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HPPD - Hallucinogen-persisting perception disorder


Kronos18

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Is anyone experiencing symptoms like:

-visual snow

-trails, afterimages

-tunel vision

-vision seems just not right, disorted

-light sparkles

-things moving in the corner of the vision

 

All of them confirms HPPD which many say this can be permanent.

Lorazepam -2 weeks-1 week 3 mg.4 days 2mg, 3 days 1mg. 13-27 November 2018

Lexapro -2 months-6 weeks of 10mg, 2 weeks of 5mg 27 November 2018-27 January 2019

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  • ChessieCat changed the title to HPPD - Hallucinogen-persisting perception disorder
  • Moderator

There are many many things that can cause visual disturbances like the ones you describe from migraines to stroke. You should see a neurologist to rule things out. Visual disturbances warrant checking out by a doctor.

"Nothing so small as a moment is insurmountable, and moments are all that we have. You have survived every trial and tribulation that life has thrown at you up until this very instant. When future troubles come—and they will come—a version of you will be born into that moment that can conquer them, too." - Kevin Koenig 

 

I am not a doctor and this should not be considered medical advice. You can use the information and recommendations provided in whatever way you want and all decisions on your treatment are yours. 

 

In the next few weeks I do not have a lot of capacity to respond to questions. If you need a quick answer pls tag or ask other moderators who may want to be tagged. 

 

Aug  2000 - July 2003 (ct, 4-6 wk wd) , citalopram 20 mg,  xanax prn, wellbutrin for a few months, trazodone prn 

Dec 2004 - July 2018 citalopram 20 mg, xanax prn (rarely used)

Aug 2018 - citalopram 40 mg (self titrated up)

September 2018 - January 2019 tapered citalopram - 40/30/20/10/5 no issues until a week after reaching 0

Feb 2019 0.25 xanax - 0.5/day (3 weeks) over to klonopin 0.25 once a day to manage severe wd

March 6, reinstated citalopram 2.5 mg (liquid), klonopin 0.25 mg for sleep 2-3 times a week

Apr 1st citalopram 2.0 mg (liquid), klonopin 0.25 once a week (off by 4/14/19- no tapering)

citalopram (liquid) 4/14/19 -1.8 mg, 5/8/19 - 1.6 mg,  7/27/19 -1.5 mg,  8/15/19 - 1.35, 2/21/21 - 1.1 (smaller drops in between), 6/20/21 - 1.03 mg, 8/7/21- 1.025, 8/11/21 - 1.02, 8/15/21 - 1.015, 9/3/21 - 0.925 (fingers crossed!), 10/8/21 - 0.9, 10/18/21 - 0.875, 12/31/21 - 0.85, 1/7/22 - 0.825, 1/14/22 - 0.8, 1/22/22 - 0.785, 8/18/22 - 0.59, 12/15/2022 - 0.48, 2/15/22 - 0.43, 25/07/23 - 0.25 (mistake), 6/08/23 - 0.33mg

 

Supplements: magnesium citrate and bi-glycinate

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15 hours ago, Onmyway said:

There are many many things that can cause visual disturbances like the ones you describe from migraines to stroke. You should see a neurologist to rule things out. Visual disturbances warrant checking out by a doctor.

Thank you, ive been checked for many things, including blood tests, mri while on pills, eeg last year, everything went fine, and i didnt have these symptoms before i took the pills.

Lorazepam -2 weeks-1 week 3 mg.4 days 2mg, 3 days 1mg. 13-27 November 2018

Lexapro -2 months-6 weeks of 10mg, 2 weeks of 5mg 27 November 2018-27 January 2019

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Since adr I now see afterimages more. Another thing I've noticed is if I read something on my phone when I look up I see lines in my vision like an overlay and it can take a minute or two before it goes away.

 

Some other visual issues I had that have gone away are:

 

*Seeing everything turn green colour then red and back again like putting a filter over my vision.            *Nightblindness. Eyes took long time to adjust to the dark/lights turning off.

 

*Difficulty seeing the details in dark or black things more than usual. An example is I had a dark blue floor and a black dog and when my dog was laying on the floor I could not see where the floor started and the dog ended, they blended together.

 

*I had trouble focusing on items when shopping more than used to. It was like my eyes wouldnt adjust their focus.

 

I got my eyes checked at the opticians and no problems could be found.

 

 

January 2018 - 50mg sertraline for only 2 days, had adverse reaction.

On 0 psych drugs now.

Took a very long time for symptoms to go away, got better mentally 100% in April 2020.

Turns out also had low vitamin d, low calcium and low thyroid in August 2020.

Treated with colecalciferol and now all physical symptoms gone. Possibly overlap between this issue & sertraline symptoms?

May 2021 Still taking colecalciferol, all physical symptoms gone. Unsure if this will return if I stop vit D for long time ?

Now consider myself fully healed.

Other medication: 5mg certirizine for allergic rhinitis once a day or when needed, cut down from 10mg just in case that was causing issue too since i've taken for over 8 years now.

FULLY RECOVERED NOW 🙂

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  • 3 years later...

@HopefulDawn Did the visual disturbances you experienced eventually go away. I have the same issue with reading on screens, if I look up I see lines in my vision, among other issues like visual snow.

Olanzapine (5mg) started June 2023 - This is the only drug I'm currently taking, haven't used any other psych drugs.

After 4 weeks dropped to 2.5mg for 5 days then dropped to 1.25mg for 3 days, withdrawals commenced. I then took a single dose of 3.75mg. Then went to 2.5mg. since July 19

Hoping to hold at 2.5mg  and GODWILLING I will STABILIZE.

I can't tell WD symptoms from Long Covid symptoms. I think a bit of both, and I think my quick earlier taper has made the LC symptoms worse ... what to do.

Update: Sept 28 2023: -2.5%   Oct 5: -2.5%   Oct 12: -2.5%   Oct 19: -5%   Oct 29: -5%   Nov 10: -5%  2.0mg  Nov 20:  -5%  1.9mg  Nov 30:  -5%  1.8mg  Dec 12:  1.75mg   Dec 22: 1.70mg

Dec 29: 1.65mg Jan 06/24: 1.60mg  Jan 14: 1.55mg Jan 25: 1.50mg   Feb 12: Updose to 1.55mg

(percentage drops are from previous dose)

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Hi all,

 

I have/had pretty much all of these.  I have difficultly looking at fine patterns, such as textile, carpet, window meshes, grass, gravel etc... as they start and don't stop moving when I look at them, this is very obvious in medium levels of light. Does not happen in bright light though.

Often it can looks like looking through heat turbulence above the hot ground.


For years I had some kind of image trail, this was a side effect of trialing prozac/lovan from nearly 10 years ago and still have it very slightly but I have been on pych drugs this whole time so it's probably from that.

During WD, my visual snow was shocking and at night and very low lighting, my vision was so noisy that I couldn't even make out edges of objects.  This has improved heaps since I have tapering off the AD, the AP CT triggered this all amongst all the horrific WD symptoms I got, but it seems like most of this sensory disturbances are being driven by the AD I am still on as nearly all my sensory and just about all the other symptoms disappear during the day when the drug has all but left my system, then they all come back within minutes of taking the AD at night.

Early in the WD, about 18 months ago, I was also hallucinating random fractals , geometric patterns etc... extremely bright like the sun. I would get them during waking or falling asleep.

I get flashes of light like sheet lightning and originally I actually thought there was lightning and I was looking in the sky trying to see where the storm was lol. I only get them as a paradoxical reaction to the AD after reducing the dose as I taper. Same as all the other senses, tactile, sound, taste etc...

I have also gone blind on the right side of both eyes once and the hospital found nothing wrong, so who knows.

All that said, I have improved massively and don't notice many of these except during dosing time in the evening and even then it's not that bad other than very mild low light snow and the weird movement with certain patterns.

I am confident that these will go away with time once I get off the AD, it's caused me some real grief after the AP sensitized me to basically everything.
 

Late 2014-Early 2015 started Lovan SSRI for weakness, fatigue and severe SD. Severe side effects. CT

2015- multiple SSRIs and SNRI (type?) Anger and side effects. CT

2015- Agromelatine  6 months- No effects CT

2016- Present Moclobemide. Partial response without major side effects. 

2017- 2017- Added Sodium Valproate- No effects just hair loss. CT

2018- Antipsychotic. (type?) No effects. CT. 

2018- Latuda Antipsychotic. 6 months. No effects. CT. 

2019 Jan- Rexulti. Massive improvement no major side effects.  2mg dose.

September 2020- Sudden severe SD after a number of years of being mostly fine and jerky sleep/wake transitions + severe sleep paralysis, injuries to face during sleep, blunt emotions, brain fog, little motivation.

August 2021- Rexulti concluded as likely cause. Begin taper over 8 weeks. Delayed severe neurological (almost entirely autonomic) WD symptoms in late November 2021 after being symptom free. 

Reinstated and taper Rexulti @ 0.25mg Jan 2022, 0.125mg May, August 0.0625mg, November 26th 0.03125mg, Feb 27th 2023 0.0158mg, May 22nd 0.0mg. Finally!

Taper Moclobemide March 2022 from 300mg to 150mg, August 75mg (last reduction too harsh, moving to 10% per 3, 4 or 5 weeks) 12th Oct 22  67.5mg, 11th Nov 60.18mg, 11th Dec 53.65mg, 2nd Jan 2023 48.035mg, 23rd Jan 2023 42.8mg, 13th Feb 39.033mg, 20th March 34.85mg, April 19- May 17 rather rapid slide method from 31mg to 19mg (approx 10% weekly). Hold 19mg to May 31st, 17.5mg to 15th June, Split dosing 9mg x 2 twice daily 1 at 5pm and 1 at 7:30pm. Helped with the severity of the adverse reactions and can be mixed with next dosing to allow a slide period. July 11th,  9mg + 7.5mg. July 18th 2 x 7.5mg,  Aug 18th 7.5mg + 6mg, Aug 25th 6+6mg, Sep 23rd 5.25+5.25mg, Oct 27 CT. Drug free!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Does anyone have motion blindness??? Can't see motion?? Akinetopsia?? 

2015 20mg lexapro 

2016 20mg attempt get off one month taper(doctor advice) xtreme terror and anxiety 

2016 again  20mg attempt get off extreme ocd and social fear as withdraws

2018 reduce to 10mg ocd visual snow fatigue couldn't learn

2022 10mg get off again one month taper(doctor advice) had reactions on it and inflammation markers... xtreme protracted  withdraws symptoms 

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I don't think I have had that, but that's an interesting one.

 

My visual disturbances have got a lot worse in the last 2 weeks after a paradoxical adverse reaction to my remaining AD.

I am seeing my doc tonight as the paradoxical adverse reactions keep getting worse as I taper the remaining low dose.  So at this point I am not sure if tapering should be continued or CT would be safer?

I am now having waves of black flicker when looking up at something bright and uniform like my PC monitor, now also a reverse effect started this morning, white flashing waves when going from bright to a dark uniform surface.

I started to get random black streaks strike through lines of text in my POV down from my central vision and appears like the line is striked through and deleted but when I look at it, it's normal like nothing happened.

The spaces between lines of text have grey bands that have flickering colours too, I have see this before but can't recall when, if it was a prior time to the WD or during the last 2 years of WD?

 

 

I also had my first episode in over 2 years of Prosopometamorphopsia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopometamorphopsia

 

Apparently this is extremely rare.  I used to get this before WD or taper, it emerged during use of Moclobemide and Rexulti, after the Rexulti was added, but not until my adverse effects crept in at the 12-18 month mark.  But the Moclobemide in isolation prior to anything else being added did give me white flashes and noise in pitch black at night when I move my head or body, like a brain zap with those additional visual effects.

 

My symptoms are many times worse when I take the Moclobemide in the evening, it was almost completely resolved right at the end of my Rexulti taper 5-6 months ago and when I had reduced the Moclobemide a lot relative to the Rexulti. 

I also had bad noise and other visual oddities when I quit Rexulti the first time 2 years ago but was still on the full dose of Moclobemide, and they got worse the longer I stayed off the Rexulti but left the Moclobemdie at the full dose, until I had to reinstate.  Seems a similar thing has happened again, so I am sure the Moclobemide is driving the visual problems. Because as I have reduced Moclobemide while on a tiny micro doses of the reinstated Rexulti, all my symptoms including the visual problems improved dramatically, but the reverse was true if I only reduced the Rexulti.

I have had visual disturbances with every single SSRI or SNRI in my past, so I guess all serotonigenic drugs do this too me.   Rexulti is a strong antagonist of most of the serotonin receptors, so that hints that it had a counting effect on the AD until my CNS got used to it and it no longer worked as a counter.

Very frustrating the least to say, especially so close to the end of getting off all drugs and when I was doing much better some 6 months ago.

 

Late 2014-Early 2015 started Lovan SSRI for weakness, fatigue and severe SD. Severe side effects. CT

2015- multiple SSRIs and SNRI (type?) Anger and side effects. CT

2015- Agromelatine  6 months- No effects CT

2016- Present Moclobemide. Partial response without major side effects. 

2017- 2017- Added Sodium Valproate- No effects just hair loss. CT

2018- Antipsychotic. (type?) No effects. CT. 

2018- Latuda Antipsychotic. 6 months. No effects. CT. 

2019 Jan- Rexulti. Massive improvement no major side effects.  2mg dose.

September 2020- Sudden severe SD after a number of years of being mostly fine and jerky sleep/wake transitions + severe sleep paralysis, injuries to face during sleep, blunt emotions, brain fog, little motivation.

August 2021- Rexulti concluded as likely cause. Begin taper over 8 weeks. Delayed severe neurological (almost entirely autonomic) WD symptoms in late November 2021 after being symptom free. 

Reinstated and taper Rexulti @ 0.25mg Jan 2022, 0.125mg May, August 0.0625mg, November 26th 0.03125mg, Feb 27th 2023 0.0158mg, May 22nd 0.0mg. Finally!

Taper Moclobemide March 2022 from 300mg to 150mg, August 75mg (last reduction too harsh, moving to 10% per 3, 4 or 5 weeks) 12th Oct 22  67.5mg, 11th Nov 60.18mg, 11th Dec 53.65mg, 2nd Jan 2023 48.035mg, 23rd Jan 2023 42.8mg, 13th Feb 39.033mg, 20th March 34.85mg, April 19- May 17 rather rapid slide method from 31mg to 19mg (approx 10% weekly). Hold 19mg to May 31st, 17.5mg to 15th June, Split dosing 9mg x 2 twice daily 1 at 5pm and 1 at 7:30pm. Helped with the severity of the adverse reactions and can be mixed with next dosing to allow a slide period. July 11th,  9mg + 7.5mg. July 18th 2 x 7.5mg,  Aug 18th 7.5mg + 6mg, Aug 25th 6+6mg, Sep 23rd 5.25+5.25mg, Oct 27 CT. Drug free!

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