Psychedelic drugs such as LSD, magic mushrooms, and ketamine may also work well as pain relievers. Promising studies offer hope for pain patients. But experts warn that experimenting yourself is not a good idea.
Wilma Groenendijk has been suffering from the constant pain due to a double hernia for 3 years now. Unfortunately, her specialist cannot help her with that. For Wilma, that was the reason to start experimenting with all kinds of remedies and psychedelic drugs.
Narcotics or party drugs
“My daughter came up with the idea of trying ketamine. I had to cross a threshold. You have a certain image of drugs, but I did it anyway. You push your limits and not shooting is always wrong.” Ketamine is a so-called synthetic psychedelic and is a registered anesthetic.
Wilma then ended up at a pain clinic and received treatment with a ketamine drip. “It was special but also intense, it really takes hours. It was hallucinatory in a pleasant way. I had very nice experiences.” But the days after the ketamine infusion things went wrong: “My stomach was upset for days and I became very depressed. The pain exploded, it lasted for weeks and it only got worse. I will never do this again.”
Good guidance is crucial
What happened to Wilma shows that medical science is not yet fully aware of how psychedelics can be used. Moreover, Wilma received poor aftercare from the clinic, while good guidance during this process is crucial, says scientist Joost Breeksema of the UMCG. He researches psychedelics for healthcare applications.
“It doesn’t go well for everyone. That’s why we need to investigate in which patients psychedelics work well and which less so. They are also not substances that only generate positive experiences, there are also difficult experiences. People can really learn something from that, something But the risk is that the problems will actually get worse.”
Report received
This week, Minister Ernst Kuipers of the Ministry of Health, Science and Sport (VWS) received a report on the opportunities and challenges of psychedelics in healthcare.
He did this during a symposium at the University Medical Center Groningen on the therapeutic applications of psychedelics.
Minister excited
Kuipers is enthusiastic about psychedelics as therapy. “Studies from the Netherlands and abroad show that some of these drugs can sometimes show significant improvements in patients with various disorders. For example, in people with severe depression, severe post-traumatic stress syndrome or serious addiction problems.”
Scientists and doctors are calling for more investment and more research into the use of psychedelics as a therapy. The minister has promised to consult with the sector to see how he can ‘advance research into psychedelics’.
Research still in its infancy
In the 1960s and 1970s, scientists investigated the effect of psychedelics as a therapy. Patients were then given high doses of LSD and magic mushrooms and started tripping. Today it is done in small amounts via ‘microdosing’, which means that patients no longer hallucinate.
Current research into psychedelics as a pain reliever for people with chronic pain is still in its infancy, but initial studies are promising. Maastricht University showed that LSD can help against the pain. 24 healthy volunteers were given small doses of LSD or a placebo. Then the volunteers put their hand in a container of water at 3 degrees for as long as they could.
The volunteers who received a dose of 20 micrograms of LSD reported feeling less pain than the others. They could keep their hand in the bowl of cold water for longer and were less stressed than the others. But more research is needed, say scientists, to better understand what exactly psychedelics do in your brain.
Chronic pain
At least 2 million Dutch people suffer from chronic pain. Pain is chronic if it lasts longer than 3 months. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognized chronic pain as a disease in 2019. Available therapies and painkillers hardly help against this long-term pain.
Wilma Heers of patient association Stichting Pijn-Hoop has suffered from chronic pain herself for years. She welcomes any new treatment for chronic pain, including psychedelics. “I think many chronic pain patients have been helped by it. But it has been said before: we now have something, but we don’t know when the medicine will be available. In the meantime, you have to learn to deal with the pain and accept the pain. We provide training for that.”
‘No panacea’
Researcher Breeksema of the UMCG does warn against too much optimism. “The risk is that if you only report positively about psychedelics, people will think it’s a panacea.”
“That they can go to the smart shop themselves to buy truffles. That you can take them at home and that you will get better again. That is not the case. You have to be well prepared for such a psychotherapeutic process, receive guidance in a safe environment and good aftercare.”
Making cannabis oil workshop yourself
Pain patient Wilma Groenendijk does not want to wait years for a new pain treatment with psychedelics. She continues to experiment against the pain and shows a small bottle of cannabis oil.
“Not so long ago I went to a workshop: making your own cannabis oil. I know I made it carefully. I also take this cannabis oil for the pain. And it works. It takes the edge off the pain.”