101–110 of 201 posts
We have to be careful to prescribe these psychotropic substances willy-nilly to the general population. Cannabis has always initially worked well for me, but 1-2 months into using it, it causes schizophrenic/manic episodes. I cannot touch it anymore because of the possible permanent damage it could do.
As hopeful as I am for unconventional drugs to have more medicinal uses, is it unreasonable for me to think there's no good medicinal depression cure? Is it unfounded to think depression generally has its roots in being disconnected from other people/society? I've felt depressed before, but I've probably never had it as bad as many people. But generally I've felt depressed when my life felt too narrow. When I've felt…
You’re describing situational depression. A lot of people have chronic depression, where he only hope for managing the depression involves pharmaceuticals.
As hopeful as I am for unconventional drugs to have more medicinal uses, is it unreasonable for me to think there's no good medicinal depression cure? Is it unfounded to think depression generally has its roots in being disconnected from other people/society? I've felt depressed before, but I've probably never had it as bad as many people. But generally I've felt depressed when my life felt too narrow. When I've felt…
Really sick of these "drugs feel good" stories. If we were still behaviorists, we wouldn't pretend this was news. This is declaring a full remission of depression after four weeks in half of the subjects. This is pretend science, I absolutely guarantee that an all expenses paid weeklong camping trip (or trip to Paris for those afraid of bugs, or trip to Japan for those sick of Paris) would do the same thing. Asking d…
Of course, it's a very small sample size (as seems to be true with many of these studies) and appears to have lacked a control, although maybe I missed it.
As someone with major depression, it helps temporarily but doesn’t last.
Have you tried ketamine? I suffered from major depression for years and it was the only thing that helped me. It was like flipping a switch.
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What kind of placebo could you use to stand in for a treatment that normally has immediate and obvious side effects like this one?
You don't need placebo. That's a common misconception. They could have used an active control group that received traditional antidepressants. This study wasn't actually about psilocybin, it was about psilocybin-assisted therapy. So they could have simply had one group receive only therapy and the other group receive therapy plus psilocybin.
Traditional antidepressants take days or weeks to have an effect, and the effect is very different from psilocybin.
>So they could have simply had one group receive only therapy and the other group receive therapy plus psilocybin.
That still wouldn't tell you if the psilocybin itself had any effect over and above the placebo effect.
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If depression really is a "software" rather than a "hardware" issue that makes it much harder to solve right? You can't just toggle some biochemical switches and restore normal function. But if you can rewire the software in just the right way then maybe
> If depression really is a "software" rather than a "hardware" issue that makes it much harder to solve right? I bet you have the 3 scenarios: - "hardware" only - "software" only - both
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Thank you. I've had a very bad experience w/anesthesia so am always nervous while dealing with anything of that nature. Wonder if that predisposes me to a bad trip. Not sure that would be worth it for just 2 weeks of relief. Also not sure I'd be able to find any such doctor near me. Probably health care providers are much more open minded out West than it is here.
The nice thing about ketamine is that it is a sedative. I've done LSD, Mushrooms, and DMT. Ketamine is the most enjoyable and least risky in my opinion, due to its sedative nature. The doctors usually give an anti-anxiety drug before starting the infusion, a benzodiazepine such as midazolam. As I did more infusions, we increased the ketamine dose and decreased the midazolam. Find a good doctor and work with them. Ket…
As to monoideism's question: I'm not a doctor, but ketamine is more benign than many other anesthetics especially at the lower doses used in treating depression. Do your homework, but don't rule it out based upon prior experiences with other anesthetics.
Full disclosure, I have severe clinical depression. Multiple comments here have asked for double blind placebo trials. But you can't really do that with something psycho active, at least not ethically. I can appreciate wanting high standards, but that doesn't mean banning everything that doesn't fit the neat mold we use in other cases. Also, suicide is the leading cause of death for multiple age/sex demographic group…
In the correct setting, psychedelics can critically alter one's view on the world and themselves. This is very powerful, but very unknown. We must tread on light ground when approaching these substances. So, more research must be done under the right trip settings, but not in haste.
For comparison, AIDS kills about 13k. About 16k people died from (non suicide) handgun injuries. Even All Cancers caused 600k deaths. Curing depression would be the same as curing 1/12th of all cancers...
If your issue is negative thinking it doesn't necessarily help .. I guess without a guide.