Unequal Pupils After MDMA and Speed – Four Months Later

[keftaboyzKoln]

Hey everyone,

I’ve been noticing something weird and wanted to ask if anyone else has experienced it. Ever since my first time taking MDMA, one of my pupils has always been bigger than the other. I’m pretty sensitive to these effects.

It probably started after my first month of frequent MDMA use. I searched online, and it seems unequal pupils can happen while on drugs, but mine has stayed like this for months. Sometimes one pupil can be double the size of the other, though it still reacts to light.
Now, after taking speed for six days straight and starting the comedown, one pupil is huge while the other is normal—when they shouldn’t be dilated at all.

Has anyone else had this?
Is it permanent?
Could it be a result of abusing MDMA and speed?
Is there a scientific explanation?

It’s been four months like this, and I don’t feel any pain or life-threatening symptoms, but I’m starting to get concerned.

Thanks in advance for any insights!
Not Always its like this Sometimes its like only final hours or only 1 hour and Turn normal.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Lazy eye? Brain tumour? Room brighter on one side?

Have you asked a doctor? They could take a peep behind your retina and see if anything's amiss.

I'd be more worried about the MDMA than the amph. MDMA takes a fair bit longer to recover from than amphetamine. Most people don't advise taking it more than once a month at moderate doses for all sorts of good reasons and you seem to be flying past that with great enthusiasm.

 

[Didgital]

Hey everyone,

I’ve been noticing something weird and wanted to ask if anyone else has experienced it. Ever since my first time taking MDMA, one of my pupils has always been bigger than the other. I’m pretty sensitive to these effects.

It probably started after my first month of frequent MDMA use. I searched online, and it seems unequal pupils can happen while on drugs, but mine has stayed like this for months. Sometimes one pupil can be double the size of the other, though it still reacts to light.

Now, after taking speed for six days straight and starting the comedown, one pupil is huge while the other is normal—when they shouldn’t be dilated at all.

Has anyone else had this?
Is it permanent?
Could it be a result of abusing MDMA and speed?
Is there a scientific explanation?

It’s been four months like this, and I don’t feel any pain or life-threatening symptoms, but I’m starting to get concerned.

Thanks in advance for any insights!
Not Always its like this Sometimes its like only final hours or only 1 hour and Turn normal.

V strange, wish i had advice.

I can say this happened ro me during a mushroom trip many years ago, but they returned to normal before the trip ended. At the time i was a bit concerned as well.

 

[Deleted member 576750]

Anisocoria Clinical Presentation: History, Physical, Causes

Anisocoria, or unequal pupil sizes, is a common condition. The varied causes have implications ranging from life threatening to completely benign, and a clinically guided history and examination is the first step in establishing a diagnosis.

emedicine.medscape.com

this is a pretty good read, designed for clinicians so it may be a bit heavy but as @Shinji Ikari mentioned it's important to get it checked out by a physician. in some cases it can represent a medical emergency

 

[ascii.cnt]

Lazy eye? Brain tumour? Room brighter on one side?

It requires a special kind of humor to casually drop "brain tumor" between "lazy eye" and "bad lighting" ^^

Has anyone else had this?
Is it permanent?
Could it be a result of abusing MDMA and speed?
Is there a scientific explanation?

I did have this (and it just came back recently, though in a lighter form) and I pretty much had similar worries like you do. Spoiler: it passed. Sloooowly, I'd say around one year, and more than half of that time, I spent worrying, growing more and more concerned, wondering if it is a by-product of my heavy cocaine use back then... several grams per day (almost daily for 2.5 years±) mostly smoked, but when the freebase induced mental dullness became noticeable, I snorted for a while and then completely lost interest in the drug when the effects lost most of the intensity with subsequent use. Quitting coke went fine, but the eyes did not recover and it just felt so certain those were connected. So I continued worrying until I felt enough like a fool for not going to the doctor. So I went.

I was glad noticing that they took this very seriously. I was open with my substance use, which can backfire tremendously here in Germany, and if it does, you basically end up with a bunch of doctors who are blind for any actual diagnostics cuz "drugs are baaad m'kay" and they look no further. But since I already felt like shit cuz of the constant worries, I took the gamble and it paid off: they checked which substances are potential culprits and which ones can be ruled out. They said indirect acting sympathomimetics like amphetamines and cocaine can cause this condition, or increase the symptoms of any such preexisting condition. They checked the eyes themselves, anything nerve/brain related, but found no red flags (those checks coming back positive would have been rather bad, potentially).

Then they asked me if I was ill, recently, and maybe heavily, so, which I affirmed: not long before the issues became apparent for me and anyone I interacted with, I had streptococci infection, which floored me like nothing did in decades. That made sense to them, they explained to me what Pupillotonia is, that it's mostly (humanity thinks) a cosmetic issue which:

• tends to happen after bacterial or viral infections
• disproportionately heavy infections may increase the likeliness of a Pupillotonia manifesting
• it may or may not slowly pass after a while: common is a few months, half a year maybe, but there are cases of years and even permanent, though less likely

Again, they stressed that it's totally harmless and a likely candidate, after ruling out the bad stuff. That sigh of relief was huge! So I thanked them (also for being professional with recreational users) and wondered why I dragged that doctor's visit out for so unnecessarily long... oh well.

Long story short: dig in your memory for illnesses shortly before you started noticing the issue with your pupils. If you don't know and if possible, pay the doctor a visit. Constant worrying can manifest in strange ways, and it always sits in one corner of your brain, not always fully present, but also never really away. It wears out badly, which negatively affects your mental health and one day, it can turn into something physical. It's not worth it, especially if there's a good chance it's literally nothing. As others have stated: it's important to get that checked, and yes, there is a chance it's something bad that does require attention, but chances are better it's benign. Fingers crossed!

Best of luck!

 

[pixies+]

This happened to a good friend of mine after some serious mdma use.

She was like it for fucking monthsssss

It eventually returned to normal.

 

[meowly42]

Your pupils were prolly already asymmetrical, you likely just noticed it at the same timeframe of eating the MDMA.

That much of a difference after speed though means you gotta refrain from the speed now. You could have a stroke.

Asymmetrical pupils is called monovision in some communities and if you are over 40 years old it’s pretty normal…typically people can see close with one eye and far with the other and they balance out the difference without corrective lenses.

 

[Pissed_and_messed]

I have a bit asymmetric pupils, and often drugs cause it reversed; IT IS THEN THE ANOTHER PUPIL THAT IS LARGER!

Instinctively I assume drug use contributing. I think it was not like that back then before indulging in stuff like methylphenidate, psilocybin mushrooms and MDPV or some other RC stimulant. Weed of course too, but I don't think it is that relevant. But eh I am prone to imagine things, you know, "casual paranoia". "Was this always like this? Have I fucked up myself?" But I doubt it is just imagining things, because it seems to be possible drugs have caused some minor differences in my wiring there, it is not completely unheard of.

It is not like this is really noticeable for most people in day to day life, but if I am like on coke or LSD, then they would notice that my left pupil is huge and right gigantic.

When I first noticed this, I wondered if I should somehow think about my drug use if it is related, but eventually said to drugs: "NO!" and took more.

 

[notsmokeymcpot42088]

I noticed it once and I wasn't sure if I was so fucked up I wasn't seeing straight or it was happening. They had evened out by the time I woke up *Shrugs*

 

[Esperighanto]

What frequency and dosage of MDMA, and of amphetamine are we talking about here? A best friend of mine experienced unequal pupillary dilation once from playing pool in dark billiards halls on mushrooms. Another nearly fatally overdosed on amphetamine and the same thing happened to his eyes though.