Treatment Post covid vaccine condition improved by microcoding LSD

[alexcycling]

I wanted to share my experience (it may be helpful for others) with microdosing LSD for post covid vaccine condition.
This was my initial report

My post-vax condition - pre micro-dosing

I have post-vax condition since 2 weeks after 1st vaccination in May 21.
Today one knows that this, in a nutshell, falls in different groups, mainly
a) chronic autoimmune reaction (auto antibodies) - which I luckily have not
b) endothelial cell inflammation (which I had) which might become chronic (not in my case)
c) strong inflammation boost initially, which leads to depleted cytokines and hence neurotransmitters, persistently down-regulated immune system (my condition)

I had a strong inflammation boost with hearing loss on one side, attacks of vertigo, which in the following has been diagnosed of (reportedly incurable) Menières Disease.
After reading much into the current state of research, I found that the reason is endothelial cell inflammation in the blood/labyrinthine barrier. I changed diet, added supplements to reduce oxidative stress and 'cool down' inflammation and apply the MeniQ device (basically comparable to lymph drainage) daily. After 1.5 years I have no further attacks and tapered off the Betahistin medication.
What I also have is the (by some authors) predicted depletion / disturbed cytokine and neurotransmitter levels, as well as down-regulated immune system (e.g. low NK cell activity, low ery-, lympho-cytes etc.). I also have LPS (lipopolysaccharide) in the blood which is supposed to come from the gut and acts strongly pro-inflammatory (although all tests regarding gut-barrier are negative).
The symptoms I have are: (diagnosed) primary insomnia, fatigue and skin rashes when i sweat.
As you might know, there exists almost no support for post-vax (at least in the country I live in); I tried to get help for months, also by alternative medicine. Also used 5-HTP, ECGC, Theanine and Melatonine (and other supplements - and still do). But nothing really improved the situation (besides the vertigo) significantly.

Desperate situation pre micro-dosing
The insomnia became worse and worse. Pre post-vax, I had one or two bad nights every now and then, especially with job-stress. Over the course of 22 and early 23 I finally had only seldomly 'normal' nights and frequent attacks of insomnia (combined with irritated bowel symptoms although all lab-tests did show nothing in this regard) with below 4h un-restful sleep, lasting over 3-5 nights.
I kept my occupation, but each day was quite hard (I'm occupied as 'brain'-worker in industrial research). My live was like: getting up in despair, fighting against a strong wish to commit suicide, going through the torture of the day on sleep deprivation, no energy for nothing else.
I was without the slightest prospect of improvement, although I tried everything. Therefore I became strongly suicidal. I still kept on going, because I have a wonderful wife and daughter. Without them I would have been long gone.

Microdosing changed my life
Then I came across psychedelics, read the book by Torten Passie. Also had a look into Grof's work (and became a bit afraid), read some papers about the mechanisms of LSD and psilocybin and concluded it might positively influence my insomina-stuck brain.
I never used any 'illegal' drugs and never could have imagined; out of desperation - I had fully organized all my stuff, wrote a suicide note - I decided to try micro-dosing as last attempt.

Protocol
I ordered 1D-LSD which can (currently) be legally traded (due to a legislative loophole) where I live.
Neat 10µg pills. I use one dose (10µg) in the morning after some water and 30min. before breakfast every other day. Typically Monday, Wednesday, Friday followed by weekend off.
I did 2 weeks, then two weeks of with good success. 7h sleep on average, after a ramp-up of 1 week.
However after the 2 weeks off I had a 1 week relapse.
It took about 1.5 weeks to get back to improved sleep. Since then I kept dosing for 6 weeks now and will continue for some more before trying to taper off.
I'm currently breeding some cubensis to test micro-dosing them instead of LSD (who knows how long I have access to it).

Effects
I can sleep ~
It is not like always wonderful, but much improved. There are better and worse nights. However, the worse ones are not so worse as it has been. The bad phases are not so long as it has been.
I have a positive mood. I feel inner peace and calm I remember from before post-vax, which I did not have for months!
I have energy. I can do my job, and have enough energy to spend some time after the job on day-to day affairs and hobbies. I can even drive to work by bike and get faster every week (now almost as fast as I was before).
Skin rashes got better.
I have NO suicidal imagination currently!

Status
I keep micro-dosing every other day, weekend off. Overall situation improved but not fully solved. Symptoms get better/worse on a good level I can live with.
Further lab-test are on the way, but currently I don't care about results but enjoy the good time. I'm a bit afraid that the effect might not be persistent, I guess everybody does when in such situations. I continue to do my 'inner work' (I did all the time) to counter-act negative thoughts. I just started exploring what's out there in the psychedelics 'tool-set'.
I find it important to state that it is not like 'take it and everything is just wonderful!'. It is indeed much better as it was, with the usual ups and downs - that's live - which I now can stand with optimism.

Thank you!
I'm so grateful for all the work that has been done by so many people over decades! As I said before, you literally saved my life!

 

[alexcycling]

Some updates:

Micro-dosing LSD and sleep architecture: no problems after month-long continued micro-dosing
Last October, I had a week in a sleep lab and combined (anti) insomnia training. Although I had been stable (still micro-dosing LSD 3 times a week), I decided to take part. I spoke openly about the LSD micro-dosing. The therapist initially was skeptical, because he sees detrimental change of sleep architecture with 'usual' substance abuse. However from a scientific point of view, early evidence exists that this is not the case for micro-dosing psychedelics.
In fact: my sleep architecture determined for 2 consecutive nights via EEG etc. was perfect. Sleep efficiency above 90%!



Replacing LSD by Psilocybin (cubensis) not successful (for me)

I had been growing golden teachers over the course of the year and tried (after some dosing tests) to replace the LSD by dried and pulverized psilocybin cubensis (golden teachers). I personally feel a difference, short-term and long-term.

Dosing studies:
I started with dosing studies based on 10, 20 and 30 µg 1D LSD (about 80% active substance compared to LSD-25). I found that for me I have comparably strong effects with 0.08g golden teachers per 10µg 1D-LSD - which makes sense.

I can now, after some 'training', even feel the short-term effects of the micro-dose. In contrast to what some (I sometimes think not well informed researches currently publishing about micro-dosing) state, I think micro dosing is not related to absolutely no effects being felt. Most people will not recognize it. However after some training one might recognize it.

Effect strength is comparable, but effects are different

Short-term:
The strength is comparable, however I have quite different effects. With 1D-LSD, in the short-term (after 30 min. and the hours after intake), I have a good gut feeling. I feel content and calm, however having a good energy. With the golden teachers I feel nervous in the stomach.

Long term
After two weeks of gt micro-dosing, sleep was bad and so was mood. Telling my wife after the two weeks that I had replaced LSD by psilocybin, she said she noticed the difference (without knowing of my test) and strongly adviced to switch back, which I did.
This is a pity , because I finally had success with mushroom growing and would have been able to produce what I need myself.

Is there an explanation for the difference between LSD and Psilocybin
The results are specific to me and should not be generalized. However it is known that LSD acts across a more diverse set of receptors. While psilocybin acts on a subset of serotonergic receptors, LSD acts on a wider set of them, as well as on dopaminergic receptors and beyond.
I came accross some papers (in the context of positive influence of psychedelics on Alzheimers and dementia) which might be interesting in this context:

• The potential of psychedelics for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924977X23001347
• Pilozzi et al., “A Brief Review on the Potential of Psychedelics for Treating Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Depression.”, https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/24/15/12513

Another interesting paper introducing an interesting explanation for the often discussed broad spectrum of positive effects in so many quite different diseases discusses the effects on mitochondria:

• Fissler et al., “Effects of Serotonergic Psychedelics on Mitochondria.”, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/02698811231164707

Many researchers are skeptical about the many different positive reports. This paper in my view provides a sensible hypothesis about why such a 'magically broad' set of reported effects could be possible. In my view, this is more sensible than the to willingly used 'this must all be placebo' conclusion. Cynically speaking, my experience is: if they don't know, they say its psychosomatic and placebo. This is a more reliable predictor for they know nothing than for no effects ;-)