DOSE:

oral

DXM

BODY WEIGHT:

101 lb

DXM was my first drug. I guess its leagality and ability to produce hallucinations are what made me want to try it. It was easily accessable, at my young age, other drugs were actually hard to come by and those that were around didn't sound fun. So my first trip, I hit the second plateau. The morning after, I wrote:

'9:27

woke up confused with still-affected vision and sense of gravity. ... still partial numbness and flanging of image. Must've fallen asleep on my trip.. I thought this might have happened. ... I am glad, however, that I did not throw up as most of the users of this drug report. ... I am not tired and there is still a lot of flanging. My vocal skills haven't completely returned. Teeth still chattering very slightly. Weird drug. I will experiment one more time and give it a fighting chance, but it won't be for at least a week, and I'll make better preperations for the trip.'

Although, as I came to discover, those effects did not subside until about 2 days later. I was no longer tripping, and my experience didn't really match up with a defective cytochrome. Later that night, when the lights went dim and I should have been sober for at least 12 hours, I looked at my Van Gogh painting. It moved a little. I waved my hand in front of my face, and about 50 copies of my hand formed a trail before my very eyes! I was inexperienced with drugs so I didn't really know how to handle the situation. Cool, I thought. The visual symptoms eventually reached a level where things were no longer moving on their own. Well, not all the time at least. I had been so intrigued by the first trip though, that I tripped again. And again. The third time I used DXM I took 6 Benadryl. The next day, the visual symptoms were just as bad as after DXM. After that, I tripped on DXM alone about 12 times, at 2nd - 3rd plateau doses, spaced 2-4 weeks apart. Soon I posted something about this, and RFG told me to stop using drugs completely and seek medical attention. Well, I took a 1-year DXM hiatus and saw a doctor.

I saw that the requirements for diagnosis included a lack of explanation by eye problems, so I saw an optometrist. He checked me up and down, administered a lot of tests and tried to determine the cause of these visual phenomena. At this point I was having floaters, extremely long motion trails, staring at something for long enough was enough to make it move, my afterimages stayed long enough for me to navigate a bathroom in the dark after flashing the lights on for a second. My optometrist said my eyes were fine, better than fine even. Same with my optic nerve. Hmm.

So next I saw a neurologist. Although he had never heard of this before, he had an EEG and MRI done, thinking perhaps I had a stroke under the influence of DXM. I thought it was ridiculous and he didn't know what he was talking about, and the tests said the same. No stroke. My psychologist said I had a clean bill of mental health. What could it be?!

So after a lot of unsuccessful attempts to seek treatment, I begged my physician for klonopin or some benzos. He said no. I was frustrated with this whole situation, and I gave up on doctors for a while. After a year and no improvement of the symptoms, I tried marijuana for the first time. The way I can tell how bad a drug is going to be for my HPPD-like symptoms is how bad they are about 2 hours after I return to baseline. DXM is the worst for it of any drug I have ever used; DXM aggravates my symptoms more than benadryl, methamphetmaine, ecstasy, ritalin, adderall, ketamine, ether, marijuana, MDE, opiates, nitrous oxide... and whatever else I may have consumed along the way. Of the preceding list, the worst offender is definitely Adderall. Dunno why, there is no rhyme or reason to it. After I tried pot for the first time, I used DXM twice more. Once third plateau, my final time a fourth. It has been about two years since I last used DXM, and I have used a whole host of drugs in between then an now.

I know of another person who had these same symptoms up until the point I stopped speaking to him. He found the effects rather pleasant and didn't make an effort to change them. I couldn't read books if the paper was too bright, every time I looked at the sky I was reminded that my brain is probably altered in an unfavorable way. My night vision was gone, blinds spots were developing.

Today, I smoke marijuana daily. The symptoms have become a little easier to ignore. I often go for many days without noticing one symptom, and I will admit that because of this, it cannot be technically counted as HPPD, as it must interfere with my life somehow. All I can say is, it certainly does make me steer clear of acid!

So really, what I was trying to say is, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of anecdotal reports about HPPD-like symptoms pop up.

Exp Year: 2000	ExpID: 19689
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Dec 19, 2002	Views: 22,380
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DXM (22) : HPPD / Lasting Visuals (40), Retrospective / Summary (11), Unknown Context (20)