Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder: Symptoms & Solutions

Bipolar disorder also involves significant mood swings, which are absent in HPPD. Perceptual distortions, such as seeing objects as larger or smaller than they actually are, occur in about 45% of individuals with HPPD. These distortions can affect various senses, including vision, hearing, and touch. They are believed to result from the brain’s altered sensory processing pathways, which struggle to interpret incoming information accurately.

Risk Factors

Substance-induced psychotic disorder occurs when hallucinations or delusions develop as a result of drug or alcohol use. These symptoms may appear during intoxication or withdrawal from substances such as stimulants, alcohol, or hallucinogens. In most cases, the psychosis resolves once the substance is eliminated from the body or withdrawal symptoms subside. HPPD occurs when people take drugs — including (and especially) psychedelic drugs – and report significant, distressing changes to how they perceive the world. HPPD, despite the focus on perceptual changes, can sometimes involve changes to thoughts and feelings once the drugs have worn off.

• If a doctor is not sympathetic to a person’s symptoms or does not want to explore HPPD as a diagnosis, then it is a good idea to speak to a different doctor.
• They do not relive any other aspects of a drug trip, only the part that involved vision.
• Being prepared as much as possible for how you’ll respond to HPPD symptoms could be helpful, especially with more intense episodes.
• Still, there are some visual symptoms many people with HPPD have in common.

Symptoms

Whether you are experiencing these symptoms yourself or HPPD symptom are concerned about someone else, this guide aims to help you better understand the condition and explore effective ways to manage it. Benzodiazepines may be useful and effective in eliminating benign HPPD I and ameliorating, but not completely eradicating, pervasive HPPD II symptoms 18,67. The effectiveness of Benzodiazepines may be related to their activity on the cortical serotonergic-inhibitory inter-neurons with GABAergic outputs 2,4.

What is hallucinogen-persisting perception disorder?

An estimated 5.5 million adults in the United States use hallucinogenic drugs. People who take hallucinogens may be hoping to escape their lives, reset their brains or have new experiences. While the drugs may provide these benefits, they can also cause side effects, including hallucinogen persisting perception disorder or HPPD.

Medical Risk Factors

• About 40% of individuals with HPPD report an altered sense of time, perceiving it as moving either too quickly or too slowly.
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• If you’re at work, you may consider designating a quiet, private place to wait for visual distortions to pass.

Distinct substances, with completely different mechanisms of action, might lead or precipitate the genesis of HPPD, therefore suggesting a multifaceted etiology. Thus, it is accordingly conceivable that different medications could be useful and helpful in the Alcoholics Anonymous treatment of different subtypes of HPPD. Tracers and trailing phenomena appear to be the most resistant symptoms. Concomitant coexisting psychiatric disorders can represent a further clinical challenge, with the clinical construct of the lysergic psychoma as a possible heuristic model. Of course, when the psychoma is strong and repeated in its nature, the possibility to determine a full-blown psychosis may become more concrete 93,94.

• Bipolar disorder also involves significant mood swings, which are absent in HPPD.
• Both migraine auras and HPPD can involve visual disturbances such as flashing lights or patterns.
• HPPD is divided into two types, according to the kinds of hallucinations the person experiences.

Conditions

• Their symptoms improved significantly after treatment initiation and the improvement persisted during a 6-month follow-up after treatment discontinuation 51.
• If these visual disturbances occur frequently, you may have a condition called hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD).
• Healthcare providers may perform psychiatric evaluations to distinguish between the two conditions.

Both involve visual disturbances that can last from minutes to years. But the types are different in the way they come about, how long they last, and how severe they are. While there is no cure for Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder, those individuals who suffer from it can find some relief from their symptoms by reducing stress and avoiding substance use. HPPD is also treated with several types of medication, through regimens that should be tailored to each individual. Some types of drugs that have delivered positive results include antipsychotics, some drugs used for treating PTSD, and naltrexone, which is used to treat opioid and alcohol dependency. If a doctor is not sympathetic to a person’s symptoms or does not want to explore HPPD as a diagnosis, then it is a good idea to speak to a different doctor.