Tripping and therapeutics

[CHfather]

I guess I feel like it's potentially valuable to mention Dr. Schindler's finding from the Yale study of psilocybin and CH.  I only have access to the summary information, and there might be more that I need to know, but the report (https://headachejournal.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/head.14420) states:

>>>Changes in cluster attack frequency were not correlated with the intensity of acute psychotropic effects during psilocybin administration. The separation of acute psychotropic effects and lasting therapeutic effects underscores the need for further investigation into the mechanism(s) of action of psilocybin in headache disorders.<<<

I read this to mean either that any form of tripping is unrelated to treating CH, or that a lesser "trip" or psychedelic experience is just as likely to have therapeutic effects as a stronger experience.

I think this has been pretty well understood here for a long time, and that in general trip-level doses are recommended not because they are therapeutic in themselves but principally because they ensure that a person has ingested enough psilocybin. (Whether a trip is necessary for other benefits, such as overall anxiety reduction and better overall sense of well-being, I don't know.)

At the same time, I feel like seeds are possibly dismissed sometimes because there is no trip -- because it doesn't seem like a bold enough response to the horror of CH. And sometimes people are encouraged to "trip balls" or "see God" if lower doses aren't working. Neither of these approaches would seem to be consistent with what Schindler reports.  (Of course, she could be wrong, and also, since the highest dose in her study was equivalent to about 1.25 grams, maybe the study's results would have been better if people had taken more (and correlatively probably had stronger trips).)    

[BoscoPiko]

On 11/7/2023 at 12:14 PM, CHfather said:

I read this to mean either that any form of tripping is unrelated to treating CH, or that a lesser "trip" or psychedelic experience is just as likely to have therapeutic effects as a stronger experience.

Makes one wonder about the folks that have claimed some sort of success with micro dosing... I understand the need to be sure that you've invested enough but that seems like a small (not so small if sourcing is an issue) factor with regard to the subject study. Just my thoughts in writing. 

[CHfather]

Everyone in the study receive a dosage (adjusted for the person's weight) that I think amounted roughly to either one gram (one group) or .5 gram (a second group).  Or placebo (third group).  So it wasn't a matter of greater or lesser doses, just that the level of psychedelic experience that people had with roughly equal doses was not correlated with the amount of relief they got.   

Another interesting finding was that people with chronic CH did better in the study than people with episodic CH.  Which seems weird overall, but even more weird considering the relatively small doses.

(As you may know, the study did not show a statistically significant difference in relief between people who got psilo and people who got placebo.  The numbers were slightly better for people who got psilo, but not at a level of statistical significance. Dr. Schindler has said that the number of participants in the study was too small to get valid results from it.)

(I suppose I might cough up the $12 or something that is costs to read the whole thing, because I have about 200 questions.  One of those, probably not explained or explainable, is that the standard was the number of attacks after receiving the dose (psilo or placebo). But if people were getting slapbacks from the psilo, which you have to imagine some were, that would be more attacks than the others would get from a placebo.)