Hello all!
I am a bit concerned about my room swaying, morphing and shifting vision. I read a lot of people who have HPPD have this symptoms too and from this visual disturbances feel dizzy.
Does anyone know how to differentiate chronic VM and HPPD? Thy symptoms look so the same.
I did use psychedelics before in my life(around 10 times). And 5 months before my dizziness started.
Anyone knows something about this?
Thanks in advance!
Interesting. I googled HPPD and I have many of those symptoms. i have never used psychedelic drugs.I have been diagnosed with VM and have made some improvements regarding the visual stuff over the past 7 months since taking Venlafaxine.
I get visual vertigo, where it looks like the room will shift upwards or to the right. This normally happens in an overwhelming area like a supermarket. I have 24/7 VM.
Mike
First thing I had to do was look up HPPD. Never heard of it. Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, um. Guess you need to ask a specialist that one. Be interested to hear their response. There are a couple of references within the forum on it. Very very little.
I only know MAV where visual vertigo which it surely is is stimulated by external stimuli. I wonder if HPPD the same? Would suspect so. Interestingly treatments similar. They use Amitriptyline and Lamotrigine.
Professor Bronstein described Visual Vertigo as āa syndrome where symptoms are triggered or exacerbated in situations involving rich visual conflict or intense visual stimulationā. If thatās any help.
HPPD symptoms seem similar however I always think of Visual Vertigo more in terms of feeling sick and off balance due to the stimulus of movement in the environment. Classic one being jamming on the foot brake in the car because the car in the next lane moves and you feel as if it is your car moving. Indeed a false sense of movement which is the definition of vertigo. Interesting to read HPPD can also be termed āAlice in Wonderland syndromeā (AIWS) which to me in my own experience the symptoms more closely relate, size changes, shapes morphing, halos and other distortion etc none of which I have ever, to date, experienced although I appreciate other MAVers may do.
I just had a quick read of HPPD symptoms and diagnosis. Difficult one that it would seem. Both HPPD and MAV are diagnosed of exclusion and on the face of it similar visual symptoms. HPPD is apparently very rare whereas MAV is relatively common. HPPD can only occur where there has been previous drugs use and even then only occurs rarely.
I guess the medics go on a full detailed history (hoping it is totally honest) and fully explore the other non-visual symptoms such as head/ear pressure, everyday affect on balance etc.
If you chance to run it by a specialist be fascinating to hear his comments.
It could be HPPD or maybe visual snow syndrome and/or AiWS. With MAV weāre likely more susceptible to that stuff. Iāve had increasing levels of both visual snow and AiWS for years. The 24/7 visual issues and the dizziness, nausea and migraine that go with them are my major MAV issues, though a host of other persistent aura issues are a close second. Iāve never had hallucinogenics. Once when describing my perception of the world, my sister joked that I should never take hallucinogens because itād be a waste of perfectly good drugs I could otherwise be sharing with someone else.
My point is donāt beat yourself up over the past drug use. We have a few others here in that boat playing the āwhat if I neverā game with themselves. The vast majority of us landed here without any extraneous help and itās likely you did, too. Our brains are genetically, chemically different. Some of us have more visual crap from unhappy optical nerve processing, worn out pituitaries, bioelectrochemical disasters, or maybe a wonky metabolism. MAV for me, and probably most of us, was inevitable.
My personal concern is that the visual issues are slowly but steadily increasing and make it more difficult to perceive and function in the world. (And that my head hurts and my stomach turns over talking about it.) Helenās (@Onandon03) right. Regardless of the instigating influence, or lack thereof, itās worth seeking treatment. A lot of people here tolerate propranolol and/or amitriptyline very well. I hear less about Lamotrigine but itās on my list of potential drugs to try next. Venlafaxine didnāt reduce my visual snow but it did temper the false motion and a lot of the other extraneous hallucinations.
See? Thatās four drugs worth trying. There are options. And this isnāt your fault.
I donāt know about HPPD, but just to say that I too took hallucinogens probably three months prior to my first vestibular flare-up, and the flare-up happened at a time when I was drinking heavily and smoking other drugs (marajuana, Spice). I suspect that my initial āspinningā experiences were in some way drug responses, and that they in turn activated my āmigraine brainā or āPPPD brainā or whatever it is. Itās difficult not to look back and feel stupid, and to blame yourself, but itās in the past. Also, everyone I knew 10 years ago was taking drugs, but I was the only one to develop chronic symptoms. Which perhaps suggests that I had the underlying predisposition to those symptoms, just waiting to be activated, while my friends didnāt. And something else could have activated them, e.g. an ear infection, BPPV etc.
One way of seeing whether your HPPD is a form of migraine is trying a migraine diet, which you may have done. I had a massive improvement simply by cutting chocolate out. If you cut everything out, and nothing changes, that perhaps suggests that this is a separate issue.
Thanks so much! Might try that in the future 
Hey Onandon03,
Thanks for responding! I think I dont suffer from Visual Vertigo.
I reached out to a specialist in perceptual disorders. He treats people at a little clinic āUncommon Psychiatric Syndromesā and he wrote books about this disorder and he made a book about Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.
When I emailed my complaints he said this is typical for Alice in Wonderland syndrome, and he has some clinical evidence 36.4% from all AIWS symptoms are from migraines.
I hope my symptoms will go away with Flunarizine. And otherwise iām welcome to go to his clicic and he will do an MRI, EEG and blood tests to make sure nothing else is wrong and can offer treatment.
Iāll just stay at my regular treatment right now
So I think itās just migraines!
Thanks so much flutters!
I think you were right about the AiWS symptoms, as you can read in my other reply above.
Thanks for the support and I know I shouldnt beat myself up. Youāre right VM just comes out with different kind of triggers and maybe some bad luck.
Thanks for all the options to try! Lamotrigine seems interesting. I read one person on FB got rid of the 24/7 visuals by that med. And was caused by migraines too.
I hope yours will subside too! So good to hear weāre helping each other here.
Excellent!
Hi, who was the specialist you saw and did he manage to help you?