Potential analgesic effects of psychedelics on select chronic pain conditions: A survey study
European Journal of Pain – August 20, 2023
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Many individuals struggling with chronic pain find significant relief using psychedelics, often surpassing conventional medicine. An observational study revealed that full doses of these substances provided better analgesic effects for conditions like fibromyalgia, arthritis, and migraine. Microdoses also offered superior relief for migraine and comparable benefits for fibromyalgia. Interestingly, sciatica was the sole condition where these Complementary and Alternative Medicine approaches didn't outperform standard drug treatments. This highlights a promising avenue for Psychedelics and Drug Studies in pain management.
Abstract
Abstract Background Chronic pain is a major cause of suffering and disability and is often associated with psychiatric complications. Current treatments carry the risk of severe side effects and may lead to limited or no relief at all in a relevant portion of this patient population. Preliminary evidence suggests that classical psychedelics (e.g. LSD and psilocybin) may have analgesic effects in healthy volunteers, and in certain chronic pain conditions and observational studies reveal that they are used in naturalistic settings as a means to manage pain. Methods In order to gain insight on the effectiveness of such compounds in chronic pain conditions, we set up a survey addressed to chronic pain patients inquiring about psychedelic use and the relief levels achieved with both conventional treatments, full psychedelic doses and microdoses. We analysed data related to five conditions selected based on diagnostic homogeneity within each of them: fibromyalgia, arthritis, migraine, tension‐type headache and sciatica. Results Except for sciatica, volunteers reported that psychedelics led to better pain relief compared to conventional medication in all examined conditions. More specifically, full doses performed better than conventional medication. Microdoses led to significantly better relief compared to conventional medication in migraines and achieved comparable relief in the remaining three categories. Implications for future research are discussed. Conclusions Full doses and microdoses may hold value in the treatment of some specific chronic pain conditions. Significance Psychedelic substances are receiving increasing attention from the scientific literature because of evidence showing beneficial effects on several measures related to mental health in clinical samples and healthy volunteers samples. Previous evidence suggests that people suffering from chronic pain are using psychedelics to seek relief and the present paper presents the results of a survey study investigating their use and analgesic effects among individuals suffering from fibromyalgia, arthritis, migraine, tension‐type headache and sciatica.