Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > MacNN Lounge > I'm really not sure what to make of these three case studies...

I'm really not sure what to make of these three case studies...
Thread Tools
Ham Sandwich
Guest
Status:
Reply With Quote
Mar 6, 2020, 11:06 PM
 
[...deleted...]
( Last edited by Ham Sandwich; Apr 23, 2020 at 10:38 AM. )
     
subego
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Mar 6, 2020, 11:29 PM
 
If drugs only caused harm, people wouldn’t take them.

Everyone should do mushrooms, at least once. It’s not about getting high, though that’s fun.

Anything I’d come up with to say will sound like stoner bullshit, so I’ll just pass along there have been studies on its therapeutic uses for people with terminal illness. Mushrooms let them make peace with their impending death. I don’t find this surprising in the least. This is the kind of “head rearrangement” they offer.
     
reader50
Administrator
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: California
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Mar 7, 2020, 03:11 AM
 
Beware of cherry-picked studies. People have a wide range of responses to drugs. If you pick three examples with positive outcomes, you will conclude a drug is highly beneficial. Not because it is (or is not), but because you "fixed" the study in advance. Anecdotal stories suffer from the same problem.

I do think we should be allowed to study illegal drugs for possible uses. Forbidding it (or rather forbidding federal funding for such studies) reeks of knowledge "man was not meant to know". If a beneficial use is found, the worst that would happen is embarrassment for a few politicians who oppose any legal use. Human knowledge should be more important than saving political face for a few.
     
Thorzdad
Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Nobletucky
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Mar 7, 2020, 09:06 AM
 
Gotta agree with you on the mushrooms, subego. I've never felt more content, clear-headed, and at peace than I have after an afternoon (or ten) with mushrooms. There are currently FDA-approved studies being conducted on the use of psilocybin in the treatment of depression.

Even today, in my dotage, I'd jump at the chance to procure 4 or 5 grams of Golden Teachers.
     
Laminar
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Iowa, how long can this be? Does it really ruin the left column spacing?
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Mar 9, 2020, 08:54 AM
 
Originally Posted by And.reg View Post
Case 3: In the third case detailed in the paper, a 26-year-old woman, referred to as NM, at the same party drank half a glass of the LSD-dosed water and subsequently found out she was pregnant. However, the authors said the overdose “did not negatively affect the course of NM’s pregnancy.” Nor did it have any other obvious negative developmental effects on her son, now 18.
     
ghporter
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Mar 9, 2020, 10:13 AM
 
What I make of them is this: we need to actually study such compounds as LSD to learn what they actually do - and hopefully maybe even how they do it.

Clearly, massive doses of LSD are not benign. On the other hand, LSD has been shown to be far from “toxic,” implying that use of more than a “recreational dose” does not come with severe risks to survival.

People with substantial mental problems have a lot of “known” stuff going on. Their brains do not perform typically because of a number of factors, including how their chemistry (primarily their neurotransmitters) differs greatly from typical people’s. Neurotransmitters do everything from alerting and calming us, to rewarding us, to facilitating sleep and wakefulness.

Many mental problems can be traced (at least in a gross sense) to variations in neurotransmitter function. Depression is linked to poor regulation of dopamine and serotonin - two important links in reward and reinforcement of actions. As an example, one key symptom of (clinical) depression is lack of initiation, and lacking rewards for changing activity levels, one simply does not change, leading to excessive sleep, sometimes lack of appetite to the point of anorexia, and so on.

Many mental problems further become entrenched through repetition of dysfunctional behaviors and even dysfunctional thought patterns. These repetitions are thought to be linked to improper signaling between brain systems, including attention, memory, insight and more.

LSD seems to impact a lot of neurotransmitter systems. Which ones? How? For how long? Can it help undo repetition-driven behavior and thought pattern changes?

It would seem, especially from the first case study, that LSD can help people make some substantial changes in their mental states. Was the woman’s change due to rewiring her brain chemistry? Was it simply due to what might be thought of as a “hard reset” of those chemicals? Other? There is only one way to find out: actual, hard science research.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
subego
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Mar 9, 2020, 05:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
Clearly, massive doses of LSD are not benign.
I think an idea which applies here (and to life in general) is “anything’s a poison if the dose is high enough”.
     
Ham Sandwich
Guest
Status:
Reply With Quote
Mar 9, 2020, 09:11 PM
 
[...deleted...]
( Last edited by Ham Sandwich; Apr 23, 2020 at 10:38 AM. )
     
subego
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Mar 10, 2020, 12:15 AM
 
It’s precisely the reason to stay away from too big a dose.

Though there are examples here of people getting away with it, massive dosing can’t really be a viable therapy. It would be unethical to test it.

Regular dosing is workable, though, and my guess is the rate of HPPD is very low.

Most medicines will have a small amount of people who react badly. People who are allergic to the medicine I’m on die from all their skin falling off.

Luckily, I’m not allergic.
     
Waragainstsleep
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Mar 10, 2020, 05:51 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I think an idea which applies here (and to life in general) is “anything’s a poison if the dose is high enough”.
Its not an idea, its a fact. Too much water can kill you and I don't mean tidal waves etc.


It seems like these studies on illegal or abused drugs are starting to garner interest. There has been some indications that Ketamine in small doses can work wonders on people suffering severe depression. I've heard similar claims regarding Psylocibin (magic mushrooms), again in small doses. I too have heard things about LSD, though I'd have to say all anecdotal.

I used to think the danger of LSD was thinking you could fly and jumping off a bridge (this has happened), but I had a friend who I believe did a bit too much of it while at university and his brain got scrambled. He had a head start in that regard and he got much better afterwards which he attributed to a session with a Tibetan Lama.

If I was positing a theory as to why hallucinogens might be capable of aiding mental health disorders, I would suggest they are able to sort of reset the brain into a more plastic state, making it easier to straighten out any crossed wires. So to speak.

I know LSD has been studied going way back, there are videos of it being administered to soldiers and housewives back in the 50s or 60s I think. Ketamine is a horse tranquilliser so there has to be at least some regulatory studies about that floating around. Its clear some research on the effects of these drugs on mental health conditions is very much warranted though.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
ghporter
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Mar 12, 2020, 07:21 PM
 
Water intoxication is the formal term for pathological overhydration.

There have been a few cases of Air Force Basic Trainees actually dying from this. Too much water dilutes essential electrolytes such as sodium, potassium and chloride. These are needed for basic cell operation, and most importantly for brain and heart function.

I agree that massive dosing is a Bad Thing, but I think we may be approaching a time when we can come up with a controlled way to ethically conduct such testing. It's long overdue time for the medical community to investigate a LOT of things, LSD's operation and impacts is just one area that begs study.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
   
Thread Tools
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 09:49 PM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,