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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

#211

Post by appplication »

brandall10 wrote: post #203
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…

Why did you take a very high dose? As someone who was experienced with psilocybin some 20+ years ago, I always took fairly consistent doses (roughly 3 grams), as I could sense taking much more would be playing with fire. This was pretty much a given amongst my circle of a dozen friends who experienced these trips with me… hero doses were almost never a good or healthy idea. Fun to read about on Erowid though, mostly…

> Why did you take a very high dose?

Hindsight is 20/20 but often it’s not clear at the time if it’s a bad idea or how bad it can be. I think it’s not such a fair question to someone struggling to find effective treatment for mental health issues to make a mistake on dosing. Especially given both government and medical field have historically not amenable to openly communicating harm reduction or safe guidelines for experimentation with this particular medicine.

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

#212

Post by throwup238 »

xterminator wrote: post #206

Psychedelics are nice and powerful - maybe too powerful. I don't trust the system to use them responsibly. I'd rather obtain and use them on my own than as part of some private - or governmental - initiative. There's no one to trust more than a good friend to be there for you when the ride gets bumpy, not some guy in a suit doing it for the money.

Thankfully it’s just mushrooms. It must be one of the easiest drugs to grow yourself after just dropping a cannabis seed in the ground. As long as spores are accessible it’ll be “democratized” and even in places like California where they’re illegal to ship, they’re still easy to get.

It’s a lot harder to accurately dose in its natural form though.

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

#213

Post by romseb »

standardUser wrote: post #91
8b16380d wrote: post #22

Funny, psilocybin has been largely detrimental to the mental health of everyone I know.

I've have done a lot of drugs and know a lot of people who have done a lot of drugs, and psilocybin is far and away the substance that is most loved and gets the best reviews. It's not even close.

What are the more preferred plants/substances for personal growth and mental health?

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

#214

Post by sva_ »

jrflowers wrote: post #210
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…

For folks that are interested in anecdotes about psychedelics, I recommend reading Erowid expertise vaults as what gets volunteered here is very narrow and not representative of the population as a whole. I would know, as my psychedelic mega dose stories are very different from this and also completely unique to me. I’ve done 500ug of LSD and it was great fun. I scheduled a day off to rest ahead of time and was back…

'great fun' seems like a weird way to describe a 500ug trip. Did you have some tolerance before this, and do you have very high confidence that the dosage is accurate?

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

#215

Post by the_gorilla »

xterminator wrote: post #206

Psychedelics are nice and powerful - maybe too powerful. I don't trust the system to use them responsibly. I'd rather obtain and use them on my own than as part of some private - or governmental - initiative. There's no one to trust more than a good friend to be there for you when the ride gets bumpy, not some guy in a suit doing it for the money.

As an outside observer, I have to notice that doctors and "the system" have lost such trust that people prefer self-medicating with illegal drugs.

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

#216

Post by SoftTalker »

the_gorilla wrote: post #215
xterminator wrote: post #206

Psychedelics are nice and powerful - maybe too powerful. I don't trust the system to use them responsibly. I'd rather obtain and use them on my own than as part of some private - or governmental - initiative. There's no one to trust more than a good friend to be there for you when the ride gets bumpy, not some guy in a suit doing it for the money.

As an outside observer, I have to notice that doctors and "the system" have lost such trust that people prefer self-medicating with illegal drugs.

"The system" has no interest in curing your depression. They want you to keep making therapy appointments, and they want you to keep refilling prescriptions.

Individual doctors may or may not have this view. I'm talking about "the system." Just consider the incentives. That tells you all you need to know.

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

#217

Post by jrflowers »

sva_ wrote: post #214
jrflowers wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For folks that are interested in anecdotes about psychedelics, I recommend reading Erowid expertise vaults as what gets volunteered here is very narrow and not representative of the population as a whole. I would know, as my psychedelic mega dose stories are very different from this and also completely unique to me. I’ve done 500ug of LSD and it was great fun. I scheduled a day off to rest ahead of time and was back…

'great fun' seems like a weird way to describe a 500ug trip. Did you have some tolerance before this, and do you have very high confidence that the dosage is accurate?

No tolerance, and yes the dosage was accurate.

I picked “great fun” as a description as a shorthand because, while I could write more about it, it had little to no net positive or negative impacts on my mental health. For the purposes of this discussion, “Great fun” is kind of meant to communicate that the story is neither a warning or a recommendation regarding depression or any other mental health condition.

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

#218

Post by zdragnar »

Levitating wrote: post #171
dimal wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This is blatantly false. I've been on a few. Some didn't help, some made me worse. The one I'm on now is extremely helpful, and saved me.

None of them had any suppressant effects on my emotions at all.

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

#219

Post by SoftTalker »

dingnuts wrote: post #201
washadjeffmad wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a profoundly difficult trip that affected me deeply. It felt eternal, and when I emerged, I could feel it in my head like some antimemetic parasite that fed off disgust and terror. I can still remember the feeling, twenty years later, if I try, so I don't. I had to learn how not to be influenced by it, and in doing so, learned about myself. And as I changed, because I was aware of what I knew, I knew when I'd c…

funny, I could have written the same post but about boring old general anesthesia given before surgery

How long ago?

Every general anesthesia I've had was basically "OK you'll start to get sleepy now" and then "ok we're finished" and zero awareness of any elapsed time.

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

#220

Post by detourdog »

the_gorilla wrote: post #215
xterminator wrote: post #206

Psychedelics are nice and powerful - maybe too powerful. I don't trust the system to use them responsibly. I'd rather obtain and use them on my own than as part of some private - or governmental - initiative. There's no one to trust more than a good friend to be there for you when the ride gets bumpy, not some guy in a suit doing it for the money.

As an outside observer, I have to notice that doctors and "the system" have lost such trust that people prefer self-medicating with illegal drugs.

I think the advertising of pharmaceutical is big loss of faith. Not to mention the opioid crisis.

If medicine was an honorable industry in the USA the might be more faith.

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