These days, there isn’t an ailment some Silicon  Valley-esque startup is trying to treat with psychedelics. Of course you  have depression, anxiety, addiction, PTSD and fear of death for the  terminally ill—there’s some good data for treating all of that—but some  of the more obscure treatments include anorexia and eating disorders,  sexual dysfunction, dementia, and even rare conditions like fragile X  syndrome.

Psychedelics are amazing drugs, but they’re not a panacea. It’s not  that this research isn’t worth investigating, but how do you determine  what’s just hype and what the actual potential of psilocybin, LSD, DMT,  etc. really is?

It may be wise to be skeptical of psychedelics being used to treat  physical pain. Yet while the research is very young, there is some  fascinating evidence that psychedelics may help with chronic pain,  fibromyalgia, cluster headaches and even phantom limb pain. And what’s  interesting is so many different research institutions and corporations  are exploring this question. It’s not exactly a fringe topic and  Narcotica co-host Troy Farah dives in with two conversations.

The first is an interview with Greg McKee, CEO of Tryp Therapeutics, a  California-based startup that is exploring chronic pain relief using  psilocybin and another, psilocybin-based drug with an undisclosed  formulation that is obliquely called TRP-8803. The company has partnered  with the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin-Madison  to study how these drugs might treat fibromyalgia and Tryp has added  leading psychedelic researcher Robin Carhart-Harris to its scientific  advisory board, where he will play a “critical role” in clinical trial  design.

The second interview is with Dr. Johannes Ramaekers of Maastricht  University, who says he is developing another pain study to look at  psychedelics and fibromyalgia. He was the lead author of a very  interesting study published in 2020 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology  that found that quote “low doses of LSD might constitute a novel  pharmacological therapy.”

Read Troy’s article in Scientific American here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-psychedelic-drugs-treat-physical-pain/

Read Dr. Ramaekers’ pain and LSD study here: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0269881120940937

Learn more about Tryp Therapeutics at https://tryptherapeutics.com/

If you liked this episode, here are others you might enjoy:
Episode 41: What Does It All Ketamine? with Dr. Erica Zelfand
Episode 49: Salvia: Psychedelic Oddity (Plus, Canada’s Emerging Psilocybin Scene)
Episode 25: Banning Kratom Will Escalate the Opioid Overdose Crisis with Walter Prozialeck

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Producers: Christopher Moraff, Troy Farah, Zachary Siegel
Co-producer: Garrett Farah
Music: Glass Boy
Intro voice: Jenny Schaye
Image: PXFuel // The Noun Project // edit: Troy Farah