Psychedelics for Chronic Pain

[Sturnam]

Recently, I have been intrigued with the idea of using psychedelics to help alleviate chronic pain. There some old study of using low dose LSD that helps as much as opioids, and lasts a week or longer. I was wondering if anyone here has tried it.

My pain is currently idiopathic (no known cause), and affects my lower/mid back. Right now I take 60 mg/day of Cymbalta, which helps tons, but there is still residual pain, and I would like to eventually get off of the Cymbalta, or possibly lower the dose.

So I have a few questions to anyone who might have tried this:

1) A brief history on your pain please. Type (inflammatory, neuropathic, etc), duration of pain, and other medicines tried.

2) What psychedelic did you use? Right now I'm thinking mushrooms, due to their safety profile, other proven therapeutic benefits, and medium duration.

3) What dose did you use? Did higher doses provide any more benefit than threshold or sub-threshold doses?

4) What type of relief did you get? Was it an actual reduction in pain, or was it greater mental strength to ignore/deal with the pain?

5) How long did relief last?

6) Overall effectiveness. Was it worth it? Worthy of repeat? If repeated, were subsequent trials equally effective?

 

[RhythmSpring]

Good thread! I'm not sure there are many of us out there, but I sure am one!

1) A brief history on your pain please. Type (inflammatory, neuropathic, etc), duration of pain, and other medicines tried.

Rheumatoid arthritis for 1.5 years. Inflammation in all joints save for the fingers, toes and spine.

2) What psychedelic did you use? Right now I'm thinking mushrooms, due to their safety profile, other proven therapeutic benefits, and medium duration.

DMT, mushrooms, Peyote, Achuma, mescaline, and DOI all had anti-inflammatory effects. Sub-threshold DOI seems to have the most promise, with sub-threshold mescaline coming in second. DOI lasts longer. It also was very effective.

3) What dose did you use? Did higher doses provide any more benefit than threshold or sub-threshold doses?

~50mg mescaline in the morning. 0.5mg DOI once every other day. I can tell you for me, higher dosage=greater effectiveness, but sometimes there is a backlash effect the day after. I don't recommend it if you're going for health improvement.

4) What type of relief did you get? Was it an actual reduction in pain, or was it greater mental strength to ignore/deal with the pain?

It was a very clear reduction in pain and inflammation.

5) How long did relief last?

With mescaline, the pain and inflammation usually comes back the next day or the day after that. One time I smoked DMT and it went away for a week. When I had DOI, it lasted for a couple days.

6) Overall effectiveness. Was it worth it? Worthy of repeat? If repeated, were subsequent trials equally effective?

Definitely worth it. If I have a big day ahead of me and I'm feeling sluggish/painful, the mescaline definitely gets me through it easily.

I wish I could continue with the DOI but I had very little. If I have subsequent trials I will definitely post something about it.

 

[Sturnam]

Interesting. So you had to use every other day to get sustained relief?

That's kinda a letdown. I was hoping one dose would last a week or more

 

[Culpepers]

I'm not experiencing any chronic pain per se so I haven't got much of value to add, but I'm very interested in the subject.
Great initiative with this thread, Sturnam.

 

[r_o_ry]

This might be of some help: http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=14936