I microdose magic mushrooms for my mental health AMA

[BodyKeepingScore]

I have a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder and CPTSD (diagnosed approx 18 years ago). Following an especially bad depressive episode last year for which I was hospitalised involuntarily I struggled with recovery at home and after many years of being compliant with conventional medications and therapy I decided to try microdosing psilocybin in an effort to try and improve my mental health. I am not a medical professional but have been interested in mycology and psychedelic therapies for years and spent a long (desperate!) time researching before I decided to proceed. AMA!

I haven't found it difficult. The spores themselves are legal to purchase and there are loads of guides online on successful growing methods. X

Do they do anything for pain?

I do know people who have used them for things such as chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia but I have no personal experience of using them for pain so I don't know how effective they'd be.

Have you it useful to deal with the underlying reason behind your anxiety?

How did the first few days feel?

It's definitely given me the headspace to look at my anxiety much more objectively and address where those fears were coming from. For me, my anxiety is closely woven in with my OCD traits (so intrusive and obsessive thoughts of my children choking/coming to harm etc). Those thoughts have pretty much gone now.

It's hard to explain, I didn't feel different in a sense of being aware of any new sensations or feelings, it was simply the complete absence of the brain fog and anxiety which was noticeable

Watching

@BodyKeepingScore
Have you read the recent guardian article :

www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/13/i-was-the-poster-girl-for-ocd-then-i-began-to-question-everything-id-been-told-about-mental-illness

On OCD and psychedelics

X

They were saying that about cannabis 40 years ago.

Thank you posting this.

@TheUser420 it's regulated for medicinal use in the USA (in many parts of it anyway). I imagine psychedelics are following suit, or likely will given the surge in recent research into it. Ketamine infusions would have been unheard of as a mainstream treatment 30 years ago and are growing in popularity as a treatment for depression

@Mamoun thank you for this! I've earmarked it to read later today as I hadn't come across it before! At first glance it looks really interesting!

many years ago, there was a fascinating suggestion that psychedelics - specifically LSD - could cure alcoholism.

But as we know, western medicine seems to swerve cures for treatments. Probably because it's more lucrative to sell a lifetimes benzos, than a single tablet.

In terms of therapeutic effects, taking cannabis can have analgesic effects without any high, if you titrate it carefully. I'd be curious if a similar mechanism for psychedelics is at play here.

The founder of AA actually cured their own alcoholism with psychedelics. It truly is fascinating. Essentially the war on drugs killed all the (very promising!) research on psychedelics as treatment for mental health and addiction, despite the fact that outcomes where overwhelmingly positive.

It is really really interesting! Highly recomment the read.

Oh quite.

But the UKs mickey mouse schemes don't count.

Come back when you have found the money in psychedelics, like GW Pharma.

Can you explain how you feel please? eg, years ago I tripped a few times on magic mushrooms and had nightmarish trips, this was before I was given my cptsd diagnosis. Is there mild tripping sensations? Do you sleep better?

Microdosing is a minuscule dose, completely sub perceptual so there's no sensation of being high or anything trip like. For me I just feel more present in my own body and more focused.

@EatCrow and yes I sleep so much better for the first time in almost 20 years, no anxious rushing thoughts or panicked feelings she no going over to sleep. I've had no sleep paralysis either since I started microdosing which was regular for me prior to that

Thank you. Can you explain what/who I need to search for regarding finding someone who can start me off on this treatment?

Again, thanks. That’s really good to know regarding sleep.

With your home grown mushrooms, how do you process them for microdosing? Presumably dehydrate and process to a powder, but how do you know how much to take?

I dehydrate them in the air fryer then use a coffee grinder to grind them into a fine powder and weigh it out into individual doses. There will obviously be some variation in the strength between mushrooms but at such small doses that variation will be minimal.

Thank you 🙏