitely exercise, if you have to start out on walks that's fine but I'd like to see you eventually work up to light jogging and then jogging. Eat well and meditate a lot, it will be important not to ruminate 24/7.

If you can see a cardiologist at some point that would be good, you should be checked for orthostatic hypotension, essentially when your blood pressure drops when you stand up. Or even get checked for low blood pressure sitting/standing.
 
Okey I will begin to slowly lower the dosage of 5htp.

I think I got some derealisation, or maybe just because of the weird vision problems. I just went out on a walk but I feel extremely weird in the head with the vision, vision is like a described before very unstable, unusual, sometimes hard to focus, somewhat follows after, feels sensitive, very hard to describe :/.

I actually checked the blood pressure today, it was 120/75 so all good there.

But the thing with the vision problems is that I do notice them more by walking and standing up and let my vision travel across the room. When lying down I still have all the vision stuff, brain feeling weird, derealisation and stuff but it's sometimes not as intense.

One thing I think I notice about the vision also is that i'm sensitive to bright lights, looking up at the sky or something really white I get like some noise, "the war of the ants" like on an old TV.

I feel so messed up :(
 
5 htp has these side effects. It is not a good type of Serotonin, any effect it adds is a very foggy unnatural body load Serotonin for me at least.
 
Checked it yourself with an automated machine? I would like to hear ehat it reads from a doctor's office with examination of your standing and sitting to standing blood pressure but any data from yourself is useful too.

You might consider scheduling with an opthamalogist.

What you are describing visually sounds like visual snow, and the blue sky phenomenon is nothing new but can appear more intense. Does HPPD seem to fit your visuals? Wiki has a good thing on HPPD, I would check there.

But this bluriness sounds more like an out of focus issue.
 
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I checked the blood pressure at the doctor.

I will try to get in contact with an opthamalogist yeah.

Hmm I have read alot about HPPD and I'm not sure. In some way yeah, it could be some variant of hppd. But somehow the main thing for me is how I feel, like the perception of everything is skewed. I have a hard time describing everything with the vision. It's so off, alot about it is wrong. But the colors are right, I can focus and read somewhat. I dont have anything floating around or so. But still it's like dizzy, not spinning but dizzy/wrong/off/unfocused in a way/maybe like its moving somehow.. hmm... like very unstable

Sometimes I wonder if the problem is in fact not in the eyes but instead in the nerves/synapses of the brain when it tries to percieve the images or so. Maybe a bad explaination haha but yeah. I cant experience what I'm seeing in a sense. My vision dont really correspond to what it should be doing.
 
I think an opthamalogist or neuroopthamologist's opinion would be the best to seek. In the mean time try not to do too much laying around, get in a couple walks a day and eat well.
 
I was at a Doctor today and they didn't see anything wrong by taking blood samples again and ekg. I still havent met and opthamalogist or neruoopthamologist, the doctor I spoke to said its unlikely that they will find anyting. But im going to push it so I atleast can talk to one.
I will try to keep you update on my revocery, which seems like it will be long and hard :/ Feeling quite hopeless and down at the moment though...

Btw, I now know that the SSRI I took that night was one pill of citalopram 10mg.

Currently taking 100mg of 5htp before going to bed, I'm not sure if it's doing so much or not but I do suspect that it helps me with the worst anxiety.
 
Well 10mg Citalopram isn't too bad.

I hope you feel better soon, I imagine it's just going to take some time for things to reset. Try to get some rest and sleep but don't lay down too much.

Good luck, feel free to update anytime and talk in the MDMA recovery thread as well.
 
I was at a Doctor today and they didn't see anything wrong by taking blood samples again and ekg. I still havent met and opthamalogist or neruoopthamologist, the doctor I spoke to said its unlikely that they will find anyting. But im going to push it so I atleast can talk to one.
I will try to keep you update on my revocery, which seems like it will be long and hard :/ Feeling quite hopeless and down at the moment though...

Btw, I now know that the SSRI I took that night was one pill of citalopram 10mg.

Currently taking 100mg of 5htp before going to bed, I'm not sure if it's doing so much or not but I do suspect that it helps me with the worst anxiety.


FYI: Side effects of 5htp include dizziness, brain fog, and some people have actually experienced blurred vision
 
Hey guys

Today I have actually managed to stay more postitive. I noticed that the more anxiety I have over this, the worse the symptoms get. So just today I actually managed to enjoy some things. I had to help my sister with moving out of her apartment, and for me with all the dizzyness/vision stuff this seemed like and incredible hard task. But somehow it was not as hard as I thought it would be. You know, I have a good connection with family and managed to have a good time talking and joking today about stuff and therefore occasionally forgetting my anxieties and symptoms to a small degree. It's something!

I think this is an imporant step in the right direction to overcome this. I do notice the vision problems much but I think I'm able to keep them to a much more manageable level by anxiety relief and staying positive. You know, my life is not over, hopefully the symptoms will go away in time so I'm going to do my very best to stay positive! :) I must say I'm a bit amazed about how the mindset can turn some things around so fast, yesterday I was so down after the meeting with the doctor and anxiety and stuff, but right now I actually don't feel that down. I guess it might go down again though but I will remember this day with the postive mindset.

Yes, yesterday I took 50mg 5HTP before bed and I will continue takin 50mg for a few more days before laying off completly I think, does that seem good or should I ride it out on 50mg even longer? Have been taking 5htp for a total of 4 and a half week.
 
I really do think improving your anxiety will improve your quality of life so much. I really recommend mindfulness to keep your mind off of things.

It would be good to keep tapering like that.
 
One thing I noticed however, is that I dont really have the "normal" physcial anxiety issues like high pulse, feel rapid heart beating, pressure over chest, sweatting or anything such? So I guess I'll have to wait this one out, there is no need to try anxiety relief medications or anything? I noticed that I acutally do got some visual snow (not extreme but definitely there). I also found another way to describe the vision issues, It's almost like when you focus on something, you can see the surrounding a bit through the object Im focusing on, like the differnence between the you look thorugh your right eye and your left eye (the little differnce in angle ).

Another question, should I try to go for a jog and do some cardio even though it gets my all dizzy/more vision problems and such? I will probably have to lay down afterwards but maybe it is just good to do the stuff that triggers it more?
 
Some visual snow is completely normal. Anxiety can make us more prone to noticing it.

Heavy cardio makes my dr/dp/hppd worse for about an hour after but helps in the long run so is worth it. I have to lay down afterwards though because it takes it out of me, so I prefer to run in the evenings.
 
Update:

Nothing has really changed, still pretty fucked up vision. I guess I'm getting used to it slightly better but still very annoying. Still wont apply for work because I dont feel I could handle it.

I dont really have any anxiety or depression at all though. Ofcource I do get very tired of all this but atleast my mood is pretty alright. I'm very sure my sertonin levels är back to normal, it feels that way.

During the days I spend most of the time by the computer, youtube/movies/playing games. I try o stay active, go for walks, jogging, weighlifting and so on. It is a pain in the ass to do it cus I feel my symptoms more, especially being outside with bright light, perspective, deep and far away objects and a lot going on makes the vision hppd a real pain. But yeah I still try to keep up. I would really want something to change for the better, or maybe it is slowly getting better, I'm just not noticing it?
 
Just to be clear. Did you take 3 or 4 half pills. Ie 2 pills max or just half a pill?
 
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