o.c.d. treatment by psilocybin

[Rehab Quitter]

found this and thought it was interesting i presume its been posted before however if theres any newbies thats never seen it or vetrans for that matter that find it entertaining it was worth posting


It had been years since Jeremy (not his real name) had touched a basketball.
Living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Jeremy feared contamination from dirt and germs which prevented any part of his body from touching the ground, save for the soles of his shoes.
But whilst taking part in a small clinical study to investigate the effects of psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound found in 'magic' mushrooms, on people with OCD, Jeremy's bare feet lay on the floor and he expressed a willingness to engage in an activity, playing with a ball, that just hours before he would have been considered abhorrent.
I really think that participating in the study influenced the patient's remission


Dr Francis Moreno
University of Arizona


Although Jeremy's symptoms gradually returned, other patients also experienced transient relief from their OCD symptoms and one entered an extended period of remission lasting more than six months.
Lead researcher Dr Francis Moreno, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona, Tucson, said: "I really think that participating in the study influenced the patient's remission."
It was the first to investigate the therapeutic benefits of psilocybin to be published for more than 30 years.
Serious doubts
But critics say the study's flawed methodology means that conclusions cannot be made about the drug's efficacy against OCD, and some question whether it should have taken place at all.
Professor Jeffrey Schwartz, of the University of California, Los Angeles, said: "This study is going to receive a lot of attention and it will create a desire on behalf of a patient population that is suffering and hoping for a 'magic bullet'."
However, the study's authors say that the primary purpose of the study was to demonstrate safety.
Dr Moreno said: "If the question is: 'did we find enough information to support exploring this further?', then we got some interesting findings which support the need for a proper controlled study."
Common condition
There are an estimated six million OCD sufferers in the US, making OCD the fourth most commonly diagnosed psychiatric disorder after phobias, depression and alcoholism.
OCD is associated rituals, such as handwashing


OCD is an anxiety disorder characterised by the repetitive or ritualistic performance of behaviours such as excessive washing, checking, and counting.
Sufferers can be plagued by intrusive thoughts, ranging from unwanted sexual fantasies to committing violent acts.
OCD is treatable although the cause is not fully understood.
SSRIs (Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) such as fluoxetine (Prozac) or the tricyclic antidepressant clomipramine are commonly prescribed and can be highly effective - 60% of patients on medication improve.
The response rate can be higher when combined with cognitive behavioural therapy.
This is a type of psychotherapy that focuses on solving the patient's present problems, and is recommended as the first line treatment for people with mild OCD.
Relapse
But half of patients relapse when drugs are withdrawn and a quarter do not respond to conventional therapies at all.
Even when medication is effective, a 30-50% reduction in symptoms is the best that can be achieved.
I'm concerned that the study only measured effects up to 24 hours and OCD is a chronic condition


Dr Paul Blenkiron
Bootham Park Hospital, York


And if the therapy and drugs don't work, invasive brain surgery is the only remaining option.
The need for more treatment options and anecdotal reports of OCD patients undergoing periods of remission after using hallucinogens led Moreno and colleagues to give psilocybin to nine people who had had not responded to other treatments.
The patients did see a significant reduction in symptoms for up to 24 hours after they were given psilocybin even on the lowest dose.
But because there was no group given a different drug or no drug at all to compare them to, the benefits could have been simply due to care and attention from the researchers.
Receptors
The way that psilocybin works means that it can have severe mind-altering effects.
I'm very concerned that people with obsessional problems who experience bursts of nasty images, are being given a drug known to produce intrusive mental phenomena


Professor Paul Salkovskis
Maudsley Hospital Centre for Anxiety Disorders


In this study, the people taking the drug rated the hallucinogenic experience as "stressful" at some times but "psychologically and spiritually uplifting" - describing encounters with past lives, faraway planets, and communing with deities.
But all had previously taken psychedelic drugs before the study - which the researchers say was to increase the safety of the study.
However Dr Paul Blenkiron, a consultant in adult psychiatry at Bootham Park Hospital, York, said: "I'm concerned that the study only measured effects up to 24 hours and OCD is a chronic condition, not measurable in hours and days, but months and years.
"About 12% of people can suffer flashbacks after less than 10 exposures [to psychedelics] many years later, beyond the six months of this study, so long term effects should be carefully assessed."
However, he added: "If this substance was effective and had fewer side effects in severe treatment-resistant case, it would be an option."
Experts also question whether the results are really valid.
"You would expect a spontaneous remission rate of 10% within in a year," said Professor Paul Salkovskis, Maudsley Hospital Centre for Anxiety Disorders, who asks whether it is safe to give people with OCD psychoactive substances at all. "I'm very concerned that people with obsessional problems who experience bursts of nasty images, like sexually abusing their own child or stabbing someone, are being given a drug known to produce intrusive mental phenomena."

[Swing]

I used to have OCD myself throughout middleschool. My brain chemistry was thoroughly FUCKED around with by my psychiatrist and the various cocktails she gave me and dosages she played around with which I think permanently messed me up. I was put on any SSRI you could think of Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Anafranil, Prozac etc... plus some antipsychotics that almost made me kill myself. Finally I said enough and quit all forms of treatment altogether. Anyways about the time my OCD started to go away was around the time a friend I knew started experimenting with psychoactives including hallucinogens. There was one point in my life when my friend was really hooked on shrooms and was actively consuming them as much as possible with and without friends culminating to a day when my friend ingested one ENTIRE OUNCE of cubensis. After that my friend did that I can honestly say that I've never really had a strong OCD impulse ever since.
Now I'm not saying that my friends use of cubensis cured my OCD but I am raising the idea that the use of psychoactives in general may have helped swim overcome his OCD.

[Panthers007]

Psychedelics, by and large, are very good for helping (and sometimes making) a person "think outside the box." By breaking patterns of behavior on levels from the lucid to the primordial, I am hardly surprised by these findings. On the contrary - I expected this would be found. As a researcher who has interviewed many people that have taken the journey, I have found many things that the empirical psychiatrist would dismiss out-of-hand as so much "New-Age" mumbo-jumbo. It's always rather amusing to see/hear from the once-empirical shrink who finally dove in head first and tried psychedelics, with the predicted (by me) result: The entire learned-behavior response they had maintained blew away like a house of cards in a hurricane.

As the research continues to unfold, unless a new Tim Leary pops up like a Jack-In-The-Box and swamps it again - we can expect stories such as this to be the norm - rather than the exception.

[ihavequestions]

SWIM says this theory of psychedelics and OCD is VERY VERY iffy. it can go either way. for example SWIM has a bad case of OCD and is currently getting/seeking help for it right now. SWIM has smoked MJ and thats the furthest he ever went into the world of psychedelics. all he knows is that he was very sensitive to weed and sometimes it freaked him out, (this was before OCD and he is NOT saying weed caused it. the issues were seperate). with the mental condition that swim is in right now, he couldnt even IMAGINE trying mushrooms. he feels insane from the anxiety as it is let alone going onto a shroom trip it would probably double everything

however for some people, a psychedelic may in fact help people to think outside of the box helping to shine some new light onto the current OCD condition helping the person to get over it.

so this type of treatment would have to realy depend on the person. a common symptom of anxiety and related disorders (OCD) is the feeling od depersonalization and derealization making ht person feel alone and insane/unreal. now imagine anxiety that bad and then going into a shroom trip. with psychedelics a makor role in enjoying it is having ah ealthy mindset beforehand.

[Bajeda]

Originally Posted by ihavequestions

SWIM says this theory of psychedelics and OCD is VERY VERY iffy. it can go either way. for example SWIM has a bad case of OCD and is currently getting/seeking help for it right now. SWIM has smoked MJ and thats the furthest he ever went into the world of psychedelics. all he knows is that he was very sensitive to weed and sometimes it freaked him out, (this was before OCD and he is NOT saying weed caused it. the issues were seperate). with the mental condition that swim is in right now, he couldnt even IMAGINE trying mushrooms. he feels insane from the anxiety as it is let alone going onto a shroom trip it would probably double everything

however for some people, a psychedelic may in fact help people to think outside of the box helping to shine some new light onto the current OCD condition helping the person to get over it.

so this type of treatment would have to realy depend on the person. a common symptom of anxiety and related disorders (OCD) is the feeling od depersonalization and derealization making ht person feel alone and insane/unreal. now imagine anxiety that bad and then going into a shroom trip. with psychedelics a makor role in enjoying it is having ah ealthy mindset beforehand.

Thats why it wouldn't be a home remedy. You don't just eat some shrooms while sitting on the couch and hope everything goes well. That may work for some people (as you said, every person reacts different), such as those with previous psychedelic experience perhaps (as in the study) but it isn't really therapy without the actual counseling and therapists.




Anyways, the study was completed in 2006. You can find the published report in the archive here ---> Safety, Tolerability and Efficacy of Psilocybin in 9 Patients with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (Mareno et al, 2006)

I'm sure there are better news articles on the subject than this one, which attempts to achieve objectivity by bouncing dialectical viewpoints off each other, resulting in a confused mess of opinions.

Don't know about any follow-ups to the study, though other psilocybin research is ongoing, so hopefully it will allay some doubts and make it easier to proceed with further research in this area.

[Panthers007]

It sure won't be an over-the-counter at the corner gas-station remedy - like aspirin. Any psycholytic treatment requires personal care and counciling.

[Rehab Quitter]

swim used to suffer from extreme anxiety due to smoking a lot of ganja but love shrooms im not advising you to take them however swim only took them with my close mates as i dont feel comfortable giggling like a little girl for hours in front of a stranger

my ocd was making sure the door was locked i would lay in bed and doubt would creep in my mind "did i lock that door" so down i go sometimes i would go down 3 times and check the doors lol i wasnt funny at the time cause it used to affect me just before my beautify sleep kicked in

[Panthers007]

"Free people are not afraid." - an anonymous person at a protest against CIA monitoring of telecommunications circa 1986.

[Rehab Quitter]

Originally Posted by Panthers007

"Free people are not afraid." - an anonymous person at a protest against CIA monitoring of telecommunications circa 1986.

very very true but who is ultimatly free

"the best things in life are free, the best thing in life is to be free" mate in jails letter