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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

#261

Post by refulgentis »

londons_explore wrote: post #251
Affric wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often you’re not allowed on your medication for any of your other health issues.

We need a new approach to randomly controlled trials. I propose a new approach: Rather than given treatment vs not given treatment, we instead vary the dose slightly , and we include the whole world in the trial. Ie. instead of taking 100mg of Advil, instead you will receive somewhere between 95mg and 105mg of Advil. You won't be told how much you got - but the barcode on the box will encode that info. That already m…

This doesn't sound very helpful

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

#262

Post by xkcd-sucks »

andoando wrote: post #255
neom wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

8 grams in one sitting? Im not even so worried about the psychological response but even a gram can give me extreme stomach pain and nausea that ruins the whole thing.

making a tea with slightly acidic not-too-hot water helps quite a lot

also chewing fresh ginger or ginger tea

starting on an empty stomach, of course

but surprisingly, sometimes a little bit of miso soup midway can help with the "gastroparesis" type nausea that can emerge late stage

and also a little bit of diphenhydramine if it's still bad (like less than an antihistamine dose)

even if it is all kind of lipstick on a pig :)

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

#263

Post by malfist »

londons_explore wrote: post #251
Affric wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often you’re not allowed on your medication for any of your other health issues.

We need a new approach to randomly controlled trials. I propose a new approach: Rather than given treatment vs not given treatment, we instead vary the dose slightly , and we include the whole world in the trial. Ie. instead of taking 100mg of Advil, instead you will receive somewhere between 95mg and 105mg of Advil. You won't be told how much you got - but the barcode on the box will encode that info. That already m…

That's not generally how drugs work. There's wide margins on how much dose is required for clinically significant results. Not only is the 110 pouns petite woman taking the same dose of aspirin as a 400lb elite powerlifter, but the effects can't be quantified in high resolution. The woman can't say her pain was 5% less than the powerlifter, and they can't say their pain was 5% more.

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

#264

Post by fsckboy »

thegrim33 wrote: post #173

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 whil…

>The results are based on a grand total of 25 people in the psilocybin group and 21 people in the SSRI group.

Statistical significance is based on sample size, and is independent of population size. Let that sink in, doesn't matter if your population is 100K or 8 billion, when you sample you are trying to understand the probabilities in your sample, not in the population.

Therefore, (think about the birthday paradox, doesn't matter how many people in the world, a few dozen in the room with you is an adequate sample), it should not surprise you that statistical significance is achieved through a much smaller sample size than most non-statisticians have intuition for.

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

#265

Post by dustyventure »

striking wrote: post #166
LocalH wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guarantee you the number of people who have died from SSRI misuse is higher than the number of people who have died from psilocybin misuse. I'm not referring to things a person may do in a given state, I'm talking about effects from the drugs themselves. I'm not aware of a single recorded person who has taken any dose of psilocybin, and died from "psilocybin overdose". While it may be uncommon, it is possible to ov…

Sure, psylocybin won't kill you, but the threat of inescapable psychological distress is real. Maybe it's less likely if you aren't predisposed to psychosis, but you can't easily know for sure that you're not. And yes, it's possible to misuse SSRIs, but taking an obviously oversize dose is still often a treatable situation. Combining them with depressants I think is a degree of misuse that is incomparable.

While fishing for that right dosage of SSRIs you have a person with new boughts of mania and suicidal tendencies where there's no clarity on how to stop the experiment due to the complexity of blood level accumulation.

If SSRIs started as illegal drugs, with i.e. people starting them dodging medical supervision, I think the system would be telling us they are insanely risky and well beyond many scheduled drugs.

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

#266

Post by fsckboy »

M4v3R wrote: post #37
neom wrote: post #21

Psilocybin saved my life. I'm no longer suicidal, I'm no longer a practicing alcoholic, and outside of a few things here and there, I'm generally at peace with my life. I cannot express how grateful I am for psilocybin.

Thanks for sharing this, you’re not the only one. I have a close friend who tried LSD as a last resort to get the best of his severe depression and suicidal thoughts (after being on SSRIs for his entire life) and just one session completely removed his suicidal thoughts for months . After this experience he repeats this whenever he feels the dark thoughts are coming back and it always curbs them down almost completel…

just consider, if it's so powerful in adjusting his brain, it's probably equally powerful in adjusting anybody's brain, and what if your brain doesn't need adjustment? there's no reason to think it's "idempotent" so to speak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idempotence is the property of certain operations in mathematics and computer science whereby they can be applied multiple times without changing the result beyond the initial application

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

#267

Post by seeknotfind »

fsckboy wrote: post #264
thegrim33 wrote: post #173

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 whil…

> The results are based on a grand total of 25 people in the psilocybin group and 21 people in the SSRI group. Statistical significance is based on sample size, and is independent of population size. Let that sink in, doesn't matter if your population is 100K or 8 billion, when you sample you are trying to understand the probabilities in your sample, not in the population. Therefore, (think about the birthday paradox…

The issue your parent comment raises is that this random group may not represent someone that's trying to evaluate what techniques can help them, regardless of the statistical significance within that group. It makes me sad that they introduce other random variables, as incontrovertible evidence of efficacy could help a lot of people!

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

#268

Post by fsckboy »

seeknotfind wrote: post #267
fsckboy wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The results are based on a grand total of 25 people in the psilocybin group and 21 people in the SSRI group. Statistical significance is based on sample size, and is independent of population size. Let that sink in, doesn't matter if your population is 100K or 8 billion, when you sample you are trying to understand the probabilities in your sample, not in the population. Therefore, (think about the birthday paradox…

The issue your parent comment raises is that this random group may not represent someone that's trying to evaluate what techniques can help them, regardless of the statistical significance within that group. It makes me sad that they introduce other random variables, as incontrovertible evidence of efficacy could help a lot of people!

except it was completely non-specific about what those flaws might be, simply saying "sample is too small" when the sample is not a priori too small for a properly designed study of something that has "noticeable" effect. For example, "does alcohol get people drunk" is not hard to show on a sample of 10 people.

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

#269

Post by yieldcrv »

fsckboy wrote: post #266
M4v3R wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing this, you’re not the only one. I have a close friend who tried LSD as a last resort to get the best of his severe depression and suicidal thoughts (after being on SSRIs for his entire life) and just one session completely removed his suicidal thoughts for months . After this experience he repeats this whenever he feels the dark thoughts are coming back and it always curbs them down almost completel…

just consider, if it's so powerful in adjusting his brain, it's probably equally powerful in adjusting anybody's brain, and what if your brain doesn't need adjustment? there's no reason to think it's "idempotent" so to speak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idempotence is the property of certain operations in mathematics and computer science whereby they can be applied multiple times without changing the result beyond…

everyone considers that, but because they’ll be dead by the time the studies narrow down anything they chose the substance that moves them towards results - or doesn’t

everyone can perceive that psychedelic is doing many highly variable things at once and probably shouldn't be recommended, so they just say their experience

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

#270

Post by gtvwill »

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…

^^^ much like the terpenes in weed different mushrooms have different chemical compositions that alter the way your body interprets the psilocybin. Cubensis make me laugh/most folks I know get the giggles on them. Blue meanies make you see things (super visual). Or atleast this has been mine and others experience over eh, probably around 20 to 30 trips over the years.

Lsd is good but definitely not as good or as easy on the brain as mushrooms. Dmt is wild, dmt with a maoi I'm too scared to try.

I've tripped a lot. It's my preferred way to party, but these days I party rarely. Mdma,ket,coke,heroin,speed all leave me feeling gross and the risk factors for addiction are far too high for my liking.

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