Pain

Although there has not been much work  on classic psychedelics and chronic pain, a handful of articles including case reports, case series, retrospective surveys and prospective non-randomized trials suggest some potential for either psilocybin or LSD in chronic pain management. The earliest published studies on psychedelics and analgesia are from Dr Eric Kast in the mid-1960s on analgesic response to LSD for cancer pain. In these studies, full doses of LSD not only acutely outperformed 2mg of PO hydromorphone or 100mg of PO meperidine but also produced analgesia that persisted for an average of 3 weeks after LSD administration.

The Beckley Foundation and the department of Psychopharmacology in Maastricht University are collaborating to assess the practice of psychedelic microdosing for pain management. Find out more here.