Bad ecstasy experience -- terrible damage.

[Granite]

Hi, everyone. First, thanks for checking this out and I would love to hear any thoughts on what could be at the bottom of my problems.

15 years ago, I experimented with ecstasy. The 2nd to last time I used it, I had sex on it. I had a very strange reaction upon orgasm. Saw lots of blue flashes in my vision, felt tingling around my body, itchy and weird. Some symptoms lingered, but I tried ecstasy again not long after. Within minutes of ingestion, I felt really weird and anxious. My hands and feet started tingling very strong and curling up like I had poor blood flow. My mood was terrible but was able to calm myself until the tingling settled. The damage was done somewhere in this mix.

Days after I developed chronic hives for the first time from exposure to the sun or heat. I still had annoying tingling in my hands and feet, as well of feelings like things were crawling on me, ringing in the ears, rapid heartrate, and visual disturbances. I went to the doctor about the hives and was put on anti-histamines which only made things worse for me. I broke out in larger welts from all the anti-histamines I tried. Funny thing, is I noticed having alcohol settled my hives and made all my symptoms calm. So, that's how I became an alcoholic.

For years I managed my symptoms with alcohol. Then, it kind of stopped working. I started becoming intolerant to alcohol, getting a cold feeling throughout my body, very pale, fatigued, lots of joint pain. I saw several doctors at that time, no one could really see anything wrong. By off chance, because one of my symptoms was hair loss, I got on the drug finasteride (propecia) and had an amazing result. Within a month I was feeling better than I had in years. My hives werent coming out much, my vision was clearing, I wasn't tired and my hair grew in massively thick.

But, like everything else, that didn't last long, within a year on the drug, I was having side effects, feeling very tired and getting sick multiple times a month. I pulled off the drug and felt better pretty soon, but all my other symptoms started returning and new symptoms I didnt have before -- food intolerance issues, severe anxiety, sinus problems and more. I also tried to prednisone, which worked amazing and cured all my symptoms for 2 weeks, but everything returned maybe worse than before.

Fast forward a couple years and I'm having serious sinus difficulties. I have surgery for a deviated septum which is a disaster, my skin isn't healing properly. The doctors put me on opiate pain medication which I start having a strange reaction to -- felt high anxiety and severe brain fog, but the feeling subsides about 45 minutes after ingestion and I feel good. Anyway, during this period I meet a new girl and have a crazy sex weekend. A couple days later I get very sick. Now, I start having intense visual tracers or trails, blue flashes in vision all the time, constant pressure in the chest, anxiety, lots of pain... all sorts of things.

I don't recover from this. In fact, it's been 5 years. I have made a lot of progress, but am still hindered by whatever the problem is. I can't have sex often because my symptoms get worse after an orgasm. This makes me think there is something androgen/hormone related by the fact that prednisone and finasteride were very helpful for me initially. I also seem to have some issue with chronic dehydration. Epsom salt baths make me very sick, anything that causes dehydration seems to make my symptoms a million times worse.

I feel kind of trapped. Obviously, I've been through the ringer... but I've seen tons of doctors and we have barely gotten a step closer to the cause. I've been upfront about potential drug causes and such, but whenever I bring it up, they just kind of give me a brush off like there's no doctor to see for drug related damage.

I know that ecstasy plays some role in dehydration, and maybe I messed up some mechanism in this area... The androgen thing as well is very intriguing, but I can't get an endocrinologist to work with me on it. So, I'm hoping anyone, someone has some knowledge on what could have happened so I can keep on my journey to recovery.

Thanks for reading..

 

[Serotonist]

Wow, this is familiar to the point of fear. Every time past the first time that I have done MDMA (molly, never done x before), I get that weird and anxious feeling you describe. I have to talk myself out of it and alcohol helps IMMENSELY. In fact, my last many times I have refused to take the drug until I get at least a moderate buzz going. I do this because I have had two bad times on MDMA where that nervous feeling lasted the entire trip and i just had to lie down for hours; These two times were both the only times I was not drinking on it. And again, EVERY time I get the feeling of low circulation where my hands get cold and tingly.

The thing that is truly frightening me is your sinus issues. For my birthday weekend, I made the terrible decision to roll 4 nights in a row. I only "rolled balls" one of those four nights, but ever since then I have had a cough from hell, a runny nose, and a stuffy ear that is to the point of slight hearing loss. This happened on labor day weekend this year
(2014) so I was kind of expecting my sinus issues to be part of the campus' virus I've been hearing about (I moved into my dorm 4 weeks ago). Coincidentally, I have known that I have had a deviated septum for years now but I have never had a surgery.

I know this doesn't help you any, but I have had highly relatable issues. Your post has actually scared the shit out of me.

Let me ask you this though, Granite, you are still 100% functioning?

 

[jaishivaya]

isn't the nervous feeling you're getting is from the amphetamines inside the drug? sweaty, anxious, curly, teeth grinding, antsy, jittery. That's all symptoms of the drug. It is normal for you to have depression or sadness the day after you take it because your body has to rebuild the serotonin levels up to normal. Like with any drug, the higher you go, the harder you fall.

Ask yourself these few questions:
Do you take ecstasy habitually?
Do you drink on a daily basis?
Do you take any other drugs?
This is kind of personal, but is there a ritual you do when you masturbate. I ask this because for example if you wear headphones and masturbate for a long period of time, then you will eventually have to wear headphones to orgasm because that becomes part of your self-taught body.
What sort of prescription pills? Btw I decided not to take propecia because I hear it makes you impotent. So I have the same problem as you do, but mine started at 20 and I don't care because it's my DNA. My DNA is beautiful. Your DNA is beautiful. Be proud. Don't hide your DNA.
Do you have a dependency on any of these drugs? ie. ritalin, hydrocodone, norco, etc.
How often do you exercise? Are you happy with your life and your situation?

I've taken a bunch of E and drank a bunch. I've never had any problems with my reproductive systems. I'm careful of the pornography and sexual encounters and how these events in-turn affect my psychology. Taking prescription pills are the worst thing that anyone can do to self-medicate themselves. It's better to solve the root of the cause of the problem and suffering than to try to brush it off by taking pills. The problem is still there. Taking drugs to brush off the symptoms isn't going to make the problem/suffering go away.

You do understand that ecstasy is a mixture of different compounds right? MDMA, crap like laxatives, ibuprofen, coke, amphetamines, 5-htp, whatever that's cheap on the market. You don't know what's inside, but it will for sure be a mixture of MDMA and amphetamines. So part of your symptoms are coming from both realms. It uses a lot of Vitamin C in your body so your body is also reacting to the lack of Vitamin C. You should take 1000mg of Vitamin C before and after you take E. Don't worry about Vitamin C, you can't overdose on that unlike Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, etc. You piss out Vitamin C and doesn't get stored in your body.

Hope that helps.

Jai-Ma.

 

[Xorkoth]

Ecstacy CAN be a mixture of different things, or it can be pure MDMA, or it can not contain any MDMA at all. It entirely depends on the pills. However it does obfuscate matters quite a bit as it's not possible (unless you tested the pill or had pure MDMA) to know what you really took. There are plenty of pills that just contain MDMA and binders. Adding some amphetamines to MDMA pills is pretty popular because pure MDMA can be pretty stoning sometimes.

Also, there aren't amphetamines inside MDMA, MDMA itself is an amphetamine. There are many, many different amphetamine compounds.

 

[Granite]

Hey, Guys! Thank you all for your replies -- I truly appreciate it. I'm responding to each of you right now.

Wow, this is familiar to the point of fear. Every time past the first time that I have done MDMA (molly, never done x before), I get that weird and anxious feeling you describe. I have to talk myself out of it and alcohol helps IMMENSELY. In fact, my last many times I have refused to take the drug until I get at least a moderate buzz going. I do this because I have had two bad times on MDMA where that nervous feeling lasted the entire trip and i just had to lie down for hours; These two times were both the only times I was not drinking on it. And again, EVERY time I get the feeling of low circulation where my hands get cold and tingly.

The thing that is truly frightening me is your sinus issues. For my birthday weekend, I made the terrible decision to roll 4 nights in a row. I only "rolled balls" one of those four nights, but ever since then I have had a cough from hell, a runny nose, and a stuffy ear that is to the point of slight hearing loss. This happened on labor day weekend this year
(2014) so I was kind of expecting my sinus issues to be part of the campus' virus I've been hearing about (I moved into my dorm 4 weeks ago). Coincidentally, I have known that I have had a deviated septum for years now but I have never had a surgery.

I know this doesn't help you any, but I have had highly relatable issues. Your post has actually scared the shit out of me.

Let me ask you this though, Granite, you are still 100% functioning?

Definitely sounds like you can relate! Do you ever get the feeling in your extremities to the point that your hands start to curl? I only ever had the curling effect happen during the last ecstasy drop and during treatment for my symptoms when I tried a drug called Plaquenil.

As far as sinus issues go, I had problems with environmental allergies my whole, but never had serious sinus issues until at least 5 years after that experience (10 years ago). The surgery was unsuccessful for me especially because the way this affected me did something to my skin, and my skin does not heal properly. I have scars that are rugged -- I think they're called hyperplastic. Anyway, one of the worst problems in going through this illness is constant dryness of the mucous membranes. My sinuses are so inflammed I could not breathe through my nose for years. It's improved though, thankfully.

Your question of functionality is hard to answer. I'm not completely disabled. But, I've been unable to work since the onset of this major flare-up in 2009. That's 5 years I've been relegated to misery. I have a multitude of symptoms: to the point I was initially diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, fibromyalgia and other incorrect diagnoses. I know this started with the drug use, so that's where this begins and ends with me.

isn't the nervous feeling you're getting is from the amphetamines inside the drug? sweaty, anxious, curly, teeth grinding, antsy, jittery. That's all symptoms of the drug. It is normal for you to have depression or sadness the day after you take it because your body has to rebuild the serotonin levels up to normal. Like with any drug, the higher you go, the harder you fall.

Ask yourself these few questions:
Do you take ecstasy habitually?
Do you drink on a daily basis?
Do you take any other drugs?
This is kind of personal, but is there a ritual you do when you masturbate. I ask this because for example if you wear headphones and masturbate for a long period of time, then you will eventually have to wear headphones to orgasm because that becomes part of your self-taught body.
What sort of prescription pills? Btw I decided not to take propecia because I hear it makes you impotent. So I have the same problem as you do, but mine started at 20 and I don't care because it's my DNA. My DNA is beautiful. Your DNA is beautiful. Be proud. Don't hide your DNA.
Do you have a dependency on any of these drugs? ie. ritalin, hydrocodone, norco, etc.
How often do you exercise? Are you happy with your life and your situation?

I've taken a bunch of E and drank a bunch. I've never had any problems with my reproductive systems. I'm careful of the pornography and sexual encounters and how these events in-turn affect my psychology. Taking prescription pills are the worst thing that anyone can do to self-medicate themselves. It's better to solve the root of the cause of the problem and suffering than to try to brush it off by taking pills. The problem is still there. Taking drugs to brush off the symptoms isn't going to make the problem/suffering go away.

You do understand that ecstasy is a mixture of different compounds right? MDMA, crap like laxatives, ibuprofen, coke, amphetamines, 5-htp, whatever that's cheap on the market. You don't know what's inside, but it will for sure be a mixture of MDMA and amphetamines. So part of your symptoms are coming from both realms. It uses a lot of Vitamin C in your body so your body is also reacting to the lack of Vitamin C. You should take 1000mg of Vitamin C before and after you take E. Don't worry about Vitamin C, you can't overdose on that unlike Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, etc. You piss out Vitamin C and doesn't get stored in your body.

Hope that helps.

Jai-Ma.

jaishivaya, when I was experimenting with the drug, I had some of those symptoms like the teeth grinding, but I knew they were all part of the experience and nothing ever lingered past the trip. I do not remember how much it affected my mood afterward, but never to the point I felt like it was completely unusual. However, the last experience was a different beast, and I've had all sorts of weird problems since then.

I have not taken ecstasy in 15 years. When I did, I probably did it less than 10 times total.
I have not drank in almost 5 years, but after the ecstasy experience I was a habitual to chronic drinker for close to 10 years.
I do not do any other drugs, besides a very short stint with opoids 5 years ago that seemed to aggravate my underlying condition and was unable to tolerate them at the onset of this flare-up (I call this 5 year disaster a flare-up). Before using ecstasy, I was a daily herb smoker. I cannot smoke herb anymore either, it creates immediate panic, anxiety, chest tightness and other stuff. Drinking with herb makes the effect 10 times worse.

I've always been an athletic kid, skateboarded and played lots of sports, and was in the gym a lot through my 20s. I had stop a lot of that when this happened, but I do the best to maintain myself.

As far as masturbation goes, I probably averaged 3-4 times a week through my late teens and early 20s.. but also had girlfriends through this entire period. So, I was busting nuts many more times than that. There was a point where I was masturbating once sometimes twice a day though. I kind of remember feeling really good right after masturbating. That feeling has been replaced with immediate tightness of my muscles, pretty severe depression, joint aches and pain and fatigue.

Ecstacy CAN be a mixture of different things, or it can be pure MDMA, or it can not contain any MDMA at all. It entirely depends on the pills. However it does obfuscate matters quite a bit as it's not possible (unless you tested the pill or had pure MDMA) to know what you really took. There are plenty of pills that just contain MDMA and binders. Adding some amphetamines to MDMA pills is pretty popular because pure MDMA can be pretty stoning sometimes.

Also, there aren't amphetamines inside MDMA, MDMA itself is an amphetamine. There are many, many different amphetamine compounds.

Yes, something I didn't really understand back then. This was 1999. Ecstasy was kind of new and taking off in raves and such. The pills I got this night had red specks on them. I remember looking into them, and finding the posibility that it could be heroin...or even a pill that contained rat poison! I stupidly ignored this lead looking speck in the pill, which who knows what it could have been. But, I had friends who all took the same batch with me and none of them suffered.

I can't really say if it was that pill or not. There is the fact that I had problems stemming from the previous roll I had not long before. So, I think it's more probable that it just aggravated the causing incident.

 

[jaishivaya]

From what I read you seem fine. I don't know how long you've had your problems for, but if it has been like this for months it might be good for you to look into different options. Or Maybe you're just overracting? It's hard for me to tell and gauge your situation as I am only another person behind a computer.

This is probably not the rhetorical answer you wanted to hear, but simply put I don't think your symptoms are physiological as you seem to take care of and maintain your body. It might be a good option to look into a therapist to see if you have any underlying issues that might have caused you to have such reactions to orgasms. It could be skeletons in the closet? Underlying issue with depression, mental stress, etc.?

Red specks is kind of weird. Normally with pills you have MDMA, which is brown in color and they would most likely put about 0.03~0.04 mg of it. You have your binding agent. And you have your meth. So you mix the 3 together to make a pill. Some people may put some designs or food coloring to change the color of it, but it's a little hard to tell what those red specks are. It might have been helpful if you took some pictures.

 

[InsGrat]

Hello Granite,
I'm very sorry to hear about your health problems.
Some considerations I have to offer: There is of course the possibility of unusual and highly dangerous cutting agents but MDMA itself is very well researched.
While I personally do not have extensive knowledge about it I feel like any potential it has for permanent physiological damage or to"mess up some mechanism" as you put it would be known to the medical community.
There are other possibilities.
You could have a health issue not caused by the MDMA but since drugs and especially this drug can make you very sensitive about your body it was then that you first noted the onset. The anxiety surrounding your drug use could then have exacerbated the progress of this issue/disease.
You could also suffer from a drug induced psychosis. Psychosis does not just manifest itself in for example "seeing things" but can also manifest itself in all manner of unpleasant physical sensations.
If you have a genetic predisposition to psychosis a "normal" (ie not overdose) drug dose, that leaves people without such predisposition (hence your unaffected friends who you say took the same) without negative consequences, could trigger it.
Since you say you have seen a lot of Physicians already with no result I would really implore you to see a mental health professional and explore possible options.

All the best to you

 

[Granite]

From what I read you seem fine. I don't know how long you've had your problems for, but if it has been like this for months it might be good for you to look into different options. Or Maybe you're just overracting? It's hard for me to tell and gauge your situation as I am only another person behind a computer.

I'll never understand what possesses people to assume problems are in "someones head." Does anyone ever think about what that even means? Too funny.

 

[Granite]

Hello Granite,
I'm very sorry to hear about your health problems.
Some considerations I have to offer: There is of course the possibility of unusual and highly dangerous cutting agents but MDMA itself is very well researched.
While I personally do not have extensive knowledge about it I feel like any potential it has for permanent physiological damage or to"mess up some mechanism" as you put it would be known to the medical community.
There are other possibilities.
You could have a health issue not caused by the MDMA but since drugs and especially this drug can make you very sensitive about your body it was then that you first noted the onset. The anxiety surrounding your drug use could then have exacerbated the progress of this issue/disease.
You could also suffer from a drug induced psychosis. Psychosis does not just manifest itself in for example "seeing things" but can also manifest itself in all manner of unpleasant physical sensations.
If you have a genetic predisposition to psychosis a "normal" (ie not overdose) drug dose, that leaves people without such predisposition (hence your unaffected friends who you say took the same) without negative consequences, could trigger it.
Since you say you have seen a lot of Physicians already with no result I would really implore you to see a mental health professional and explore possible options.

All the best to you

Hey InsGrat, thanks for your message.

You could be right about a health condition other than the drug use. I've been mulling over the idea lately the drug use may have brought out something (maybe genetic). Interestingly, I had something called exome sequencing done to find defects in any of the protein genes. And, they found 1 truly unique result. I'm hemizygous in a specific gene, but they don't know what it means because no one else in there database has it. Interesting, aye?

I appreciate the suggestions. I've been down the mental health road. I currently see a psychotherapist who helps me through this. She diagnosed me with mood disorder caused by my illness, but I'm otherwise OK. I have had some psychosis moments, but mostly able to keep myself in check. The things I'm "seeing" are not ghosts are anything like that, it's more like a light-sensitivity issue where things stay stuck in my vision longer than they should. For example, if I look at the TV and move my eyes quickly to the left, the TV will follow my vision on to the next background (like a wall next to it). The HPPD community calls this visual tracers or visual trails. It's definitely a perceptive disorder.

I'm still trying to put it all together, and feel like I'm getting closer than ever. I keep finding things in the area of Proinflammatory Cytokines. Specifically, I've had great success with Prostaglandin inhibitors... and terrible problems with Leukotriene inhibitors. This is what I'm working on right now.

 

[realtalkloc]

I'll never understand what possesses people to assume problems are in "someones head." Does anyone ever think about what that even means? Too funny.

it may all be in your head, it happens.

 

[Granite]

it may all be in your head, it happens.

Fascinating. Please explain.

 

[John_Burrows]

That is very usually. Generally speaking MDMA is incredibly safe, are you sure you had received pure MDMA and not some strange street drug? Were you taking anything else?

 

[Maya]

That is very usually. Generally speaking MDMA is incredibly safe, are you sure you had received pure MDMA and not some strange street drug? Were you taking anything else?

This, I am one of the ones who suffered from the long ass bad effects of the untested M. Maybe it wasn't m but it's too late to assume now. I have recovered though but it takes a lot of time for some.

 

[realtalkloc]

Fascinating. Please explain.

you explained it already in your opening post.

 

[Granite]

you explained it already in your opening post.

You're so S M A R T! Thanks!

 

[Granite]

That is very usually. Generally speaking MDMA is incredibly safe, are you sure you had received pure MDMA and not some strange street drug? Were you taking anything else?

Just smoking weed. I had tried LSD and shrooms a single time each before the incident as well. I had no lingering effects from those though.

 

[Ubi]

O.P

The initial symptoms you describe are similar to what my sweetheart went through about a year ago. We had gotten some 'e' from a family member, taken it, it wasn't brown like I remembered it was in the 90's, it was white. Well, he had a really bad reaction. Turned out, it was not E at all. Maybe a tiny amount of mdma but mo stly meth amphetamine (spelling this wrong). He curled up, had rapid eye movement, stiffened and he was out. I called the ambulance, they worked on him brought him to the emergency, worked on him some more, he came back and then spent the night inthe ICU. Scariest f in night ever. Horrible.

Afterwards, it took him awhile to get back to normal ish. Sex drive shot for months, back now tha nk goodness. But he drinks heavily now. Has poor blood flow.

sounds similar. His heart has always beat fast though.

Maybe next time you go to the Dr. tell her/him the symptoms but leave out the drug use. See if their more 'open' to treatment.

 

[ScaredFirstTimer]

Granite, any updates? Have you found anything worth researching further?

BTW, the level of ignorance and just plain stupidity in this thread is fucking extreme. People didn't even bother to read the OP or anything else you wrote. Holy shit. (I understand if you left BL because of this).

 

[Ubi]

Granite, any updates? Have you found anything worth researching further?

BTW, the level of ignorance and just plain stupidity in this thread is fucking extreme. People didn't even bother to read the OP or anything else you wrote. Holy shit. (I understand if you left BL because of this).

Baloney. REad the whole thing personally. LIke how you include everyone

 

[cosmic._.ape]

Granite, any updates? Have you found anything worth researching further?

BTW, the level of ignorance and just plain stupidity in these thread is fucking extreme. People didn't even bother to read the OP or anything else you wrote. Holy shit. (I understand if you left BL because of this).

I was thinking exactly the same. Sorry Granite, can't add more useful information. I hope you will soon find a solution