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MDMA Recovery (Stories & Support - 4)

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I'm just not sure how to fit it in a category, when I look up all the symptoms most of them fit into a lot of neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders (I know I don't have them for real), somedays the movements and speech are typically Parkinson like, another day I feel maniac, then OCD symptoms, some other days I feel badly demented, depression and anhedonia are constant companions without medication and so on. Luckily a lot of it has got way better, but getting all these symptoms at an age of 18 just because of my ecstasy abuse scares me pretty much.
How did you get over this, I mean you wrote that at the age of 15 you had severe problems understanding sentences for over a year?

And I think the chronic stress was caused because I constantly was thinking about the LTC with every word and movement I have done, always looked how I moved, how my language sounded, how I was acting. At least now this is not a permanent state anymore.
But I still need the help of (natural) medication to think halfway normal, it feels like a crutch for my brain when I take curcumin that helps me getting out of that thoughts.
I never spoke to anyone in personal that could help me (neurologists) in that problems because that really made me feel bad if I told them that.

Brain zaps are also now sometimes really bad, especially the head (neck) often makes involuntary movements, at least facial expression is not involved in that.
 
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There is a lot of overlap between various "neuropsychiatric" disease, but there are probably many biological states that can lead to similar symptoms. For example, amphetamine use or sleep deprivation can mimic schizophrenia, but the long term outcome between people with psychosis from amphetamines/sleep deprivation and somebody with actual schizophrenia are going to be very different.

What I imagine is happening is that there are many different circuits in your brain, and as one normalizes a bit it throws off the entire system that has compensated, and then the system downstream of the system that just normalized must try to reach homeostasis, and this goes on and on until the brain as a whole is reaching homeostasis. I bet depending on which circuit has been thrown off acutely, you could get many different symptoms and then they could be different tomorrow (as that circuit reached some level of homeostasis and then the circuit downstream is trying to reach homeostasis again). I hope that makes sense.

Somebody once told me (just a university psychiatrist I had emailed) that I may actually stand a much better chance of recovering since it happened while I was young. An example here is some children have about half their brains removed due to epilepsy, and if it happens while they are young enough they can actually go on to live relatively normal lives.

At 15 I really couldn't sleep more than 2 hours ever, when I did sleep I had constant sleep paralysis, and many times I was skipping a few nights in a row - I was convinced for a long time I was never going to sleep again, a scary thought since my dad's brother pretty much killed himself because of insomnia (we had both had sleep issues since we were born). I was also convinced that this was from killing all my serotonergic cells. I also can't tell you how many physical health issues I had following that, especially because at that time I went on to work 2 jobs (lumberyard and farm) 6 days a week while doing online highschool while not sleeping one bit.

The most important thing that I've learned is not to catastrophize over being in such a situation - one of the things that can make those sorts of situations so much worse is constantly thinking "I'm damaged, I'll never get better, regret regret regret" and then you go on to picture yourself in a hospital bed with a catheter at 40 years old (at least that's what I was doing when I was borderline bed-ridden and couldn't use my hands or sit in a chair for about 2 years).

If you knew for a fact that you were going to be 100% back to normal (and preferably no longer abusing drugs) in 6 months I think most of us would have no problem dealing with this, and we would be a lot better of in the meantime. Fear of not recovering can lead to a really slow recovery. So in that respect, getting ahold of myself and catching myself when I'm ruminating really helped.

In retrospect, I would've done my best to follow the advice that I generally give: Cardio, mindfulness, and then also I would've gotten myself to a psychiatrist sooner. I may have recovered faster with SSRIs and/or antipsychotics or anti-epileptics like Depakote. I don't know how those would've jived when my HPPD was much worse but everybody appears to be unique in that respect.

Sorry for the novel :\
 
Hey guys quick advice needed, after several home assessments my doctor urged me to go on pregablin, starting with 50mg rising to 150mg.
when I was at my worst, I could relax or even stand still, I couldn't eat or sleep, I just rocked in a chair for around three weeks, because my stomach was in so much pain. When I was given diazepam it cleared everything up and more, I was actually able to live again. Bearing in mind I was only on 4 mg a day.
so because I had such I good reaction to diazepam, do think I'll have the same reaction with the pregablin?
Bearinh in mind I've been off diazepam for 3 weeks with no problems, such as the restfulness and stomach problems returning
 
We are of course not a substitute for the advice of a doctor, but my personal opinion is that if you are feeling better now I wouldn't start down the path of pregablin dependence. Why is your doctor urging you to take the pregablin? Do they fear the problems will return or something?

But as for your question, I think if you react well to benzos you will react well to pregablin, especially as far as sleep goes. But there is the issue of dependence if you take it for more than a month or two. Its not bad for many people, but for some it is similar to benzo withdrawal..
 
Be aware green tea is an MAO.....I had 2 cups of decaf green today and I feel shaky and anxiety ridden.....Heart pounding. Just an FYI....Last time I'll be drinking any teas I think lol.

I think just Good food and exercise for me guys
 
ADubbs said:
Be aware green tea is an MAO.....I had 2 cups of decaf green today and I feel shaky and anxiety ridden.....Heart pounding. Just an FYI....Last time I'll be drinking any teas I think lol.

I think just Good food and exercise for me guys
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It wasn't any MAO action, it was the cafeine and other xanthines
 
I have a similar issue..I find myself getting very irritated by things I know don't really matter. I'm guessing it's just the depression talking because I'm normally very chilled out.
 
Huh....Maybe you're right about xanthine as it was decaf green tea....So it wouldn't have been the caffeine.... Interesting
 
mf140 said:
I have a similar issue..I find myself getting very irritated by things I know don't really matter. I'm guessing it's just the depression talking because I'm normally very chilled out.
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I'd say your neurotransmitters are all thrown out of whack....Like mine. ANYTHING that has slight stiumlant activity clearly sets me off now.....I just hope I'm back to baseline in a few days.
 
ADubbs said:
Be aware green tea is an MAO.....I had 2 cups of decaf green today and I feel shaky and anxiety ridden.....Heart pounding. Just an FYI....Last time I'll be drinking any teas I think lol.

I think just Good food and exercise for me guys
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Green tea contains theanine, that also has some effects, most describe them as calming and focusing. It definetly caps the stimulating effects of the caffeine.
 
Cotcha Yankinov said:
The ruts can be real sometimes... I would think about something to try to break you out of the spell, everything from seeing a psychologist to talking to a doc about a medication (doesn't have to be an SSRI). Often times sleep issues can perpetuate mental issues and mental issues can perpetuate sleep issues.

When stuff like anxiety and insomnia are long standing you can also run into physical health issues at some point that can need addressing, issues with some of the inhalation muscles (neck muscles like scalenes that can cause face/head symptoms and chest muscles like pec minor and that can cause chest pain) are common with chronic anxiety/panic breathing/chest breathing. Massage and stretching muscles like scalenes can really help some, in addition to learning how to breathe through the stomach.
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Thanks cotcha, yeah my sleep over all had been a lot better except for last night and the Kava night (and a few days after).....Not 100℅ but 70%, falling asleep easy and sleeping 5 or 6 hours. It's really the tinnitus and floaters/CEVs that were getting me down....And not decreasing lol. I'm a whiner I know.

Here's a link to people with HPPD and what sets them off. I'm not saying HPPD and LTCs are the same, but there definitely is some overlap especially for me. Notice fish oil and l-theanine listed.

http://hppdonline.com/index.php?/topic/5174-list-of-what-exaserbates-hppd/


The more I think about first bad comedown's posts the more pissed I get....He kept tooting all the benefits of fish oil and curcumin and bashing SSRIs...And how he had "HPPD", he never once listed a symptom that he had of HPPD....Yet he claims he had it. I'm responsible for my own actions.....But I took his posts as gold and it ended up not being good for me.

And Amml.... Curricumin gave me brain zaps and twitches bad.....So maybe this why your still experiencing them?
 
Yes you could be right with the Curcumin, I need to quit it anyway for the next week.
But I also was very sleep deprived because of an infection the last few days.

A question (ADubbs): When you go to the forest/montains and watch the landscape, does this help you? I remember as I kid I once used to sit a lot on the computer and stay at home and when we went hiking then the mountains in the distance began to somehow move and warp, but after a few hiking tours they were normal.
You tried watching far landscapes? I believe that may help you to focus a bit so your brain learns what is real and what not.
 
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yeah, I agree that FBC didn't have HPPD in the true sense. He was sort of flippant about it in his posts. If he had it, it wouldn't have gone away that quickly and he would've made a bigger deal of having it go away.

I'm guilty of following anecdotal reports on 5 htp and coffee being ok. Your brain will believe what it wants to believe. This is what makes the LTC so fucked up because we are just going on each other's experience and we're all different. There's no doctor to tell us this or that.
 
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FBC says a lot of stuff I don't particularly agree with, and that I don't think is particularly helpful even if it were true.

People are all over the place when it comes to their stance on ecstasy related adverse effects, from people who think its entirely "psychological" or hysteria/anxiety to people like FBC who were thinking it was serotonergic neurotoxicity. There is a middle ground 8)

There are definitely different severities and categories of LTCs. Many people seem to be having primarily derealization without HPPD etc. from a wide variety of drugs. A childhood friend once told me that after she took too much of a weed edible and kids were mean to her while she was high, she felt really off for a couple months, like nothing was real and that she was dreaming. Back then, I had no idea what this was, but its pretty clear to me now that she was describing derealization.

I never understood it before I had it myself though. I guess I didn't empathize and put myself in her shoes well enough, the same way that a person who has never tried a psychedelic can't imagine what its like to be on a psychedelic.

People with (relatively) mild adverse effects might think that they are severe because of a failure to properly empathize with the severe adverse effects sufferers. There are also probably adverse effects sufferers who are claiming the effects are worse than they are because they've had perfect mental health all their life. In addition, there is going to be some percentage of people whose symptoms are primarily from worrying about "damage" and that sort of pure anxiety sort of stuff, and unfortunately all these different categories of people can lead to a lot of confusion in the people who are standing back and looking at this whole thing.
 
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I think some symptoms are really damage, in my case I already felt during the last time I took the MDMA that there was something extremely wrong.
The next day I woke up I noticed that my feelings were completely gone, I was feeling ice cold during the whole comedown but also knowing I probably overheated. I dreamt everything in strong orange color, and my vision even had the same color. Felt like my brain was really destroyed more and more in this Night and I couldn't stop it. I was moving nearly half speed for over a week and my head felt like a sludge for much longer.
Although after about 3/4 of a year those symptoms got less and the psychological side got more important, it was like my brain was already healing but the mind was still stuck in the same state like the first day. I think this is the reason why the SSRI didn't work in the beginning and made things even worse but helped a lot after waiting until the first year of the LTC.
And now I'm feeling really better, something I could never believe would happen a few months ago. So for everyone here dealing with depression/loss of feeling and without HPPD, try a SSRI, it saved me!
Unfortunately I have no real advice for those with HPPD :/

And for everyone who couldn't image how bad the depression was: I microdosed Iboga for over 1 months in the hope to finally get healed and was nearly 1 month immobile and walking or just doing everyday tasks was the pure horror and very painful. Just did this to get rid of the depression (didn't work btw)
 
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Cotcha Yankinov said:
FBC says a lot of stuff I don't particularly agree with, and that I don't think is particularly helpful even if it were true.

People are all over the place when it comes to their stance on ecstasy related adverse effects, from people who think its entirely "psychological" or hysteria/anxiety to people like FBC who were thinking it was serotonergic neurotoxicity. There is a middle ground 8)

There are definitely different severities and categories of LTCs. Many people seem to be having primarily derealization without HPPD etc. from a wide variety of drugs. A childhood friend once told me that after she took too much of a weed edible and kids were mean to her while she was high, she felt really off for a couple months, like nothing was real and that she was dreaming. Back then, I had no idea what this was, but its pretty clear to me now that she was describing derealization.

I never understood it before I had it myself though. I guess I didn't empathize and put myself in her shoes well enough, the same way that a person who has never tried a psychedelic can't imagine what its like to be on a psychedelic.

People with (relatively) mild adverse effects might think that they are severe because of a failure to properly empathize with the severe adverse effects sufferers. There are also probably adverse effects sufferers who are claiming the effects are worse than they are because they've had perfect mental health all their life. In addition, there is going to be some percentage of people whose symptoms are primarily from worrying about "damage" and that sort of pure anxiety sort of stuff, and unfortunately all these different categories of people can lead to a lot of confusion in the people who are standing back and looking at this whole thing.
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But at the same time isn't worrying about "damage" itself a symptom of the LTC due to the profound mental changes that occur? I mean it seems quite natural to think at first that one is damaged due to the huge downturn in mood for no reason right? Even if its not "damage" in a strict or permanant sense.

And yea what would explain the symptoms coming in someone with perfect mental health? Are you saying its due to lack of coping skills with low mood?
 
socrilus said:
But at the same time isn't worrying about "damage" itself a symptom of the LTC due to the profound mental changes that occur? I mean it seems quite natural to think at first that one is damaged due to the huge downturn in mood for no reason right? Even if its not "damage" in a strict or permanant sense.
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This is actually a point I've tried to make before but I don't think I've ever been able to word it eloquently. An oversimplified example would be as follows - you take ecstasy that causes anti-anxiety effects but on the comedown and in the days after you have increased anxiety because of "good receptor" desensitization or the portion of the drug that is more adrenergic is still activating while the anti-anxiety serotonergic part has worn off. Combine that with lack of sleep and cumulative stress and you have a brain state that is conducive to anxiety. Now neurons that fire together wire together, so presumably if you have an acute anxiety state from the drug itself it can somewhat perpetuate itself (using those anxiety/fear circuits makes them stronger).

But to say its entirely psychological is to discount the effects of the drug. I have no doubt there are some few people out there that could have adverse effects like we see with LTCs (primarily just derealization) from a placebo but I think the majority of people that develop derealization with ecstasy would not have developed it with a placebo.

But all that doesn't discount the effectiveness of classical anti-anxiety treatments like CBT and mindfulness, and hopefully it shouldn't make people freak out over their predicament any more than they would be if they were being told it was just anxiety that was completely separate from the drug.

socrilus said:
And yea what would explain the symptoms coming in someone with perfect mental health? Are you saying its due to lack of coping skills with low mood?
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I think people who have never had an experience with mental illness or an altered state of consciousness may have a really hard time coping with an altered state. I would liken it to a psychonaut that has tripped hundreds of times and had an extraordinary amount of experience with psychedelic visuals getting HPPD - its going to bother them a whole lot less than a psychedelic naïve person. That may be one reason why I did better than most with HPPD.
 
I'm just curious, if anyone out there had burning brain in the beginning. My brain felt like it was cooking in my head.
 
"brain fry" was how I used to describe my hangovers, and sleep deprivation illness as well. It was a very burning brain type feeling.
 
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