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Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

medscape.com

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Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#171

Post by Levitating »

dimal wrote: post #145
DiscourseFan wrote: post #82

Ok like most of you I’ve taken psychedelic drugs. I’ve had bad experiences sure, but I’m fine now. The issue is that what people generally say, like, “oh sometimes you need to encounter your demons,” maybe that will be temporarily traumatizing—in general people recover from that. The real issues are…more complex. More complex than any diagnoses in the DSM can cover. The brain is very complicated, and everyone’s brain…

> we do not know, really, what goes on in there when you take a drug like Psilocybin FYI, same goes for SSRIs. The scientific consensus is that the serotonin deficiency theory of depression was wrong. When SSRIs actually work, we still don’t know why. I’ve had bad trips, too. Very bad, but I still think that psilocybin (in a controlled, supportive setting) is a better bet. My bad trips were all due to being in bad se…

SSRIs barely work. For mild to moderate depression a placebo works similarly or better. Only for severe cases of depression are SSRIs found to be helpful because they surpress all emotion.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#172

Post by namaria »

zozbot234 wrote: post #87
DiscourseFan wrote: post #82

Ok like most of you I’ve taken psychedelic drugs. I’ve had bad experiences sure, but I’m fine now. The issue is that what people generally say, like, “oh sometimes you need to encounter your demons,” maybe that will be temporarily traumatizing—in general people recover from that. The real issues are…more complex. More complex than any diagnoses in the DSM can cover. The brain is very complicated, and everyone’s brain…

Taking psychedelics is a bit like trying to fix a Swiss watch with a sledgehammer: it might just work, but that's not the way to bet. Therapy and well-guided meditative practice can be a lot gentler than that.

This isn't some erowid report. This is actually about studies being made by professional researchers who are publishing their results.

Evidence based medicine is always better than layman opinions like 'psychedelics are a mental sledgehammer'.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#173

Post by thegrim33 »

The results are based on a grand total of 25 people in the psilocybin group and 21 people in the SSRI group. The sample size is pretty small.

The methodology is also kind of strange, the psilocybin group got a total of 20 hours of in-person therapy during their 'treatment' and 6 follow-up skype calls, whereas the SSRI didn't get anything other than the 6 month questionaire. Those 20 hours of personalized therapy while they were dosing had no effect on their psychology? Any change was all a result of the psilocybin and not the 20 hours of therapy?

They also measured results by a self-administered 16 question "quick inventory" depression survey. To enter the study they had to be officially diagnosed with major depression by a doctor, but the results of the study were based completely around a self-reported 16 question questionaire?

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#174

Post by namaria »

neom wrote: post #38
agumonkey wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it something that you still take here and there or was it a time limited therapy ? Congrats on finding a cure for your ailments

I did 3 sessions of 8 grams in silent darkness for 3 weekends in a row and that basically "beat the devil out of me" as they say - it was very very difficult, and a lot of work, but well worth it.I've only felt the "brain haze" (I call it) once since then, I took a gram and went for a long walk in the forest, back to no haze. It's been about 7/8 months and I can feel the "haze" building in my mind again, so I plan to…

I'm of the opinion that psychedelics can fulfill a similar role to religious catharsis for the maintenance of mental health.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#176

Post by cubefox »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #60
cubefox wrote: post #56

Unfortunately it's hardly possible to do proper case control studies with psilocybin, since the psychedelic effects cause unblinding. The participants know whether they are in the treatment or control group. > Normally the journey is quite inward, so patients do not require active support during the psychedelic experience [around 6 hours]. Sometimes they do require some hand-holding, or helping them to 'let go', or b…

You could compare against other psychedelics. I’d be interested in that.

Yeah. Especially a comparison with LSD seems interesting. However, if both perform similarly, this could either mean they both work or they both don't work.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#177

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

tootie wrote: post #11
awestroke wrote: post #4

I wonder how much of an uphill battle it will be to get psilocybin approved for therapeutic use compared to synthetic psilocybin analogues that are being trialed right now. Psilocybin can't be patented and it's already scheduled as a narcotic everywhere.

I'm taking a prescription med that is basically a schedule 1 drug that's been very slightly modified and declared schedule 3 and prescribed through a tightly controlled program. I'm even taking a generic version.

Purely out of curiosity, which drug is this, if you don't mind me asking?

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#178

Post by roughly »

state_less wrote: post #31

> "Psychiatrists really focus on negative symptoms of depression. So, if you are not sad anymore, if your sleep or appetite is not impaired, they think you're better. But if you look at what patients define as important, they say it's the degree in which their life is meaningful, in which they can connect with people around them, in which they can function in everyday life," Barba said. A more wholistic approach to h…

> A more holistic approach to health care would be beneficial.

I've commented on this elsewhere, but with psychedelics in particular we wind up in a weird space around our normal approaches to health - for instance, there's a lot of effort right now on finding the chemical mechanisms by which psychedelics affect mood, with the goal of creating substances which have the same impact on depression without the phenomenology of the trip. My suspicion is the trip is the treatment, or at least part of it - that the experience of being in an entirely different mindstate, of reacting to the world in a fundamentally different way using different mental pathways for several hours - is a core part of the treatment. Medicine has a bad habit of ignoring the patient's lived experience - to look at the patient broadly as a mechanism, and particularly as a collection of mechanisms, and to see things like hypertension* as something to be treated with a chemical offset and not a reflection of the full factors of a person's life. My hope is that the psychedelics will help us recognize a paradigm shift here (like, in data leading to changes in practice, not just in their normal way), but I think they've still got too much of the taint of the hippie on them to really be taken seriously.

* I'm using hypertension as just an example of a particular ailment, I'm not making a statement on the treatment hypertension in particular.

Re: Psilocybin bests SSRI for major depression in first long-term comparison

#179

Post by Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe »

debacle wrote: post #141

I have been taking seratonin precursors (5-HTP, a supplement) for about 4 months at a very low dosage (.3 of the "normal dose"). My chronic depression is mostly gone, but I have noticed an uptick in physiological signs of anxiety (though no mental signs). But more importantly, my gut health is better than it has been in 12 years. I am eating more and losing weight. My energy levels have skyrocketed. My impulsiveness…

Good for you. I'll just add that there is a non zero chance that getting checked out or mentionning at least to your closed ones about what you noticed would be a net benefit in plausible futures, as thyroid issues, bipolar disorder, various endocrinoloical disorders etc could also cause what you perceive as benefits.
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