for starters, she had to go through cardiac tests before they would even administer the stuff because it can cause serious cardiac symptoms, up to and including death. Somebody in her group was kicked out because they had been using meth the week of the trip (no pun intended). They were telling them that even too much caffeine could increase their risk of cardiac symptoms.
Then the trip itself was like 48 hours and it wasn't a fun trip like acid or mushrooms. The few things she would tell me about were awful, and she still won't talk about most of it almost a decade after the fact.
Some drugs don't need to be caught up in federal approval but ibogaine is absolutely a drug that needs the red tape and all the pomp and circumstance of FDA approval.
Not really true. There have been clinical trials for Ibogaine over the years in the US and abroad. The United States isn’t the only country capable of running trials.
A big blocker for ibogaine is that it’s cardiotoxic. Multiple deaths have occurred within clinical trials for ibogaine. It’s really hard to justify and get approval for additional clinical trials for a drug that has caused deaths even in small trials.
There are analogs of ibogaine being studied, too. These are designed to lack the cardiac properties of ibogaine and would hold much more promise. There’s a real problem of mistrust with “artificial chemicals” that causes this to be ignored while ibogaine gets the attention. I suppose that’s to be expected with politicians driving research.
Just frame it as "this drug lets you send scarred soldiers right back into the fray for pennies" and see that red tape dissolve
It is actually an old drug with a long history of being tried for different conditions and was once even marketed commercially in some countries. It goes through cycles where news stories are written about how it might be a treatment for problems which inspires some people to seek it out, but I strongly caution people not to do this. If you try one of the ibogaine clinics you may not even been given real ibogaine, and if you do you’re playing a dangerous game.
Anecdotally: I’ve known a couple acquaintances and their friends who tried ibogaine for different reasons. Among them, there was a 100% rate of feeling convinced it solved their problems in the weeks following their experience. There was a 0% rate of actual improvement in the problems after weeks to months. I think it’s good that this is being researched, but the claimed curative powers of the drug have also become enhanced through the mythology and mystery around it.
I’m sure someone will find some reason to dismiss or excuse these deaths, as anyone who brings up the negatives of psychedelics is usually shouted down on this site.
The cardiotoxic effects of ibogaine are well known, though. This is why analogs without the cardiotoxic effect are an active area of study.
Of all of the incredible claims about ibogaine in this thread it’s sad that the only one where sources are being demanded is for the high risk of death, which even among ibogaine communities is well known.
You’d be surprised to read the statistics about how poorly ECT works, and how little they understand about how to use it a treatment.
Totally different ballparks. Well-established results vs. very little formal research.
Have you had ECT, or do you know anyone who has? It's a last resort for horrible depression and not much else. It has huge risks, and while it does often make these people's lives manageable, it shouldn't be in the same discussion as a medication that's been out of discussion for political reasons.
shivers at the thought of ECT
It acts on the KOR receptors instead of the MOR receptor, which most openly act on. But it’s not like you’re going to be cured from opioid addiction. You’re just replacing one opioid with another that doesn’t affect the respiratory system.
Your comment also seems to imply that this treatment involves consuming ibogaine habitually or regularly
The protocol for ibogaine treatment, according to the article and the experiments being done, do not have this requirement.
Like other treatments involving psychedelics and hallucinogens, the protocol here is that a one-off treatment, a single dose, results in meaningful improvements in both addictive behaviors and PTSD symptoms a month later and potentially longer
This is not the same as something like methadone or naltrexone, which _are_ what you describe: replacing a more harmful opiate with a less harmful one.
PTSD is a trauma response.
Are you thinking of TBI? TBI is a cumulative impact of small and large head trauma.
The WWI name of "shell shock" describing the same phenomenon was probably more accurate than "PTSD".
from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41883580/:
>Longitudinal analyses assessed cortical thickness, subcortical volume, and predicted brain age (pBA), estimated from T1 scans. pBA was significantly reduced at 1 month relative to baseline (-1.3 years). Cortical thickness analysis revealed post-treatment increases in 11 regions. Subcortical analyses revealed significant volumetric expansion in 8 regions. Magnesium-ibogaine therapy was associated with increased cortical thickness, subcortical expansion, and reduced pBA at 1 month.
Any study like this is nearly useless without a control group, unfortunately. There is no way to tell if the treatment caused the changes or if they naturally occurred over the study period.
Lot of interesting studies and anecdotes on its efficacy as an antidepressant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine
"The action of ibogaine at the κ-opioid receptor may indeed contribute significantly to the psychoactive effects attributed to ibogaine ingestion; Salvia divinorum, another plant recognized for its strong hallucinogenic properties contains the chemical salvinorin A, which is a highly selective κ-opioid agonist"
I wonder about the editorial choice to use veterans rather than, say, women who have PTSD from assaults, which is a much larger group of people. (Approximately 4% of US men and 8% of US women experience PTSD every year across all reasons like accidents, sexual assaults, combat, etc.)
Presumably this treatment would help everyone? Or is it somehow supporting only vets?
If dissociation is better than regular PTSD, then go for it. We don’t expect people with hip replacements to have 100% mobility. We don’t expect cochlear implants to hear better than healthy ears. Mental health interventions have similar tradeoffs.
The healthcare community would be thrilled to find out – with certainty – that your interventions work.
Like, obviously we should treat veterans with PTSD, but the article is unclear about whether it's just them.
That would be an extremely odd comment to make, though. Not only does the category "assault survivor" obviously not exclude veterans, why would you single them out to care about?
The US also spends a large amount of money on each veteran. If they can find a cure for trauma they would benefit hugely from it. The side effect of this is that others would benefit as well.
Shame it has to be a side effect.
J. was a traveling Ibogaine ... healer? He went from city to city, summoned by the loved ones of advanced heroin addicts, to attempt one last Hail Mary shot at recovery.
These were situations of absolute desperation, and I can’t overstate the seriousness with which he took his adopted occupation. He described to us in detail his process.
First, he interviewed the person requesting help, seeing what else they had tried and trying to suss out if Ibogaine would be worth the risk. He turned away most callers.
Those who he accepted would be dropped off at his van, inside which was a mobile, DIY ICU of sorts: a bed, food, water and emergency medical supplies. He would administer the ibogaine (I don’t know what form this took), and then, in his words, the patient would undergo a 2 to 3-day continuous hallucination.
During this time, in J.’s observations, the patient was almost always ‘visited’ by dead relatives, who typically admonished the patient for what had become of them, laying into them with real talk about the state of their life.
J. said half of the patients came out of this experience fundamentally changed, and effectively cured of their addiction to heroin. I don’t know if he had any data (anecdotal or otherwise) on recidivism, but the implication was that this was likely to be permanent.
But, he said, the other half went insane, which is why he spent a great deal of effort screening families and informing them of the risks.
I don’t know how much, if any, of this is true. I don’t know what ‘insane’ means, or meant. But I remember vividly how seriously this guy took it, without ever coming off as some kind of self-satisfied guru or medicine man, believing himself to be a god, or anything like that. He never accepted money. He lived somewhat roughly. I wonder whatever happened to that guy.
Presumably isn't how science is done. They did an experiment with veterans who had ptsd and ibogaine so the results are relevant to veterans with ptsd using ibogaine.
One could, presumably, extrapolate that result to an even wider audience and say "hallucinogens could help people who experience trauma" but that'd be unscientific and irresponsible to imply this study showed that.
We’re one step below “think of the children”
If you look at, at the one referenced study, there was a coronial inquiry and an investigation by New Zealand's Health and Disability Commissioner that found the doctor who was supervising was in breach of their duty of care.
Yes, there can and have been negative side effects for MANY drugs, but blaming the drug, when a government body has investigated the incident placed the blame elsewhere is an outrageous bad faith claim.
Additionally, that study was for Opioid addiction, and a person also died before even getting into the study (so, iBogain is probably the lesser of two evils).
As for the snarky comment about people finding excuses on this site, no, people actually just read citations on this site, instead of just trust me bro. When your citation claims a doctor is responsible, but you say it was the drug, do you see how one can only assume you are disingenuous?
The full Journal is here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00952990.2017.1...
Here is a relevant extract:
> A third patient of Provider 1 died during treatment before they were formally enrolled. Of 13 participants enrolled through Provider 2, one voluntarily left the study at eight months and a second was lost to follow up at 11 months post-treatment. The fatality was the subject of two investigations, a coronial inquiry and the second involving New Zealand’s Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC). The latter, completed first, described the treatment provider as being in breach of their duty of care but did not offer a medical explanation for the death.
Edit: apparently that’s not true. There’s a brand of DXM-only syrup called Robocough now. What a ridiculous name for a Legitimate Cough Medicine
However there is certainly a lack of data, and facilities doing treatment now are probably incentivized not to share adverse events.
As for TCMS? It works- if you can find a place that's not a farm.
No it doesn't. But making efforts to stop it ourselves is necessary to achieve that. Same reason it's worth doing nuclear disarmament: because not disarming guarantees nuclear war eventually.
My interpretation of the parent comment is: Americans should stop aggressing other countries, slaughtering the population, and then publishing scientific breakthroughs on treating ptsd among the killers.
I'd say the comment says nothing about wars of survival, which is not what veterans have ptsd for. No one is 'doing war' at America.
There are 0 requirements for head trauma with PTSD, it's a stress response.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the top tier, evidence based treatment for PTSD. 60-80% can actually lose their PTSD diagnosis through CBT in some studies.
I'm not saying CBT is the magic cure, but it's very helpful for retraining the body's fight or flight response.
For TBI, there is not really any amount of CBT that can impact it due to the physical changes in the brain. This is why things like ibogaine and psilocybin are encouraging, because they seem to be causing neurogenesis.
I'm somebody that has spent my life dealing with both of these issues through combat sports and military combat. It's something I stay on top of.
Nash equilibrium is the religion for millennials who didn’t get sucked into the boomer/gen-x Ayn Rand bullshit