Potential analgesic effects of psychedelics on select chronic pain conditions: A survey study

Abstract

BackgroundChronic 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.MethodsIn 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.ResultsExcept 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.ConclusionsFull doses and microdoses may hold value in the treatment of some specific chronic pain conditions.SignificancePsychedelic 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.

Progress in understanding the analgesic potential of ‘classic’ psychedelics

“…The study by Cavarra, et al contributes to a growing body of evidence supporting psilocybin as an efficacious treatment for migraine, with both microdoses and standard doses generating better pain relief than conventional medication (Cavarra et al, 2023). However, we would like to highlight that the study does not distinguish between potential prophylactic and abortive effects of psychedelics on migraine.…”

“…The article describes a survey study assessing analgesic effects of 5-HT2A receptor agonists, often dubbed 'classic' psychedelics, in the context of treating five common chronic pain conditions: fibromyalgia, arthritis, migraine, tension-type headache and sciatica (Cavarra et al, 2023). Each of the 170 survey participants had a current diagnosis for one of the aforementioned conditions and was treated with conventional medication, a psychedelic microdose, a standard dose of psychedelics, or some combination thereof.…”