Is HPPd from mdma a sign of brain damage?

[AmphetamineNinja]

Ive taken maybe 100 pills, 60 in 6 months though with one tw0 day binge 0f 12 pills. I have hppd and muscle twitches, could this be brain damage. Its been two years sense that time, i still have symptoms, but i also make a 3.0 at a top university.

 

[ttownboy]

i get twitches and weird muscle movements all day especially when my body needs rest. stay away from everything including alcohol and your brain is very likely and capable of healing itself over time

 

[HoneyRoastedPeanut]

I'd say it is definitely brain damage, although all the MDMA studies I remember reading say that it is temporary. So you may be in for a few more years of this, or even longer, but it will probably go away eventually if you stop using. A friend of mine has binged worse than you describe on both MDMA and other drugs, and he just lives with the twitches and OEVs.

 

[AmphetamineNinja]

yup well i still smoke weed (vaporize) and drink so maybe i havent alllowed it to heal. Its not as grim as i make it sound sometimes. it could be other things to i just dont know.

 

[HoneyRoastedPeanut]

I don't think it has to do with other drugs, just meant if you were still using E. And yeah it's not really grim, just depends on how you think about it, it's great actually if you are a storyteller type like my buddy!

 

[ShaolinBomber]

if you KNOW you have HPPD ( and by KNOW, i mean constantly seeing tracers/ halos/ static/enchaned color perception/sensitivty to light/ flashes of stars or colors/ afterimages,positive and negative.) etc. then stay away from mdma and ANY kind of psychedelic drug for sure. Others will go as far to say that its smart to stay away from SSRI's and ESPEICALLY anti-psychaotics.

IF you've had it for 2 years, theres a good chance that some of it, that is IF you start to see recession in symptoms, will be with you for a very long time, perhaps the rest of your life unless they find a way to reverse unsatisfactory inhibitory afferents to the abnormal excitiatory actiivty.

Also understand that HPPD IS NOT brain damage. HPPD is simply alterations made to your visual cortex, probably in some kind of form of reinforced excitatory pathways in the visual cortex due to synaptic plasticity via strong changes to RNA gene expression coding, making the cells work different than normal, and extending or reinforcing excitatory links between other neurons.

 

[Toast to the Spirits]

I've done around 300 pills since 2001. I was not doing too good after '06-'07 but with abstinence, now I feel normal. The last time I did it was probably about 8 months ago. It seems to take me about 7-8 months now to fully recover and feel completely normal again from a night out on E, but the good thing is that I don't really feel that any of the damage was permanent. The way I see it now, E is just not worth it.

 

[poopstation]

i get twitches and weird muscle movements all day especially when my body needs rest. stay away from everything including alcohol and your brain is very likely and capable of healing itself over time

i agree. i've never had muscle twitches but have abused mdma heavily in the past, followed by abusing mushrooms and other psychedelics which resulted in hppd, then went back to mdma and made the hppd much worse. it took the better part of a year for it to go away. the hppd was followed by strong anxiety, i still get halos around objects and the "bugs" in the sky to this day, 7 years later, but it no longer bothers me. the bad part of the hppd / anxiety was gone after SEVERAL months of abstinence but then i had it pretty bad. it made me almost unfunctional at its worst, horrible nightmares, waking up to seeing full-blown hallucinations when in the dark.

 

[vancbc]

I have mild, lingering HPPD-like symptoms that have remained long after I quit using E regularly.

The two main symptoms are that still pictures of clouds "move" when I look at them, mainly on a computer or tv screen. The movement is always from right to left, and even when I know they aren't moving they still "move".

The second is that now I sometimes awake very suddenly with a feeling that something or someone is in the bedroom. For a second or two after opening my eyes, in the dark I see superimposed images of a person or object, very life like and in three dimensions. This is accompanied by a very strange out of body feeling that is not unpleasant or pleasant. The images begin to fade almost immediately and in a second or two they are gone.

The sensation I have is not one of fear, but more of wonder. Once I saw a woman walking along the bed, and my first impression was that she was lost and needed help. I woke up my partner who was sleeping next to me, but by then she was gone. I don't believe in the supernatural, so there is some brain function thing that is causing these experiences.

 

[ShaolinBomber]

I have mild, lingering HPPD-like symptoms that have remained long after I quit using E regularly.

The two main symptoms are that still pictures of clouds "move" when I look at them, mainly on a computer or tv screen. The movement is always from right to left, and even when I know they aren't moving they still "move".

The second is that now I sometimes awake very suddenly with a feeling that something or someone is in the bedroom. For a second or two after opening my eyes, in the dark I see superimposed images of a person or object, very life like and in three dimensions. This is accompanied by a very strange out of body feeling that is not unpleasant or pleasant. The images begin to fade almost immediately and in a second or two they are gone.

The sensation I have is not one of fear, but more of wonder. Once I saw a woman walking along the bed, and my first impression was that she was lost and needed help. I woke up my partner who was sleeping next to me, but by then she was gone. I don't believe in the supernatural, so there is some brain function thing that is causing these experiences.

full-blown visual hallucinations is really NOT a GOOD sign AT ALL. Have you consulted a phsyician about that? Intense cases of schizophrenia begin like seeing split second hallucinations that look 100% real to you. As i've come to understand it, shizophrenia can become worse as you get older, aka the illness will progress if you dont try and treat it.

 

[vancbc]

full-blown visual hallucinations is really NOT a GOOD sign AT ALL. Have you consulted a phsyician about that? Intense cases of schizophrenia begin like seeing split second hallucinations that look 100% real to you. As i've come to understand it, shizophrenia can become worse as you get older, aka the illness will progress if you dont try and treat it.

Thanks for your concern and the information in your post. I see a mental health professional regularly to maintain good mental health, and I am not diagnosed with any mental dysfunction except a mild case of social anxiety that has responded well to cognitive behavioural therapy.

These hallucinations that I am referring to occur in frequency related to how much and how often I use psychoactive drugs. During long periods of abstinence from drugs, they are a rare exception rather than the rule - except for the clouds that move - those are always there but very specific to still photos of clouds on a screen or page.

 

[ulev]

i did mdma two day binge, but i also done shrooms about 20 times. when i turned 20 i got hppd, but for me its all good except for my tinnitus and my sensitivity to sounds. has anyone else got these two symptoms from hppd. its not my only two (also have visual snow always, and muscle twitches) but they are my anoying symptoms can these be caused from hppd.

 

[Mantis Style]

i did mdma two day binge, but i also done shrooms about 20 times. when i turned 20 i got hppd, but for me its all good except for my tinnitus and my sensitivity to sounds. has anyone else got these two symptoms from hppd. its not my only two (also have visual snow always, and muscle twitches) but they are my anoying symptoms can these be caused from hppd.

I think you got away rather lucky if thats all you experience now. I would not push it anymore with further psychedelic use.

 

[Rewired]

i did mdma two day binge, but i also done shrooms about 20 times. when i turned 20 i got hppd, but for me its all good except for my tinnitus and my sensitivity to sounds. has anyone else got these two symptoms from hppd. its not my only two (also have visual snow always, and muscle twitches) but they are my anoying symptoms can these be caused from hppd.

Sounds like you have hyperacusis and tinnitus which are common to have at the same time. Myself I developed Hyperacusis long before I got HPPD from a prescription drug called champix. My Hyperacusis gets worse when I am stressed out or when exposed to high pitched noises (specifically dishes/glass clanging). I would recommend you do some further research on it. There is no specific cure but mine has gotten waay better over the course of a couple years. I would recommend avoiding stress, getting exercise and listening to music that you enjoy to retrain your ears to accept the noise. I too have visual snow from taking too much MDMA after being given some loxapine and ativan a few days earlier in a hospital due to my mental instability from a prescription drug Champix. I think the Loxapine was a co factor in me getting HPPD becuase it affects some of the same receptors as MDMA and slows down your brain so it is my assumption that my brain was hindered from recovering from the MDMA because of the Loxapine which made me feel messed up after taking it and caused me to have breathing problems amogst other things. After taking the MDMA things looked 2D to me and when looking at someone against the sky it turned bright flashing neon green. Also greens and yellows were very bright. When looking at people walking across the street it reminded me of the matrix cause it didn't seem real. I also experienced intense anxiety and didn't recognise myself in the mirror (but I already had that problem from Champix and was made worse by Loxapine - possibly DP?). I also have had extreme fatigue which is partially a blessing because before going to the hospital I couldn't sleep much but I have been sleeping too much lately. I also aquired decreased cognitive ability which I experienced after taking the loxapine but seemed to be made worse by the MDMA. It has been about 5 months now since I got HPPD and I quit smoking pot 3 months ago and quit drinking 3 weeks ago. The symptoms have mostly subsided except the visual snow which varies in intensity and is worse indoors, when I pay attention to it or if I am feeling anxious. I am also tired quite often.