ecstasy induced anxiety and what is actually measurable by an CT / MRI

[undo]

Hello everyone!

Going to tell you my little story first, and post the questions below it (so feel free to skip the text if it's too long)

First of all I am 28 and startet to experiment with drugs in the last 5 years. Did a few lines of coke and speed, a really mini dose of lsd, two lines of heroin and 5 ecstasy total. So I tried a few things, but never actually really formed a serious drug habit, or at least I think so. Though I drank and smoked (cigs not pot) way too much in the last few years

so...about 8 months ago I had a bad ecstasy trip. I was very drunk on that evening and took about 1 or 2 pills (of whatever) over the course of the evening, and didn't really feel that much except a spacey floaty kind of feeling. A few hours later I suddenly got very nervous. Felt like I was a million miles away from my self, ran from left to right, felt hot, thought I'd have do shit myself and my thoughts just went haywire in a loopy kind of way as far as I remember.

Since then things haven't really been the same. I got a few panic/anxiety attacks, with the worst hitting me in october (almost 5 month after that one night) during which I thought that

- I am going completely nuts if I just open one more door in my brain
- was afraid I got schizophrenic or psychotic or simply stupid from the brain fuck
- got obsessiv thoughts about hurting myself against my will
- had problems with derealisation and depresonalisation in public
- ran around the flat doing unnecessary things and felt like I sort of looked different, started starring at stuff weird.

I needed weeks to kind of recover from the last attack. all in all my social anxiety just went through the roof in the last few months. I can't look people in the eyes, can't ride the subway, rarley go outside anymore, avoid meeting friends because I am afraid to sort of not act normal/ get depersonalitsation and so on. it's like my nervous system just got super sensitiv spidey style. I also always get this kind of burning sensation in different parts of my brain and sometimes ringing in my ears and a little numb feeling in my face.

The thing though is that I always have been sociophobic to a certain extend since I was a child and had death in the family a year ago which combined with a few other sucky personal issues warrend an anxiety disorder on their own.

It's like this one bad trip blew away everything that I build up in strength and personality in the last then years. I am certain though that this has defenitly something to do with the e, I have been depressed and anxious before, but this just feels way different, it's like something fucked me a little in the core of my personality and it can't be a coincidence that it all started that night.

So I am at a point where I am just annoyed with the whole situation and just want to know what exactly happened to me, staying at home forever doesn't seem like a good solution..



So here comes the questions part


So I am going to get help for my anxiety issues and visit a neurologist soon, but I am not sure if I should mention the drugs. On one hand I think it's kind of stupid to not tell them about the very thing that might have caused the whole dilemma on the other hand I just don't know if it does really makes any difference from a purely medical perspective.

I don't know a lot about neurology, but is there a way for a neurologist to tell if I simply suffered from an extrem panic attack or if i had a serotonin syndrom judging from a CT or MRI? Same goes for neurotoxicity. I am at a point where I just want to know if I fucked my nerves/brain in a physical sense with the apparent exctasy overdose or if my symptoms are purely psychological. Which I doubt and although I know this is a bit of an hen and egg scenario, there really is very little I can do once derealisation and that tingeling nervous feeling kicks in, much like I can't talk myself into not being drunk or high if I have been drinking or doing coke..

So I am just interested if they can actually see if I have a lot of cribbled serotonin axioms that obviously must come from chemical damage or if that is something that is technological not possible yet. It's just like there are so many
things that sort of fit my state from PTSS, to psychotic depression to a whole punch of anxiety and panic disorders and I simply want to know how much physical evidence there can be gathered for such symptoms.


sorry that this got so long, but hopefully someone knows a little about neurology


cheers

PS:
forgot to mention that I even stopped smoking completely and don't really drink anymore. infact I seem to have stopped doing almost everything

 

[dopeb0imagic]

Your best bet is to be comepletely honest with your doctor.
I can relate with this after starting ecstasy I started getting very strong anxiety and panic attacks, i can promise you it does get better. I used once or twice a weekend now I pop an ez once a few months and no more problems.

 

[dopeb0imagic]

another thing that really helped me get my anxiety shit to fade was klonopin, just .5mg and 3 refills take AS NEEDED NOT DAILY, you could find out about that. When i was feeling that anxiety creep up id dissolve half under my tounge and be straight. eventually your body will start to stop associating anxiety with anxiety causing events. and it helps with depersonalization as well!

 

[undo]

thanks, I figured there is no way around benzos in order to deal with the anxiety, which really seems to be the root of my biggest problems. I tried a few Alprazolam in the past which seemed to help a little. is klonopin somewhat different?

still would like to hear from some people though that fessed up to a professional and got their brain tested

 

[bben]

I can relate to what you said about the burning/ ringing of ears. It seems if you had anxiety before (like me) it makes it unbearable. Anyway its pretty much a toss up at what rate you recover. Are you constantly checking your pulse and do you feel your heart beating always? I know i had that along with a general out of breath feeling. In my own experience......

I last took E 2 1/2 years ago and I have recovered around 20%, and i got used to the other stuff. You adjust eventually.


Some people recover faster than others though, the above is solely my own experience and some encounter no negative effects, though it seems the ones that do have issues with it have catastrophic issues. Not trying to scare you but the effects can be long term for certain people. I know it ripped mine apart for about 1 1/2 years.

^^ Ecstasy can be safe at lower doses if you dont mix it with anything. Being drunk likely didnt help your cause much.

Ive had an mri and it showed up fine. Only a PET scan with a special tracer would show damage, and those are only available at big clinics and usually are like 10 grand and not covered by insurance.

 

[GSpot]

Its sounds like you took pipes. Do you remember what kind a pills you took? Go to www.pillreports.com and see if they are here. Look up the effects of pipes. Sounds like you got some bunk pills.

 

[undo]

@bben

I had a few days of panic attacks that made me feel like my lungs are the size of pingpong balls a few months back, but that only happened once. Thinking your dying from a heart attack is a panic attack classic, so that doesn't really work on me my last one was really more psychological. I just seem to cycle through various annoying mental disorder symptoms from extrem depression, to derealisation/depersonalisation (maybe they're flashbacks? who knows) to ocd stuff. I try to be as mentally resiliant as possible and try to laught the whole thing in the face and right now things seem to have gotten a little better. but the anxiety stuff just seems beyond my control, feels like I just can't "think" my way out of this one... my nerves are just too fucking sensible.

It's just like my brain is receiving too much informatin or doesn't know anymore how to process certain stuff. Sometimes when I look people in the eye it just feels like i am suddenly zoneing out, like I don't know how to make eye contact in a instinct kind of way... and people notice, or at least I noticed that people start acting nervous around me sometimes. which is something that also happened to me with a friend who went through a psychosis

@gspot

Ha that's the first thing I tried to do, but the only thing I remember was that they were white and not pressed too good, sadly forgot the emblem on them. I am pretty sure though that I did mCPP before, since I always got heavy stomach pains on the pills I did before that one. This one was just weird.. there were no stomach pains, no real euphoria (although I was drunk so it's hard to tell in retrospect how I really felt) but there was this light spacey feeling, sort of a tiny bit trippy, but without any kind of hallucinations.

I did find reports about white pills with PMA in them that fit the timeframe and my location... so maybe it was that... which would also explain why the horror stuff start so many hours after I took the stuff.

 

[dopeb0imagic]

thanks, I figured there is no way around benzos in order to deal with the anxiety, which really seems to be the root of my biggest problems. I tried a few Alprazolam in the past which seemed to help a little. is klonopin somewhat different?

still would like to hear from some people though that fessed up to a professional and got their brain tested

klonopin is much better than xanax, you dont get a buzz or feel blacked out or slowed

it takes like 2 hours to peak and keeps your anxiety free for over 24 hours, and you only need .25 - .5 for this, if your smart about it you can make a bottle of 30 last a few months, and its a little easier than xanax to get off of with a long taper, that is if your taking them everyday, not recommended. i'm not a psychiatrist yet so don't take everything i say too seriously, i am in school for it though

 

[Cyc]

From what I've seen, MRI's tend to show few if any abnormalities in ecstasy users.

 

[bben]

From what I've seen, MRI's tend to show few if any abnormalities in ecstasy users.

He's right, ive had one. Ecstasy doesnt change the structure of the brain. I suppose OP could try and get into a clinical study if he could find one.

 

[undo]

So I still haven't been to the doctor out of my own cowardness. And as you ssaid bben, I sort of adjusted to things, but they're pretty much the same.

It still drives me nuts though that I just can't exactly find out what's wrong with me. What I mean is that there are a lot of people of have lasting Visuals (HPPD) from shrooming, lsd and so on and then there are people that seem to go into fullblown drugpsychosis believing they see god or that their friends are really alien spies or what not.

Apart from when I get derealised (which gladly didn't haven to me for over 1 month) I don't have any visual effects or believe in things that are not real. I am just cribbled by anxiety, if that even is anxiety, It's not that I am afraid I just feel weird.

The most logical conclusion is that I simply suffered from a Serotonin Syndrom which went away, but left my nervous system fucked from it's toxcity. It seem sort of logical that this is what happened and probably also the reason for the anxiety in most other users that took a little too much of something that affects neurotransmitters.

I just find it weird, that there seem to be so many drug users who suffer from anxiety, but there is not one good explanation to be found why that is. shouldn't some researcher already have figured that out?

 

[law12345]

Undo just wanted to share my 2 cents
I too took about 20 E's in 12 months and sufferred from a chemical imbalance with panic attacks, anxiety, paranoia and depression
what astounds me is that some drug users can take much much more than that and be fine in the short and long term
to me now ecstacy is such a dangerous drug-all that flooding and then depletion of serotonin, it really is playing with danger

 

[F1n1shed]

I can definitely relate Op. Know that it does get better as some of the others said and you will adjust. I was reading through some of the things you said with a blank face because that's exactly how I felt and still do once in a while. I really do not know if i should attribute it to the weed I smoke daily which is probably affecting it in a negative manner or the ecstasy I took at raves months back. I know it 100% stemmed from the E use whether it started from that time I had a pipe along with other pills or just from the built usage of E(usually always clean pills with exception of 2-3 times max). I can totally relate to looking at things in a strange manner and just feeling like something is off in me. It is really frustrating sometimes : ( but i try not to let it get the best of me .. even though it DOES!

 

[Divine Moments]

Yup, the CT/MRI shouldn't show up anything related to ecstasy use. I definitely recommend giving them your whole story since you feel the drugs played a central role.

 

[undo]

little follow up:

Early this year when things got too worse (always felt extremly alert outside, alway was nervous and so on)

I finally went to a doctor, no neurologist or psychiatrist though, just a regular doctor around the corner from my home, and told him that I felt depressed and and suffer from extrem anxiety and when around other people and outside. I also said that this could be from this one time xtc use, since it all started around that time (but she was little interested in that actually)

I got prescribed 20mg of prozac and 0.5 mg of Alprazolam for the last 5-6 months and it really helped alot.

I still don't feel totally normal and that I have found my absolutbalance again, but most of the time it's more than manageable and I feel actually feel totally okay, the only side effect being that I sometimes get very black out drunk when on xanax (which I try to really only take as seldom as possible in the last 3 months).

while I feel a lot better there are still episodes from time to time in a sort of bipolar kind of was where I feel like

- i am more irritateable and cognitiv not that well functioning

- have a sort of blunted affect

- feel sort of out of it, drunk after only 1 beer

- and sometimes while lying at bed in the night get creepy dark ocd harmful thoughts
that frighten me in a ego dystonic way

- sleeping is still an issue for me sometimes and I seem to talk a lot while I am sleeping.

Overall I guess that I am just suffering from a chronic chemical imbalance, which hopefully doesn't get worse.

I just made an appointment with a neurologist, since that buzzy, tinglying sensationg feeling in my brain is still there frome time to time and it feels sort of wrong to refill my prescribtion for the 8th time after only speaking with that doctor once (I am not even sure that she would grand me 6 month of regular prescribed xanax..)

kind of weird that it took me already more than a year since this whole thing started to make a appointment with a specialist (mainly due to the fact that I feel a lot better though and have a tendency to ignore unconfrotable things )

Guess it's better though to get an official diagnosis in a ICD 10/ DSM IV way, in case things get worse and I have to rely on social services and so on for a little time.

hope your all feeling better too (at least a little)