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Dissociatives DXM benders, what happened to my brain

Greenonion76

Greenlighter
Joined
May 17, 2024
Messages
20
Location
Gateshead, UK
srry if this post is kinda long but anyway,
in october 2025 i binged on both pregabalin and DXM. because myself being an idiot noticed the pregablin use was getting more out of control, so i thought i could stop cold turkey and do the other drug i was on, DXM, in the mean time, but instead it went very bad.

when i look at the drug diary i found this:
02/10/2025 - 375mg DXM 8.10pm
04/10/2025 - 300mg pregabalin 6.20pm
05/10/2025 - 300mg pregabalin 7.30am
06/10/2025 - 300mg pregabalin 9.25am + 300mg pregabalin 12:10pm + small joint 4.20pm + bigger joint 10.45pm
08/10/2025 - 300mg DXM 9.00am + 130mg DXM 12.15pm
09/10/2025 - 300mg pregabalin 1.25pm + 300mg pregablin 6.30pm
11/10/2025 - 300mg pregabalin 10.26am
12/10/2025 - 300mg pregabalin 2.08pm
14/10/2025 - 300mg pregabalin 9.55am + 300mg pregabalin 7.20pm + remaining weed 10.30pm
16/10/2025 - 300mg pregabalin 12.15pm + 300mg pregabalin 6.10pm
17/10/2025 - 375mg DXM (unknown time it says)
18/10/2025 - 300mg pregabalin 11.30am + 300mg pregabalin 7.50pm
20/10/2025 - "pregabalin 2x" "robitussin" (unknown times)
21/10/2025 - 2x pregs, 2x (unknown) (unknown times)
23/10/2025 - 375mg DXM (unknown times) "dex and preg"
... (i may or may not have had any drugs during this time)
28/10/2025 - 300mg pregabalin 6.30am + 300mg pregabalin 3.00pm + 300mg DXM 9.45pm
29/10/2025 - 375mg DXM 1.02pm + 300mg pregabalin 6.00pm + 300mg pregabalin 10:00pm (notes say i felt sober by 10am the morning after)
30/10/2025 - 375mg DXM 4pm + 300mg pregabalin 9.55pm

i remember that on halloween i had a total of 2-3 DXM bottles. i cant remember exactly but for much of late october i remember being barely capable of moving, constantly staring into space, dissociating, hallucinating, whatever i saw was vaguely morphing into these weird images that repeated themselves and somehow felt more like thoughts than imagery yet at the same time felt more "visual" than a normal daydream (it was almost impossible to see at all tbf), and an overall sense of dysphoria. normally on DXM, even "second plat" dosages like 375mg, i wouldn't get that, on more regular recreational amounts i'd be capable of moving and communicating clearly and everything but my thinking would be slightly confused, i'd feel a lot more nostalgic, i could think way more objectively all my emotional biases were removed, and i'd have no appetite at all until the high died off.
just before i administered the final one at 9/10 in the evening i noticed my head felt physically weird already. like it was kind of "bony" or "heavy" like something was there, i remember noticing a much milder version on the 22nd in the earlier stages of the DXM benders. after dosing, i had the worst panic attack of my life. i had never felt that terrified, i was very convinced i was dying. it completely lacked the "pleasant nostalgic psychedelic dissociated" kinda feeling that DXM normally always gives me and was instead, well like i already said, just extreme panic, all of my surroundings and sense of vision just looked grey and like it was all about to turn into stones or rocks. the day after, 1st november, the panic eventually died off but i suffered bouts of hypochondria for months. on the 1st november i noticed my head still felt the same way it did the night before, it's very hard to describe, i felt as though my brain had been turned into a big heavy solid rock and i could feel it at all times, i could feel my brain within my skull. as of february 20th 2025, i can still feel it to an extent, but it has gradually died down, i still have some sense of emotional numbness and letters/numbers often have a "systematic" quality to them whenever i look at them (that one fluctuates) and sometimes all of a sudden all the sensations around me feel unusually vivid and nostalgic. that weird head feeling is made worse or more noticeable by anxiety or sleep deprivation, but it's never completely absent.

what is the pharmacological reasons for this? has it got anything to do with pregabalin? or pregabalin withdrawal?
why is there chronic sensory disturbances but for mostly feelings on my scalp only?

This might come across as a stupid question but am I allowed any drugs at all? CBD, nicotine, mirtazapine, lorazepam, and valerian were fine. what's putting me off weed is i remember how if i smoked too early before the DXM was 100% gone it would trigger this really uncomfortable, hard to ignore, long lasting dp dr everything around me looked and felt really robotic and griddy and i'd never ever feel like that from weed by itself, yes it may be months but considering the "symptoms" i'm having that's why im hesitating. my DXM cravings are really bad having to go without it for so long and i think it would help my binge eating, but i still don't want to risk it.
 
I'll cover pregabalin first because the answer here is simple. Pregabalin can produce a chronic PAWS like condition, similar to benzodiazepines. All CNS sedatives can do this, but your use of pregabalin was very brief and unlikely to cause physical dependence let alone PAWS. I think it's very unlikely pregabalin it responsible.

DXM on the other hand is a bit more complex. The truth is we don't really fully understand the implications of high dose NMDA antagonist use yet. The glutamatergic system is complex and the more we learn the more complex it seems to get. Even today we don't

Glutamate is the brains major excitatory neurotransmitter, it in is expressed in every part of the brain and most of the neurons in the CNS are glutamatergic.

Is DXM responsible? Maybe, maybe not. You're on a few other medications so this always complicates things.

If you consider causes outside of drugs, could anything else be contributing or causing these symptoms? Regardless, I would avoid recreational drug use for the time being. The brain is very plastic and can recover from even the most catastrophic damage.
 
I'll cover pregabalin first because the answer here is simple. Pregabalin can produce a chronic PAWS like condition, similar to benzodiazepines. All CNS sedatives can do this, but your use of pregabalin was very brief and unlikely to cause physical dependence let alone PAWS. I think it's very unlikely pregabalin it responsible.

DXM on the other hand is a bit more complex. The truth is we don't really fully understand the implications of high dose NMDA antagonist use yet. The glutamatergic system is complex and the more we learn the more complex it seems to get. Even today we don't

Glutamate is the brains major excitatory neurotransmitter, it in is expressed in every part of the brain and most of the neurons in the CNS are glutamatergic.

Is DXM responsible? Maybe, maybe not. You're on a few other medications so this always complicates things.

If you consider causes outside of drugs, could anything else be contributing or causing these symptoms? Regardless, I would avoid recreational drug use for the time being. The brain is very plastic and can recover from even the most catastrophic damage.
To keep me busy.....got the soda bulbs....and that's heaps sick ay
 
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