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Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

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Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#41

Post by epilys »

andy_ppp wrote: post #24

N of one but my friend (who always saw the world as very black and white) killed herself not long after doing Ayahuasca. I’m pretty sure it contributed to her death, she became an extreme fantasist about judgement and god, not a formalised religion but a personified fantasy with crazed rules and vengeances. It was not good.

I'm sorry for your loss. I'm not a medical practitioner but it sounds like the experience triggered a psychotic "break" in your friend? It's a sad but real possibility with psychedelics that more people should be aware of.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#42

Post by emsixteen »

smt88 wrote: post #37
AnarchismIsCool wrote: post #11

You know when you see HN discussion on some subjects where you have significant background and it's hyper cringe? Psychology/neurology is one of those areas where the community's commentary is almost always extremely...factually challenged. Be very careful making health decisions based off of HN comments. Lots of people with strong agendas and weak subject matter knowledge. Also, be careful not to over-estimate your…

Your entire comment is about HN, not the article. Do you have anything substantial or interesting to say about the study?

It's a valid comment, you don't need to be offended.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#43

Post by exodust »

otherme123 wrote: post #13
exodust wrote: post #8

Interesting that OCD is the winning disorder, with zero negative responders. Recalling my mushroom days.... Okay, I think I get it. Psychedelic experience is, in part, about embracing the beautiful chaos of the universe. Surrendering to the charms of free-flowing wild information at scale so huge there's no chance of imposing your own orderly corrections - as you might in normal every day life via OCD. That's my armc…

The n=16 is ridiculously low, though. Psychotic disorder, with 25%/25%/50%... n=4 . The only number from Table 2 that makes sense is the aggregate. Even "history" vs "no-history" the differences are not that big, and slightly suggest that having a history of psychiatric illness has better outcome.

Yes true, I left out n=16 for my casual observation.

It's a murky subject due to the traditional way being far removed from clinical environments. Anything artificial like therapy props would stand out under the influence of psychedelics, but I guess they've thought of that. Good luck to them.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#44

Post by cupcake-unicorn »

skissane wrote: post #32
swores wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When they trialed Prozac on people with no history of mental illness, someone committed suicide out of the blue. I hadn't heard about this before, and while I'm sure it is possible for any drug that messes with brain chemicals to cause someone to decide to kill themselves, I've always been told & read a different explanation for the suicide warning that comes with most (or all?) antidepressants: Which is that a dep…

That may be a factor, but it is likely more complex than just that. SSRIs can cause some individuals to become disinhibited, impulsive. It is a particularly common symptom in children and adolescents (which is why many paediatricians and child psychiatrists hesitate to prescribe them), but more rarely can happen in adults too. Probably some people have a genetic susceptibility to it. It isn’t purely about amelioratin…

I honestly wonder if it isn't less rare in adults or if adults just are more likely to fall through the cracks and to have whatever underlying disorder blamed on the behavior. Children are a more vulnerable group who has a parent who is witness to the obvious behavior changes and can staunchly advocate for their child. Many adults starting SSRIs are isolated, don't have great support networks or friends looking out for them and are meeting with their doctors for the first time. For all the doctors know, behavioral issues were underlying, things just got worse, etc.

Anecdotal, but I've never once met a doctor who adequately described the risks of an SSRI to me as a patient, and even some who have pushed back when I've told them of my own dangerous reactions and other risk factors the drugs have. They really should, as should the risks of new psychedelic based drugs hitting the market. I don't have a problem with the study that's posted. What I do have a problem with is that I feel as if this information is going to be disproportionately used to deny access to RX psychedelics, when existing RXs with similar or worse risk factors aren't discussed in this manner at all.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#45

Post by holoduke »

rdtsc wrote: post #38

It’s pretty scary to me that so many people seemingly on whim are willing to upgrade their brain firmware. I often hear stuff like “and then my whole view on reality changed”. Unless there’s an easy way to upload the previous “factory image” so to speak, it feels pretty risky to experiment with that.

An illusive broken firmware it is. Better stay sober. Also when learning new things being sober is better. You wont get your phd using drugs. You wont get your brains to a new state using drugs. You maybe think you do, but thats a illusional defect of your brains when using drugs. Stay sober.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#46

Post by jnk345u8dfg9hjk »

andy_ppp wrote: post #24

N of one but my friend (who always saw the world as very black and white) killed herself not long after doing Ayahuasca. I’m pretty sure it contributed to her death, she became an extreme fantasist about judgement and god, not a formalised religion but a personified fantasy with crazed rules and vengeances. It was not good.

How do you know she wouldn't have killed herself without having tried Ayahuasca?

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#47

Post by namero999 »

optimalsolver wrote: post #34

Reminder. Psychedelics can also lead to extremely traumatic experiences: https://www.reddit.com/r/DMT/comments/gb9ar0/dark_dmt_trip_r... This doesn’t get mentioned in the current “psychedelics as a cure-all” hype wave.

Maybe not the best example as the report ends with "I’m doing great now! I think the experience despite being f* terrify was super useful", but I get what you mean. However, serious narrators or researchers usually don't fail to mention that we are not dealing with a panacea.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#48

Post by teh_infallible »

cupcake-unicorn wrote: post #22

This really just feels like fearmongering because this is a threat to big pharma. I mean, several commonly prescribed antidepressants have black box warnings about increased risk of suicide. When they trialed Prozac on people with no history of mental illness, someone committed suicide out of the blue. Fairly certain someone could cobble together a much more compelling meta analysis about even worse adverse effects o…

I always thought the “war on drugs” was a big pharma turf war.

Nearly every school shooter was on an antidepressant, but somehow that never makes headlines.

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#49

Post by reify »

I am nearly 70 years old.

I have been taking psychedelics for 50 over years. I am retired psychotherapist and I do not have a predisposition to mental ill health. I was also a substance misuse worker and methadone dispenser for over 10 years. I gave up smoking hash when I was 40 years old.

I did notice that with the introduction of skunk and the increase of up to 20% more Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), there were more and more people being sectioned under the mental health act with psychosis. Whereas prior to skunk when people generally smoked good old fashioned, Moroccan, Lebanese and Afghani hashish it was a rarity.

I know a range of people of different ages who partake in psychedelic use and have no trouble, like me, in holding down a professional job role and engaging fully in life.

As with all drugs there is a risk, however, the risks with Psyceedelics are very low in comparison with other drugs.

We must not use individual cases to determine the safety of any drug.

Here in the UK the media went wild over reports that a 18 year old girl (Leah Betts) had died from taking MDMA. Very rarely are the true facts given; The coroner said that "water intoxication", and not an allergic reaction to the drug, was the cause of death.

I have a great deal of respect for Professor David Nutt who is an English neuropsychopharmacologist specialising in the research of drugs that affect the brain and conditions such as addiction. His recommendations to the government to reclassify drugs were rejected and he was sacked.

heroin is top of the list - alcohol is 5th on the list - LSD is 14th on the list - Ecstacy is 18th on the list

Re: Psychiatric risks for worsened mental health after psychedelic use

#50

Post by rpastuszak »

2four2 wrote: post #14
AnarchismIsCool wrote: post #11

You know when you see HN discussion on some subjects where you have significant background and it's hyper cringe? Psychology/neurology is one of those areas where the community's commentary is almost always extremely...factually challenged. Be very careful making health decisions based off of HN comments. Lots of people with strong agendas and weak subject matter knowledge. Also, be careful not to over-estimate your…

I've found this to be generally true. Engineers are passionate and intelligent people, but frequently make the mistake of thinking this means they are experts in everything.

Reminds me of this article by Dan Luu: https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/

> A line I often hear from programmers is that programming is like "having to build a plane while it's flying", implicitly making the case that programming is harder than designing and building a plane since people who design and build planes can do so before the plane is flying1. But, of course, someone who designs airplanes could just as easily say "gosh, my job would be very easy if I could build planes with 4 9s of uptime and my plane were allowed to crash and kill all of the passengers for 1 minute every week".

We tend to think that some problems are only as complex as our understanding of them.

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