reddit_eat_my_anus

Jesus Christ!

Thank you for posting this. I have ALL the symptoms you have described. I remember becoming aware of it around age 5 in a school assembly. It bothered me for years and years.

As I became a mid teenager I got into drugs and, well did a lot of them including many many hallucinogens and psychedelics which muffled/made me less bothered by it all, but after coming down the symptoms were really exacerbated. This carried on for a couple of decades until I stopped drugs altogether but the exacerbated symptoms continued :(.

After a lot of research I diagnosed myself with HPPD and just well, learned to live with it. Very difficult sometimes, especially the DP/DR when it kicks in hard during important activities (like speeches). Nonetheless this couldn't explain the symptoms I had had during pre drug childhood.

This visual snow idea fits perfectly.

In addition to everything you have listed, I have a few other symptoms that come and go.

1: Tracers: I get purple and green "afterimages" of things which are fast moving in my close field of vision, especially my fingers when typing. (fapping is interesting too; think The Matrix bullet dodging)

2: Ear pressure: I get a feeling akin to ear pressure in an airplane or elevator. It can last for minutes/hours/days at a time and suddenly it will stop, with an immediate increase in tinnitus. To add insult to injury, I had my hearing tested and it is WAY above the norm for someone my age. LOL I get to "hear" my tinnitus in hi-def!

3: When the DR/DP is in full effect, it becomes very difficult to multi task and concentrate on problems that required consistent attention.

I totally feel you on never getting any peace, it's bloody horrible. I don't know what darkness or silence is like. I have constant sensory input.

I saw a doctor about it once, as it was affecting my sleep for a while, but the medication they gave me made me infinitely more ill and had a withdrawal syndrome lasting 2 years (with some effects still lingering many years after).

I'm sorry to hear that you have this problem, but at the same time am relieved that it's not just me going mental or being born broken.

Good luck!

Thanks, but I left facebook a long time ago.

Without sounding like a new-age hippy moron, other things that seem to increase symptoms.

1: caffeine - I have a cup of coffee in the morning and am usually ok, having more than that seems to increase tinnitus.

2: really salty/msg laden food - DR can go crazy for several hours.

3: alcohol - I used to drink A LOT. not now, just one beer maximum and that can increase the ear pressure the next day.

I use a white noise generator to mask the tinnitus at night and a tempur eye mask (even the stand-by light on my tv will wake me up) I find the slight pressure it puts on my eyes kind of alleviates the flashing and streaking. Also, relating to your blood flow hypothesis, the position of my head drastically alters the tinnitus, I sleep with a paper thin pillow now. Blood sugar levels also severely affect the DR/DP. I am far from diabetic, so that is not a concern, but I find eating smaller complex carb meals 5 or 6 times a day, really helps.

Drugs all have a negative effect on the symptoms now. However on the other hand, having taken and handled so many psychedelics, I find that I am better equipped to manage the DR/DP when it gets bad. Rather than regret the drug abuse, I consider it battle training for when times get bad.