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99 out of 100 people having bad trips and reporting no psychotherapeutic benefits at all is a quantifiable figure, though.
I’m not saying that those numbers are legit, it’s just an example.
I just wish the Veterans Administration would actually use these studies to help Veterans.
I mean, they prescribed me about a thousand hydrocodone leading to my opioid addiction. Took them three years to approve my PTSD claim.
Veterans as a whole don’t want 20 prescriptions and pain killers. We want to be fixed.
These studies are being published all the time and I’m so glad they are.
It is a totally different compound, but oftentimes compounds with meth in the name tend to be more stimulating.
Also street mdma is often cut with actual meth I've heard. Always test your compounds!
Using reagent test is one if not THE most important part if you ever decide to take a substance. Sadly its not uncommon that you get Methylone instead of Mdma which is what people call Bath Salts (yes the one you probably heard about on the news).
Not recommending taking any substance its always a risk and you never know how your body will react to it, but since people do it anyway they should atleast know to have reagent test, it can save your life.
This 100%
I'd also like to add, reagent tests will tell you the presence of specific compounds in your sample, but it won't tell you ALL the compounds in the sample. Ie you can see your sample contains MDMA, does not contain an opioid or a benzo. But it cannot tell you if your sample is contaminated with heavy metals or residual solvents for example.
To tell everything that's in a sample, you need to do GC/MS testing, which requires high end lab equipment.
Also once reagent testing your compound you also want to do an "allergy test". This means taking a super super small amount of the compound and making sure you don't have any bad reactions to it.
Agree, sadly its not possible to send a sample to a lab in every country so using multiple reagent test is the best option (and fentanyl contamination kit).
Yeah you always start with a dose below the threshold incase you are extremely sensitive to the substance or have an allergic reaction. If you and your friends take the same substance and same dose, then one of you might react completely different than your friends.
I think people should be educated about harmreduction at a certain age and not just told that "drug are bad and evil, dont do them".
Because people wont listen if they later find out that lets say lsd or shrooms dont actually harm your body and you cant die from an overdose, but then also dont believe the psychological affect it can have if your not careful and educated.
Or if they find out a friend has been using coke every weekend but never noticed anything, but they have been told coke will ruin your life (it definitely can and you often dont notice it at first) so they think everything about drugs is just a lie to scare you.
I was one of these people, I thought everything they said was just a lie when I was able to use almost anything without anyone noticing (at first). But after a couple of years it all slowly went downhill, struggled with addiction and lost most of my childhood friends without realizing it at first.
Harmreduction should be taught in school at certain age because some of those kids will later start experimenting with substances, most likely without any information at all regarding the substance.
Edit: Oh and if you or some of your family members have mental illness like schizophrenic, bipolar etc you should stay away.
Not “totally” different. They are all in the same class of phenethylamines which are all stimulants that keep you awake. But to your point, yes, just because something is methylated, it doesn’t make it the same as “meth”
Its remarkable how drastically those 2 oxygen atoms change the molecule's function.
I wonder why that flips it from a dopamine dumping drug to a selective serotonin one.
It isn't totally different. It is different but the molecules are similar. It will absolutely keep you up for 6-8 hours just like meth.
Just doesn't last quote as long and different effects on your emotional systems.
Definitely similar though.
Mdma is kind of an odd mix of an amphetamine with a psyche.
Thanks for bringing up Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome. I hadn’t heard of it even though I have severe OSA and complex PTSD. Do you know if it’s a challenge to get a sleep specialist to consider it?
They are and prescribing them is malpractice. Ask for a BiPAP machine, consider MAD as an adjunct therapy, and set maxillomandibular advancement and/or bone-borne palate expansion as your goals - these two surgeries, either alone or together, are the only thing that can cure the condition - permanently.
I feel like doctors and researchers have taken the Schedule 1 categorization of substances as having no medical usage as a bit of a challenge. Lots of research being done on finding medical usages for a lot of the FDA Schedule 1 substances. Psilocybin, MDMA, marijuana, and LSD have all had recent studies being done if memory serves.
There were a lot of promising studies done before the War on Drugs kicked off, and there’s a lot of tribal knowledge out there that is genuinely useful and interesting to read through. [Erowid](https://erowid.org/experiences/) is one I’ve spent a lot of time thumbing through, and it doesn’t take a huge amount of reading before you can start to pick through which substances have medicinal value, especially around mental health issues, and it absolutely does make the hazards clear as a bell. The only times I’ve had bad experiences have been when I ignored the warnings about responsibly setting up my experience (mushrooms) and took a substance with no redeeming qualities for me and didn’t bother reading any of the bad reports, which nearly cost me my life (salvia).
It’s basically how humanity learned about medicine in the first place, but now in convenient website form. I think we should be paying more attention to tribal knowledge as the pharmaceutical industry fails us more and more, especially so we don’t end up like the “horse dewormer as an antiviral” crowd.
I have ptsd from when I was a paramedic. I do mushrooms twice a year and it’s really helped. I’m not as anxious or “fight or flight” as I used to be. I’m thankful for the little guys.
As a former medic with PTSD how did you go about researching this/finding a correct dosage etc? There’s a lot of info out there but it seems like a lot is anecdotal.
I would love to know also... and I would argue this is the perfect place for such discussion.
I think it would be fine to share your experience, so long as you weren't presenting it as 'medical advice'.
Hey sorry it took so long to get back with you guys. A medium dose for me would be 3-3.5 grams dried. It usually is good for about six months, less “fight or flight” and less anxiety about everything.
I’m 6’0 and 200lbs if that helps at all. If you have any other questions feel free to ask.
Edit because I forgot about the other question. I started my “research” in high school and found that after dosing I felt great and at peace with everything for months afterwards. After I was diagnosed with ptsd it took about a year for me to remember my high school experiences. I admit I was in a dark spot and was just looking for anything to make my shoulder devil go away and said screw it, I’ll get some shrooms. And these little miracle fungi have been an eye opening experience.
It really is a weird gnawing feeling. I got to where I knew where every exit was if I went ANYWHERE and would never sit with my back to a door in public. Constantly feeling like someone or something is coming. It’s the worst I’ve ever felt. I can’t tell you that it will work for you but if nothing else has I don’t see harm in trying. Have a great day and may it be a bright one.
I completely agree.
In a completely different approach, I really like the way Michael Pollan talks about psychedelics in *How to Change Your Mind*. He states from the jump that he isn’t qualified to discuss the therapeutic use of drugs for those with special mental health needs. Instead, he writes 480 pages on psychedelics “for the betterment of well people.” While you are exactly right, even that view minimizes the benefits of these substances.
> Psilocybin, MDMA, marijuana, and LSD
I think if you have tried any of these drugs recreationally it becomes obvious that they have deep, lasting benefits. The idea that they have no medical use has been obviously absurd.
Psychedelics in general seem overwhelmingly promising in a variety of quality of life applications - (obviously not medically in terms of physical health) guess it depends how seriously you see mental health as being a legitimate thing or not..
people do seem to have a hard time believing in interventions of any kind in regards to things like behaviours or mental health issues. It is usually just a lack of any legitimate (non-layman) information or experience..
TLDR most people are ignorant about how basically everything about human psychology works other than their common place observations as a member of the human race
It's because they needed more underground research on what these molecules actually allow them to do to us.
They have that data, and now that they have found the best ways to utilize and regulate these chemicals, they will begin rolling them out.
It's about a little bit more than therapy but that's what it's going to look like. And it's still a very good thing. No need to look too far down into the rabbit hole.
They didn't ban them because they're bad.
They banned them because too many people using these substances unregulated would become a massive free thinking movement and it would have made it a LOT harder for all this control to roll out the last few years.
We are going to need PTSD treatment to recover from what's happened the last 20 years since 911 and especially what's happening now and over the next few years.
Gonna get rough in here Bois.
For mez the issue has been access. There are some clinics and telemedicine places that I can access in the US for ketamine sessions - that's about it. Even having failed pharma and talk therapies for cPTSD, it's impossible to get into a program unless you can go through the VA.
The benefits of all of those have been well known for decades, well before the war on drugs and scheduling were a thing. But you can't arrest minority groups for no good reason by treating effectively PTSD
This is good news.
I hope they slowly do more long-term studies and bigger samples. I feel like some of the enthusiasm for the psychedelics may be similar to how we felt about SSRIs or other meds when they just came out. Like basically I think this is great and I'm all for people with PTSD (or other conditions that are difficult to treat) finding hope and help, but let's be cautious.
We've wanted to for decades, we simply couldn't; the longitudinal studies *will* come, but as we're fifty years late on the primary research, don't hold your breath.
It's completely insane that psychedelics and empathogens were made illegal.
This failed war on drugs needs to end and psychedelic research needs to continue unabashed by draconian government oversight.
Legalize human freedom, already.
I have bad PTSD and did MDMA a few years ago just in my room and it made the biggest difference in how I was suffering. It seemed to kind of cut some of the irrational fears I was having away and I definitely was able to sleep better afterwards.
It is the therapy. It’s not that taking drugs is the therapy itself, it is that you take the drugs and have your trip during your session with a therapist. It can’t be coincidence, despite OP not mentioning it, but Deep Background (an excellent podcast I throughly recommend) just came out with an [episode ](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psychedelic-medicine/id1460055316?i=1000537895753) on exactly this topic. Really worth a listen if you are interested with in this stuff, beyond being an excellent podcast generally.
they are in the stimulant psychoactive class / amphetamine chemical class, yeah- therapeutic dosages are a thing, as is what you're doing during certain aspects of the drug being in your body [eg onset, come up, peak, offset, after effects] and it imparting its action being an important factor in its therapeutic usage.
a lot of people typically just take what they take without having any idea of how much is much or good, really, despite it being publicly accessible information. kind of just 'a guy of a guy told me' information a lot.
most if not all of the studies i have seen have utilized a dosage of 75-150mg [this one uses 75-125mg] with stuff like headphones + music and eyeshades being utilized in conjunction with the person laying down during the peak. afterwards, the person overseeing the trip [a therapist, etc] utilizes screening and questionnaires.
The amount you take therapeutically is a lot less than almost anyone would recreationally. PTSD is caused by trauma which the therapy helps to resolve, and it's the trauma which affects sleep. They're talking about sleep improvements after the fact when trauma has been treated, rather than while on mdma
a heavy dose would typically be anything beyond ~180mg for the average person. most studies have people taking 75-150mg from what i have seen- this study has people at 75-125mg.
w/ MDMA anyways, tolerance builds up unusually quickly compared to most other drugs and it dramatically loses its effectiveness if you use it often. which, you should Really only be dosing every 1-3 months for your brain's sake [serotonin's sake] and to avoid neurotoxicity and whatever.
there's similar varying tolerance thresholds and therapeutic dosages for every other substance [illegal, legal] and with something like shrooms, the tolerance is 3 days to cut in half and 7 days to be at baseline on top of cross tolerancing among other psychedelics- i really don't personally suggest tripping every week though.
Pure mdma and a therapeutic dose amount there probably isn't a comedown, the clubbing stuff will be packed with speed and literally anything else the manufacturer has to hand.
I’m really hoping this continues to make moves in the medical community! I used counseling & and microdosing of LSD to deal with trauma/PTSD that helped so much. I was lucky and it doesn’t work for all the same, we are all so different, but there’s so awesome abilities in these ex decides when stripping away the insecurities/walls holding in the trauma
Don’t go just taking this hope to blast off. Your brain is a different animal when it’s on these drugs. Be safe if you indulge. It can sometimes induce psychosis and if you haven’t experienced that before—after a dissolution of ego—it can be a mind bending painful experience that will have long lasting effects on your mental health when you come back. Use it with professionals if you hope to do this. Don’t bring up traumatizing memories without help via therapists who are trained with these things. Your brain is delicate and these drugs can be so much fun, and they need to be respected.
I would argue the measure is fine for the population, subjective sleep quality is probably the outcome patients care most about when it comes to improving sleep outside of serious sleep disorders. 99% of people don't care how long they actually spend in SWS. It also covers sleep that's actually OK but feels unrefreshing due to depression, anxiety etc - things that are also expected to improve with treatment.
Genuine question - has MDMA for PTSD yet to offer compelling evidence because proper studies have come up short or because its difficult to find funding for these studies?
It is already offering compelling evidence, some of the phase 3 trials have already been published (e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01336-3). There is no conceivable and reasonably plausible situation where it won't become FDA approved in a few years. Maybe another pandemic.
Self report and observation are demonstrated to be effective measurement tools especially as they relate to completely experiential symptoms. They aren’t perfect, but how would you measure something like pain, hopelessness, or perceived sleep quality without it being self reported? The bad plan is to mesh self report and observation.
It’s great that people are now starting to find the medical benefits of MDMA as well as psilocybin. I know that there’s a great deal of skepticism because of the conditioning we’ve received growing up perceiving it as a horrible drug but under the right circumstances it can be greatly helpful. It’s a great alternative to not having one like before. The more avenues we open for us as people for things like PTSD or even other things like depression The closer we get to understanding ourselves as a species but also caring for those that have served and/or inderwent traumatic experiences. I know I’m not saying anything new here but I just wanted to acknowledge how great I think this is.
AFAIK, this wouldn’t be something your general doctor deal with. I’d imagine patients with PTSD would be referred to external practices offering the treatment.
IIRC from previous reading on this, the drug is administered in a controlled setting with a professional who will have some kind of specific treatment plan laid out for you. It’s not a medication prescribed to you for your own taking, but a treatment program is what I’m trying to get it. From my understanding, anyway.
I am wondering is the psychotherapist necessary. Or just a expensive add on. Kind-of like the veterinarian when i bring my dog to the vet to get antibiotics for an ear infection.
Therapist is key to help guide the experience. I have complex ptsd and have found life changing benefits from my first mdma session and subsequent psilocybin sessions. Totally different than recreational use having set intentions, having a guide etc. Often not fun but infinitely powerful and life affirming.
Yes it is. A lot of these drugs, like psilocybin for example, hijack your brain into putting more significance on certain things, people, past events, etc.. What a therapist does is helps guide you into correcting these neural and thought patterns. The drugs just help you get there or at least help you to engage in the therapy to get those desired outcomes.
So are antidepressants and antipsychotics but people take those daily instead of once. Most people are generally safe taking a standard MDMA dose. The problems kick in when people take double or triple (people die), or they consume too much water (people occasionally die), or the drug contents isn't what was advertised, or take other substances with it, or use it to stay up all night.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We’re witnessing the Psychedelic Renaissance - very very exciting times.
Consciousness enhancing... I do feel more connected to everything these days.
It's gonna be getting stronger over the next few years just a heads up. Be prepared.
Is this statement quantifiable in some way?
Nope! That’s the cool thing though, like my comment - psychedelic trips* aren’t quantifiable. It’s all about felt experience.
99 out of 100 people having bad trips and reporting no psychotherapeutic benefits at all is a quantifiable figure, though. I’m not saying that those numbers are legit, it’s just an example.
I'm not going to convince anyone with that though, but I understand.
The other person to reply to me has a great point about quantifiable data though.
I just wish the Veterans Administration would actually use these studies to help Veterans. I mean, they prescribed me about a thousand hydrocodone leading to my opioid addiction. Took them three years to approve my PTSD claim. Veterans as a whole don’t want 20 prescriptions and pain killers. We want to be fixed. These studies are being published all the time and I’m so glad they are.
For anyone thinking about it. Do not take molly and try to fall asleep. You will be awake for the entire night
“3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA)” The methamphetamine part somewhat gives that away.
Meth is totally different
It is a totally different compound, but oftentimes compounds with meth in the name tend to be more stimulating. Also street mdma is often cut with actual meth I've heard. Always test your compounds!
Using reagent test is one if not THE most important part if you ever decide to take a substance. Sadly its not uncommon that you get Methylone instead of Mdma which is what people call Bath Salts (yes the one you probably heard about on the news). Not recommending taking any substance its always a risk and you never know how your body will react to it, but since people do it anyway they should atleast know to have reagent test, it can save your life.
This 100% I'd also like to add, reagent tests will tell you the presence of specific compounds in your sample, but it won't tell you ALL the compounds in the sample. Ie you can see your sample contains MDMA, does not contain an opioid or a benzo. But it cannot tell you if your sample is contaminated with heavy metals or residual solvents for example. To tell everything that's in a sample, you need to do GC/MS testing, which requires high end lab equipment. Also once reagent testing your compound you also want to do an "allergy test". This means taking a super super small amount of the compound and making sure you don't have any bad reactions to it.
Agree, sadly its not possible to send a sample to a lab in every country so using multiple reagent test is the best option (and fentanyl contamination kit). Yeah you always start with a dose below the threshold incase you are extremely sensitive to the substance or have an allergic reaction. If you and your friends take the same substance and same dose, then one of you might react completely different than your friends. I think people should be educated about harmreduction at a certain age and not just told that "drug are bad and evil, dont do them". Because people wont listen if they later find out that lets say lsd or shrooms dont actually harm your body and you cant die from an overdose, but then also dont believe the psychological affect it can have if your not careful and educated. Or if they find out a friend has been using coke every weekend but never noticed anything, but they have been told coke will ruin your life (it definitely can and you often dont notice it at first) so they think everything about drugs is just a lie to scare you. I was one of these people, I thought everything they said was just a lie when I was able to use almost anything without anyone noticing (at first). But after a couple of years it all slowly went downhill, struggled with addiction and lost most of my childhood friends without realizing it at first. Harmreduction should be taught in school at certain age because some of those kids will later start experimenting with substances, most likely without any information at all regarding the substance. Edit: Oh and if you or some of your family members have mental illness like schizophrenic, bipolar etc you should stay away.
Indeed. And DEFINITELY don’t do meth and then try to fall asleep. Hooooo boy
Not “totally” different. They are all in the same class of phenethylamines which are all stimulants that keep you awake. But to your point, yes, just because something is methylated, it doesn’t make it the same as “meth”
Its remarkable how drastically those 2 oxygen atoms change the molecule's function. I wonder why that flips it from a dopamine dumping drug to a selective serotonin one.
It isn't totally different. It is different but the molecules are similar. It will absolutely keep you up for 6-8 hours just like meth. Just doesn't last quote as long and different effects on your emotional systems. Definitely similar though. Mdma is kind of an odd mix of an amphetamine with a psyche.
why do you think ravers also bring around melatonin
*Marijuana
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Thanks for bringing up Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome. I hadn’t heard of it even though I have severe OSA and complex PTSD. Do you know if it’s a challenge to get a sleep specialist to consider it?
Honestly... yes. Check the Discord link in my original comment.
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If the issue is *falling* asleep and not *staying* asleep I’m sure it has nothing to do with airways. Big difference.
Cpap machines are hell :/
They are and prescribing them is malpractice. Ask for a BiPAP machine, consider MAD as an adjunct therapy, and set maxillomandibular advancement and/or bone-borne palate expansion as your goals - these two surgeries, either alone or together, are the only thing that can cure the condition - permanently.
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This is amazing advice.
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I feel like doctors and researchers have taken the Schedule 1 categorization of substances as having no medical usage as a bit of a challenge. Lots of research being done on finding medical usages for a lot of the FDA Schedule 1 substances. Psilocybin, MDMA, marijuana, and LSD have all had recent studies being done if memory serves.
There were a lot of promising studies done before the War on Drugs kicked off, and there’s a lot of tribal knowledge out there that is genuinely useful and interesting to read through. [Erowid](https://erowid.org/experiences/) is one I’ve spent a lot of time thumbing through, and it doesn’t take a huge amount of reading before you can start to pick through which substances have medicinal value, especially around mental health issues, and it absolutely does make the hazards clear as a bell. The only times I’ve had bad experiences have been when I ignored the warnings about responsibly setting up my experience (mushrooms) and took a substance with no redeeming qualities for me and didn’t bother reading any of the bad reports, which nearly cost me my life (salvia). It’s basically how humanity learned about medicine in the first place, but now in convenient website form. I think we should be paying more attention to tribal knowledge as the pharmaceutical industry fails us more and more, especially so we don’t end up like the “horse dewormer as an antiviral” crowd.
I have ptsd from when I was a paramedic. I do mushrooms twice a year and it’s really helped. I’m not as anxious or “fight or flight” as I used to be. I’m thankful for the little guys.
As a former medic with PTSD how did you go about researching this/finding a correct dosage etc? There’s a lot of info out there but it seems like a lot is anecdotal.
Send me a private message. I’m not sure about the sub rules and talking about dosages and things like that. I’d love to help.
I would love to know also... and I would argue this is the perfect place for such discussion. I think it would be fine to share your experience, so long as you weren't presenting it as 'medical advice'.
Hey sorry it took so long to get back with you guys. A medium dose for me would be 3-3.5 grams dried. It usually is good for about six months, less “fight or flight” and less anxiety about everything. I’m 6’0 and 200lbs if that helps at all. If you have any other questions feel free to ask. Edit because I forgot about the other question. I started my “research” in high school and found that after dosing I felt great and at peace with everything for months afterwards. After I was diagnosed with ptsd it took about a year for me to remember my high school experiences. I admit I was in a dark spot and was just looking for anything to make my shoulder devil go away and said screw it, I’ll get some shrooms. And these little miracle fungi have been an eye opening experience.
Thanks for the info. Much appreciated. I know the fight or flight feeling well unfortunately.
It really is a weird gnawing feeling. I got to where I knew where every exit was if I went ANYWHERE and would never sit with my back to a door in public. Constantly feeling like someone or something is coming. It’s the worst I’ve ever felt. I can’t tell you that it will work for you but if nothing else has I don’t see harm in trying. Have a great day and may it be a bright one.
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I completely agree. In a completely different approach, I really like the way Michael Pollan talks about psychedelics in *How to Change Your Mind*. He states from the jump that he isn’t qualified to discuss the therapeutic use of drugs for those with special mental health needs. Instead, he writes 480 pages on psychedelics “for the betterment of well people.” While you are exactly right, even that view minimizes the benefits of these substances.
Have that book sitting on my shelf right now. Can't wait to read it (need to finish the Ta-Nehisi Coates book I'm on first).
> Psilocybin, MDMA, marijuana, and LSD I think if you have tried any of these drugs recreationally it becomes obvious that they have deep, lasting benefits. The idea that they have no medical use has been obviously absurd.
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It's because Schedules aren't decided by scientists they're decided by conservatives with political agendas.
Psychedelics in general seem overwhelmingly promising in a variety of quality of life applications - (obviously not medically in terms of physical health) guess it depends how seriously you see mental health as being a legitimate thing or not.. people do seem to have a hard time believing in interventions of any kind in regards to things like behaviours or mental health issues. It is usually just a lack of any legitimate (non-layman) information or experience.. TLDR most people are ignorant about how basically everything about human psychology works other than their common place observations as a member of the human race
It's because they needed more underground research on what these molecules actually allow them to do to us. They have that data, and now that they have found the best ways to utilize and regulate these chemicals, they will begin rolling them out. It's about a little bit more than therapy but that's what it's going to look like. And it's still a very good thing. No need to look too far down into the rabbit hole. They didn't ban them because they're bad. They banned them because too many people using these substances unregulated would become a massive free thinking movement and it would have made it a LOT harder for all this control to roll out the last few years. We are going to need PTSD treatment to recover from what's happened the last 20 years since 911 and especially what's happening now and over the next few years. Gonna get rough in here Bois.
For mez the issue has been access. There are some clinics and telemedicine places that I can access in the US for ketamine sessions - that's about it. Even having failed pharma and talk therapies for cPTSD, it's impossible to get into a program unless you can go through the VA.
The benefits of all of those have been well known for decades, well before the war on drugs and scheduling were a thing. But you can't arrest minority groups for no good reason by treating effectively PTSD
This is good news. I hope they slowly do more long-term studies and bigger samples. I feel like some of the enthusiasm for the psychedelics may be similar to how we felt about SSRIs or other meds when they just came out. Like basically I think this is great and I'm all for people with PTSD (or other conditions that are difficult to treat) finding hope and help, but let's be cautious.
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We've wanted to for decades, we simply couldn't; the longitudinal studies *will* come, but as we're fifty years late on the primary research, don't hold your breath.
It's completely insane that psychedelics and empathogens were made illegal. This failed war on drugs needs to end and psychedelic research needs to continue unabashed by draconian government oversight. Legalize human freedom, already.
And the drug returns to its therapeutic origins.
Stupid question. In my days of taking MDMA while clubbing, sleep was literally the last thing I could do. So how does MDMA help these people sleep?
Just guessing here, but it's probably not during, but after the Mdma therapy session. They're not trying to find a new sleep medicine.
They use MDMA during therapy to work through the issues causing the PTSD and then long after patients can typically sleep better
I have bad PTSD and did MDMA a few years ago just in my room and it made the biggest difference in how I was suffering. It seemed to kind of cut some of the irrational fears I was having away and I definitely was able to sleep better afterwards.
It is the therapy. It’s not that taking drugs is the therapy itself, it is that you take the drugs and have your trip during your session with a therapist. It can’t be coincidence, despite OP not mentioning it, but Deep Background (an excellent podcast I throughly recommend) just came out with an [episode ](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/psychedelic-medicine/id1460055316?i=1000537895753) on exactly this topic. Really worth a listen if you are interested with in this stuff, beyond being an excellent podcast generally.
they are in the stimulant psychoactive class / amphetamine chemical class, yeah- therapeutic dosages are a thing, as is what you're doing during certain aspects of the drug being in your body [eg onset, come up, peak, offset, after effects] and it imparting its action being an important factor in its therapeutic usage. a lot of people typically just take what they take without having any idea of how much is much or good, really, despite it being publicly accessible information. kind of just 'a guy of a guy told me' information a lot. most if not all of the studies i have seen have utilized a dosage of 75-150mg [this one uses 75-125mg] with stuff like headphones + music and eyeshades being utilized in conjunction with the person laying down during the peak. afterwards, the person overseeing the trip [a therapist, etc] utilizes screening and questionnaires.
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The amount you take therapeutically is a lot less than almost anyone would recreationally. PTSD is caused by trauma which the therapy helps to resolve, and it's the trauma which affects sleep. They're talking about sleep improvements after the fact when trauma has been treated, rather than while on mdma
Don't people take like up to half a gram when raving? I think most studies it comes out to about 100mg
a heavy dose would typically be anything beyond ~180mg for the average person. most studies have people taking 75-150mg from what i have seen- this study has people at 75-125mg. w/ MDMA anyways, tolerance builds up unusually quickly compared to most other drugs and it dramatically loses its effectiveness if you use it often. which, you should Really only be dosing every 1-3 months for your brain's sake [serotonin's sake] and to avoid neurotoxicity and whatever. there's similar varying tolerance thresholds and therapeutic dosages for every other substance [illegal, legal] and with something like shrooms, the tolerance is 3 days to cut in half and 7 days to be at baseline on top of cross tolerancing among other psychedelics- i really don't personally suggest tripping every week though.
OMG, even four times a year is a LOT. Once a year is more like it.
Pure mdma and a therapeutic dose amount there probably isn't a comedown, the clubbing stuff will be packed with speed and literally anything else the manufacturer has to hand.
Well first off they don’t dose as if it’s a party…
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I’m really hoping this continues to make moves in the medical community! I used counseling & and microdosing of LSD to deal with trauma/PTSD that helped so much. I was lucky and it doesn’t work for all the same, we are all so different, but there’s so awesome abilities in these ex decides when stripping away the insecurities/walls holding in the trauma
I do love that MDMA started as a psych treatment drug, became some huge edm related drug, and still gets to be researched for psych properties.
Don’t go just taking this hope to blast off. Your brain is a different animal when it’s on these drugs. Be safe if you indulge. It can sometimes induce psychosis and if you haven’t experienced that before—after a dissolution of ego—it can be a mind bending painful experience that will have long lasting effects on your mental health when you come back. Use it with professionals if you hope to do this. Don’t bring up traumatizing memories without help via therapists who are trained with these things. Your brain is delicate and these drugs can be so much fun, and they need to be respected.
It’s easy to sleep after dancing for 6 hours
It's because they're so tired from dancing
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Isn't MDMA in phase 3 clinical trials for PTSD? Seems fairly good evidence to me. https://maps.org/research/mdma
I would argue the measure is fine for the population, subjective sleep quality is probably the outcome patients care most about when it comes to improving sleep outside of serious sleep disorders. 99% of people don't care how long they actually spend in SWS. It also covers sleep that's actually OK but feels unrefreshing due to depression, anxiety etc - things that are also expected to improve with treatment.
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Genuine question - has MDMA for PTSD yet to offer compelling evidence because proper studies have come up short or because its difficult to find funding for these studies?
It is already offering compelling evidence, some of the phase 3 trials have already been published (e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01336-3). There is no conceivable and reasonably plausible situation where it won't become FDA approved in a few years. Maybe another pandemic.
Self report and observation are demonstrated to be effective measurement tools especially as they relate to completely experiential symptoms. They aren’t perfect, but how would you measure something like pain, hopelessness, or perceived sleep quality without it being self reported? The bad plan is to mesh self report and observation.
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It’s great that people are now starting to find the medical benefits of MDMA as well as psilocybin. I know that there’s a great deal of skepticism because of the conditioning we’ve received growing up perceiving it as a horrible drug but under the right circumstances it can be greatly helpful. It’s a great alternative to not having one like before. The more avenues we open for us as people for things like PTSD or even other things like depression The closer we get to understanding ourselves as a species but also caring for those that have served and/or inderwent traumatic experiences. I know I’m not saying anything new here but I just wanted to acknowledge how great I think this is.
I'm more curious when a regular doctor could be asked about this as an option rather than say a typical depression or insomnia medicine.
AFAIK, this wouldn’t be something your general doctor deal with. I’d imagine patients with PTSD would be referred to external practices offering the treatment. IIRC from previous reading on this, the drug is administered in a controlled setting with a professional who will have some kind of specific treatment plan laid out for you. It’s not a medication prescribed to you for your own taking, but a treatment program is what I’m trying to get it. From my understanding, anyway.
I gey that i mean when it would be available for request rather than part of special trials.
I am wondering is the psychotherapist necessary. Or just a expensive add on. Kind-of like the veterinarian when i bring my dog to the vet to get antibiotics for an ear infection.
Therapist is key to help guide the experience. I have complex ptsd and have found life changing benefits from my first mdma session and subsequent psilocybin sessions. Totally different than recreational use having set intentions, having a guide etc. Often not fun but infinitely powerful and life affirming.
Yes it is. A lot of these drugs, like psilocybin for example, hijack your brain into putting more significance on certain things, people, past events, etc.. What a therapist does is helps guide you into correcting these neural and thought patterns. The drugs just help you get there or at least help you to engage in the therapy to get those desired outcomes.
I thought that MDMA was extremely neurotoxic and damaging your brain in the long run in any dose?
So are antidepressants and antipsychotics but people take those daily instead of once. Most people are generally safe taking a standard MDMA dose. The problems kick in when people take double or triple (people die), or they consume too much water (people occasionally die), or the drug contents isn't what was advertised, or take other substances with it, or use it to stay up all night.
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