PSYCHEDELICS AND CORONAVIRUS

Following the SARS virus outbreak in 2003, various studies detailed increased cases of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. With the outbreak of the current COVID-19 pandemic, a coronavirus similar to SARS, continues to wreak havoc across the planet. The Sacramento Bee suggests psychedelic therapy as a means to treat emotional trauma caused by the pandemic. Some people are using psychedelics for their potential anti-inflammatory properties, while others are aiming to mitigate the physical and emotional symptoms once or if they contract the virus.
This could be the best time to tap into the healing power of psychedelics as world is readjusting, and for others, the idea of opening the doors of perception during such a frightening time is ludicrous.

Psychedelics used to fight against COVID-19

Psychedelics, like psilocybin, is well known for its potential anti-inflammatory properties, to protect against COVID-19 and to mitigate the symptoms once you already have it. There is even research into ketamine as a treatment for COVID, as it could also halt the disease’s inflammation.
The FDA grant “temporary approval” for psychedelic therapies to help patients struggling with the trauma of the coronavirus pandemic. MDMA, LSD, and psilocybin all show promise for PTSD and depression. Ketamine is currently being used off-label for depression and PTSD through clinical IV therapy and oral administration, in addition to a nasal spray that was approved last year to treat depression. However, before you take psychedelics for COVID relief it’s important to understand the risks.

Case study

According to our findings an anonymous source living in New York City was treated from COVID-19 with the help of psychedelics. Two months ago, she began to show symptoms of COVID. “I had no sense of taste or smell. I had body aches and pains all over the place. I had a lot of tightness in my lungs, but I never really had difficulty breathing and I never spiked a high fever,” she says. However, she did go see a doctor in advance of a thyroid surgery which was postponed when she tested positive for COVID.
“As a precaution now going into surgery it’s standard to get a nasal swab,” our source says. Her test came back positive. Before COVID, she took LSD or psilocybin mushrooms about six times a year and describes psychedelics as “smart drugs,” which she says have had a wonderful and clarifying effect for her. So while she stresses that she tries not to use substances to escape, after dealing with the stress of contracting COVID, she was ready for some ketamine, which she got from a friend. She was over the most serious symptoms of the virus, but was still experiencing brain fog. After experimenting with micro-dosing, she took enough ketamine for what she hoped would be a 45-minute pleasant, dissociative experience. “I just wanted to be held or comforted, but I didn’t get out of my head,” Grace says. But then it intensified. Psychedelics helped me overcome the symptoms associated with coronavirus and helped clear my thoughts and find reasons to keep fighting for life, she said.

Other research regarding covid-19, psychedelics

Psychiatrist Ben Sessa, a UK-based researcher and author of many psychedelics books, even christened this time as a psychedelic renaissance. Moving forward, psychedelic treatment and therapy is absolutely necessary: their approach to mental health is radically different from current pharmaceutical models, which set up individuals for a lifetime of drug-taking. Instead, psychedelic therapies combine a “limited number of treatment sessions with a psychedelic substance, sandwiched between intensive pre- and post-treatment therapy sessions”; patients of these treatments have reported the experience to be not only life-altering, but also lasting over time. These treatments do not attempt to manage the symptoms of the problem, but rather dig into the root of the problem itself.