[HN Gopher] Single dose of LSD provides immediate and lasting re...
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Single dose of LSD provides immediate and lasting relief from
anxiety, study say
Author : thelastgallon
Score : 69 points
Date : 2024-03-07 16:38 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| "Three LSDs, please."
|
| ----
|
| My brief experiences with entheogens largely agree with the
| study. However, if you're _not in a good place (mentally)_ ,
| please don't just do drugs (it won't solve anything).
|
| Also, if anybody suggests you "try this," perhaps start with a
| microdose of psilocybin, first (but only if you're curious).
|
| ----
|
| The beautiful interconnectedness of everything is my main
| "takeaway" from brief dabblings.
| spoiler wrote:
| I assume you don't mean a micro dose, but a smaller dose. The
| point of microdosing is to almost not feel the effects of the
| substance, and recent research has shown that microdosing is
| largely ineffective (both for the neuroplasticity effects of
| psilocybin, but also on its effect on DMN; my hunch: the
| reasons are probably related, but I'm not a neuro scientist!)
| wyre wrote:
| Do you have sources showing the ineffectiveness of
| microdosing? I don't not believe you, but that is news to me.
| I believed microdosing is effective.
| neom wrote:
| There is some data, but not much and not very good, that
| microdosing probably helps alleviate anxiety. However, I
| think what isn't well understood is, is this like using a
| band-aid for cancer. In my personal discussions with folks
| who work around psychedelic assisted therapy, these folks
| seem to believe it's the trip that knocks you right, and
| microdosing can keep you right, but you need to start with
| the trip. I have no real opinion on this, seems plausible
| to me based on my own experimentation, but I don't know.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01811-4
| spoiler wrote:
| Yes! Here is some I managed to quickly dig up:
|
| - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02876-5
|
| - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33648632/
|
| - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6364961/
|
| - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34915762/
|
| - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35918311/
|
| BIG DISCLAIMER before you read the next bits: I'm not a
| researcher/scientist in this field, but psychedelics have
| helped me get a handle on CPTSD, process trauma.
|
| My take on this is that microdosing probably still has some
| acute benefits, since it still does alters brain chemistry.
| So, can it be helpful? Probably, but it should come with a
| big "YMMV" disclaimer.
|
| In the context of psilocybin, my understanding is that it
| doesn't give long-term benefits as a "macro" dose would
| like DMN regulation[1] and neuroplasticity[2]; a lot of
| people tend to attribute these to microdosing too, but
| apparently it's not the case[3]. Also, due to tolerance
| build up, so you start getting diminishing returns from
| microdosing, so it's not effective long-term (even with the
| Fadiman microdosing protocol where you take breaks; I think
| there's other protocols that claims to lessen the
| diminishing returns). I don't think LSD triggers these
| physiological changes in the brain, but it's believed it
| can helps with the psychological aspects.
|
| I don't take them regularly anymore (I used to take them
| every couple of months during a rough patch in my life, but
| I also did therapy on-and-off during that period too). I
| now take them every few years as to check-in with myself,
| or special occasions.
|
| [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10032309
| [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6082376;
| I feel like there was a another study on this too, but I
| can't find it now, sorry! [3]: Only briefly discussed by
| Huberman in his podcast:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIxVfln02Ss. I recommend
| watching the video in its entirety; it's great!
| bitfilped wrote:
| Yes 100% agree, microdose has a specific meaning in the
| literature, that it is below active threshold. Please stop
| overloading this term to mean "I didn't take a very high
| active dose of a drug". You'll never microdose and have any
| apparent classical effects. At best you've have a quasi might
| have/mightn't have effects that can't specifically be pinned
| to the drug ingestion.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| My original comment had specifically meant "taking a dose
| which is barely noticeable" as a first time experience,
| e.g. 0.5 grams [vs "small"@2g; "heroic"@5g].
|
| >You'll never microdose and have any apparent classical
| effects.
|
| This is incorrect, but probably only on a case-by-case
| basis (to each, his own).
| bitfilped wrote:
| "Taking a dose which is barely noticeable" is not a
| microdose, it's a low active dose.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| I think we're getting into "undefined semantics" here, so
| I'll share my own psilocybin dosing [260lb Male, 40]:
|
| <0.5g == microdose (you just feel happier, more
| connected)
|
| 0.5-2g == small dose (you definitely notice
| distortions/connections)
|
| 2-4g == normal dose (silliness, connectedness, impactful
| mental rearrangement)
|
| >5g == heroic dosing (you'd better be ready for visuals,
| tracers, and a few hours of helpful insanity)
|
| ----
|
| Personally, I agree that _the real therapy begins_ after
| your first normal dose; however, I would not start there,
| nor even with a small dose. Start slow, build up to the
| revelation.
|
| ----
|
| Onwards, through the fog.
| neom wrote:
| I cannot express how much I agree that psilocybin is a
| considerably better place to begin a journey like this. I can
| only speak for myself obviously, and I'm quite sure entheogens
| are a difficult thing to paint with broad strokes in, but if I
| were to, psilocybin being the best place to start is something
| I deeply believe. I would also add, if you are curious, be
| cautious, but don't be scared. :)
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| >if you are curious, be cautious, but don't be scared
|
| I suggested _starting with a microdose_ , above, because for
| me it is one of those experiences which just helps me "be"
| [makes my attitude less shitty].
|
| But as others have suggested, a smaller dose might be more
| appropriate for anybody looking for "an experience on
| psychedelics."
|
| ----
|
| My absolute DO NOT recommendation: don't try any drug alone.
| When you're doing drugs alone (particularly first
| experimentations), you open yourself up to all sorts of
| gruesome outcomes (whether physical or mental).
| janeerie wrote:
| I always hear about not taking psychedelics if you're not in a
| good place mentally, but then how could it possibly be a
| treatment for anxiety?
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| Individuals should "put in some mental groundwork" in
| preparation of taking any entheogen; my best advice would be
| to use a spirit guide / healer for your first trip,
| particularly if you're extremely anxious.
|
| As example, I have previously been turned down [by a US MD]
| as "too anxious" to try legal ketamine-infusion therapy
| [immediately after loss of a parent].
|
| In using a trained professional (e.g. see Oregon's new
| psilocybin guide certification) to help you determine your
| "use fitness," you can probably avoid _a very bad
| experience_...
| bitcoin_anon wrote:
| Traditionally, and what the current research is showing, is
| that these substances are treatments for not being in a good
| place, mentally.
| rfarley04 wrote:
| I support this. Seems like having a trained therapist involved
| can't HURT though. So not having one kind of feels like cutting
| corners, but maybe there's a more academic reason?
| lurquer wrote:
| Lobotomies can likewise help.
| barbazoo wrote:
| source?
| docandrew wrote:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1933933/?page=1
| datameta wrote:
| [1942]
| docandrew wrote:
| I think that's the GP's point though. 70 years from now
| are we going to look back on these studies and think
| "what the heck were we thinking?"
| InCityDreams wrote:
| ...psychedelics have been around for thousands of years.
| People like trippin'.
| datameta wrote:
| Well hopefully we can continue actually studying benefits
| of psychedelic treatment in a medical setting because for
| about 30-40 years it was a dead field thanks to the
| government being oh-noesies in the late 60s. Maybe they
| should have put more money into understanding the drug
| from a medicinal perspective and not as a chemical agent
| against enemy troops or covert assassination through
| hyperdosing.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Dosage suggestions pls. Asking for a friend.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| > "We're very confident based on the results that 100
| micrograms is the right dose to bring into our phase three
| studies, as we didn't see any more improvement with 200
| micrograms but did see additional adverse effects," Karlin
| said.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Appreciate the quote, I should've specified: from HN folks.
| Sometimes there is a delta between public guidance and others
| with experience.
|
| All suggested resources are welcome, use case is someone with
| crippling anxiety.
| kangda123 wrote:
| From for a friend, 80-100 mcg is pure bliss without the
| psychedelic effects kicking in too much.
|
| Do read more on how to do it properly though. Many factors
| can have greater impact on the experience than the actual
| dose.
| wyre wrote:
| For therapeutic effects (not recreational) might recommend
| the smallest dose that's accessible and scaling from there.
| Ex. Taking a 100mcg tab and dividing it into fourths. This
| will accustom your friend to the new feelings and lowing
| the chances of an anxiety attack and allow them a reference
| point if they want to do it again, increase the dose, or
| abstain. LSD is known to be anti-addictive so having some
| leftover should be considered safe.
| neom wrote:
| 100ug does indeed seem to be the sweet spot, it also happens
| to be the dose I use to treat my depression.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33059356/
| aantix wrote:
| How often do you take it?
| neom wrote:
| No particular schedule, I can feel when I need to.
| Usually something triggers my depression or anxiety, and
| then I sit with it for some period of time till I feel
| I'm ready to make peace with it. Last year 3 times, this
| year once so far. I should also note, I use psilocybin
| now, however I started with lysergic acid.
| albroland wrote:
| 100-125 should give you visual effects you'd expect based on
| your existing conception of hallucinogens.
|
| If you don't care for visual hallucinations, anywhere from
| 50-75 will give you a lot of the usually pleasant mental
| effects: high sense of novelty, mood elevation, curiosity,
| sense of openness, etc.
|
| Even a smaller dose of 25-50 will give you perceivable mental
| effects.
|
| You should also spend the bit of extra money on a reagent
| testing kit to ensure you aren't taking random research
| chemicals being passed off as LSD. You can keep the reagents in
| the fridge pretty much indefinitely for future use as well.
| throwaway632 wrote:
| If my physician offered LSD to me, would want to be sure it was a
| last resort. Don't want to risk HPPD without good reason.
|
| After experiencing very mild visual snow for a few months, that's
| frightening enough for me. My job is looking at a computer
| screen. I need my vision intact.
| iandanforth wrote:
| https://eyewiki.aao.org/Hallucinogen_Persisting_Perception_D...
| .
| busterarm wrote:
| This happened to me. After one particularly intense trip I
| couldn't even look at a television for 6 months without having
| really jarring visual hallucinations. A few years of panic
| attacks too.
|
| I quit taking LSD after that one and all psychoactives not much
| longer after.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Similarly, MDMA may cause (and does cause in many individuals)
| visual snow.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| > After experiencing very mild visual snow for a few months,
| that's frightening enough for me.
|
| It went away? That's pretty uncommon from what I can tell.
| gamepsys wrote:
| > The multicenter, randomized, double-blinded trial tested doses
| of 25, 50, 100 and 200 micrograms compared with a placebo.
|
| Recently, the scientific testing of LSD seems to max at 200
| micrograms. If you read the literature from the 50s and 60s, and
| if you listen to many recreational users, this number is low. I
| am actively curious if there are measurable positive effects in
| the 300-500 range. It seems like 200 is where negative effects
| start to really appear, so the researchers are afraid of going
| above that because the data they collect may not look good for
| regulators.
|
| Phase 3 trials targeting 100 micrograms is further along
| legitimizing LSD than I ever expected in my lifetime. It doesn't
| seem like a full embrace though.
| piva00 wrote:
| 200mg is not really low, it's pretty much in the range for a
| "standard" dose. I personally prefer anywhere between 125-250mg
| for a worthwhile trip, including ego death, any time I have
| taken over 250mg it has required some preparation.
|
| 300-500mg range goes into way over a normal trip, I've only
| once taken 500+mg (and I consider myself experienced with
| hallucinogens) and the experience was borderline overwhelming,
| I had a good trip but wouldn't ever recommend it to anyone that
| isn't very experienced and knows very well what they are
| getting into.
| aantix wrote:
| What sort of preparation?
| rho138 wrote:
| Snacks if thats your vibe, plenty of fluids, a safe space
| and 2-3 easy/actionable game plans if the vibe changes. For
| a personal anecdote, it's being mentally aware/prepared
| that "I'm tripping on LSD and this too shall end" when
| things go awry.
| amirhirsch wrote:
| To be fully prepared, you should practice your maniacal
| howling and wild ecstatic movement well ahead of dosing or
| you will have no idea what to do when you are peaking and a
| faerie opens the void in front of you begging you to jump
| in and be swallowed into a world of colorful, cherry-
| flavored music. If you can manage it, you will want to have
| a hose connected to a reliable water source and some dry
| clothes just in case.
| tekla wrote:
| Number is super low.
| stove wrote:
| Anyone who has done 200 micrograms of LSD knows that 200 is not
| low.
| qvrjuec wrote:
| The dose that recreational users are being told they're getting
| is FAR off what they are actually getting. When someone says
| they're taking 3 tabs of 100 microgram dosages, it's likely
| they're taking 50-75% of that.
| tootie wrote:
| Drug policy makes no sense anymore. We've utterly failed at
| stemming abuse and held back a lot of valuable therapies.
|
| I'm treating a crippling disability with GHB and it's 100% legit
| prescribed by a doctor but the insurance headaches were insane.
| debacle wrote:
| What disability is treatable with GHB?
| tootie wrote:
| Narcolepsy
| Analemma_ wrote:
| I'm not sure I would trust this. I was at a party and ended up
| chatting to a researcher working with VA hospitals to develop
| psychedelic treatment for PTSD-- the VA doesn't fuck around with
| hippie shit, so his research was reasonably grounded in reliable,
| repeatable results-- and he emphasized that LSD is _not_ being
| seriously considered as a possible treatment, because the
| emotional effects are pretty short-lived compared to psilocybin,
| MDMA, ketamine, etc.
|
| Which is not to say LSD trips can't be useful and transformative
| experiences, but both personal experience and scientific account
| confirm they tend to be "intellectual trips", whereas what you
| need to help anxiety are the "emotional trips" that other drugs
| are better-suited for.
| jungturk wrote:
| PTSD and generalized anxiety disorder are very different
| scenarios, so it wouldn't be surprising that treatments for one
| wouldn't be effective for the other.
|
| The initial data looks promising in this case, so it'll be
| interesting to see how the studies develop.
| devwastaken wrote:
| "hippie shit" is apart of the science, but it can't be sold so
| medical research doesn't get funding. It's not as if they get a
| blank check, there's stakeholders and expected outcomes
| involved.
|
| For example if you don't embrace the "hippie shit" all you're
| going to get out of psychedelics is an emotional trainwreck
| with nothing to anchor it. It is a powerful medicine that has
| throughout history been a medicine for human connectedness.
|
| The environment, people and seemingly the direction the sun is
| pointing through the window affects how the experience works.
| Fricken wrote:
| In my personal experience (not a lot, from my early 20s) the
| opposite can also be true.
|
| I came down from that trip thinking everything I had previously
| believed, and had been taught, was a sham. For the rest of that
| summer I was worried about a great number of things.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| > In my personal experience (not a lot, from my early 20s) the
| opposite can also be true.
|
| Such is the nature of street drugs. The odds of what you took
| _actually_ being 100% pure real LSD is approximately zero,
| unless it was directly handed to you by a trained chemist. Much
| more likely an obscure cocktail of designer tryptamines.
| Prosammer wrote:
| Can you provide a source for this? This has not been my
| experience, nor have I heard this anywhere before, and I am
| quite involved in the psychedelic community.
| Fricken wrote:
| I really doubt it.
|
| I mean, I had LSD from a handful of different sources, as
| well as psilocibin, and the essential dimension to any of the
| psychedelics effects I experienced were very similar, and it
| was only in that one instance that it led to lasting feelings
| of anxiety.
|
| I do not believe it was the drug itself that messed me up. It
| was the insights that the drug revealed to me that were the
| source of my anxieties.
|
| I worked through that stuff, and maybe in the long run I'm
| better off for it. It's hard to say for certain. One way or
| the other, life goes on.
| wombat-man wrote:
| Sometimes people pass off research chemicals as LSD but the
| only real reason to do this is cost. It's not like LSD is
| wildly expensive. People might sell you bunk or under dosed
| tabs though
| devwastaken wrote:
| That is the desired effect. People with mental illness live in
| cycles that cause them illness and don't see how they're doing
| it to themselves. They're stuck, and can't see outside of
| themselves. Or if they do they lack the ability to care.
|
| The effects of certain psychedelics are such that it can, if
| done therapeutically, "wake up" the individual to these
| behaviors and their ignorance of the reality around them.
|
| This comes with it's own issues ofc, but they can become
| seemingly good issues to have.
| verticalscaler wrote:
| Boy that really makes ya think. Kinda puts worrying about what
| other people think of you into perspective, huh? ;)
| neom wrote:
| It's a bit personal, but if you don't mind me asking; was there
| a conclusion to your worry? And if so, what was it?
| wombat-man wrote:
| Anecdotally, it actually kind of exacerbated anxiety for weeks
| afterward. But overall I think it is a positive experience.
| hpeter wrote:
| Do not take LSD if you have anxiety. It can result in an awful
| experience.
|
| Just sit down, relax and breathe, that's better than drugs.
| johnisgood wrote:
| That is why you need to prepare, and/or have an experienced
| tripsitter.
| lakomen wrote:
| Idk why this gets downvoted.
|
| LSD is not controllable. If you're in a bad mood or don't feel
| well, it can lead to a very bad trip.
|
| Just don't do it.
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