A close family member suffers from Parkinsons disease, and is experiencing rapid decline. He is decidedly "square" and doesn't have much experience with these medicines and realms. As such, I have been hesitant to suggest anything to him besides cannabis, which caused him much anxiety and insomnia, but at this point I think he is willing to try anything. I have done a good deal of research and found that tryptamines such as LSD and DMT are great for ailments such as cluster headaches, addiction, depression, etc, but haven't seen much research done on Parkisons. One thing I did come across was a few mentions of parkinsons patients using Ibogaine to treat their condition. Apparently the neuroregenative properties of ibogaine are second to none, and there are underground communities of patients utilizing it successfully. Does anyone in this wonderful forum have any knowledge about this?

It would be most appreciated.
Blessings.

I'm currently working with a family member who has Parkinson's disease. He's been microdosing mushrooms for about 18 months and it's been helping. He was also "square" and it took a few months for him to be comfortable with the idea. Now he's asking me how he can take mushrooms with him when he travels.

Also, Ayahuasca was used about 100 years ago to treat Parkinson's, so we'll soon try a pharmahuasca protocol.

I can write more later. Just want to let you know that psychedelics have shown promise.

Thank you for your response Shroombee. When you say it's helping, how so? Is he noticing improved cognition? A slowing of cognitive decline? Or just an improved quality of life and less of the fear and anxiety Parkinsons can cause? I'd be super appreciative if you could expound a bit when you have the opportunity. Using these medicines for healing is my path, and this particular instance hits very close to home as they are a close family member. I don't want to recommend anything until I understand how exactly it could help him, especially with all the other meds he is on. I am sorry to hear you have a loved one suffering with this disease as well. It really is a horrid condition, that strips away so much of our humanity. He is very fearful, and often feels very out of control.

Also, have you heard at all about ibogaine being utilized? There's a lot of anicdotal evidence out there that suggests it may be the best of the psychedelic medicines in our pantheon for parkinsons, but not a lot of info on dose or application or effects. It's also one of the few psychedelics that I have no personal experience with, which I would definitely feel the need to change before I suggested he try it.

Thank you friend, blessings

You're welcome. There isn't much info out there about psychedelics for Parkinson's. Happy I can share what I've learned so far.

With the microdosing, I noticed improved mood (which is one of the main reasons people microdose). He has a more positive outlook on life and that's huge for working through Parkinson's. He has been able to reduce his dosage of carbidopa/levidopa (C/L). I read somewhere that psilocin either increases the effectiveness of C/L and/or reduces the tolerance that appears to build over time. Eventually this tolerance makes C/L ineffective, or it may be the "tolerance" is due to progression of the disease. He was taking 0.2-0.3 grams of shrooms per day every other day (a typical microdosing protocol).

A couple months ago his peripheral neuropathy started acting up. He saw a video where someone used daily mushrooms to relieve peripheral neuropathy. I figured the mushrooms were psilocin so he changed his dosage to 0.3 grams every day, with one day off per week to drop tolerance back to zero. It definitely helps the peripheral neuropathy. He says it takes 30 minutes after dosing at 8am to feel relief, and the relief lasts until 6pm.

Another practice he's using is Rock-Steady Boxing for Parkinson's. He says that's been shown to be effective. In general, staying active with different movement practices, and mixing it up, slows the progression of the disease.

BTW, he has only used alcohol and tobacco in the past and was fully conditioned to believe that "drugs are bad". So I gently introduced him to the idea that psychedelic mushrooms would help. He kept referring to them as "magic mushrooms". Michael Pollan is one of his favorite authors, so "How to Change Your Mind" was a big help in getting him to accept the therapeutic use of psychedelics. On this forum, people don't have a very high opinion of Pollan's involvement in psychedelics. In my case Pollan was a positive influence in changing someone's mind (no pun intended) about "drugs".


Helping others to heal is a noble path. Everyone around him must stay positive, patient, and supportive. Stress is the worst antagonist for Parkinson's. Mindfulness practices will help him and others.


I have not looked into ibogaine, but will do so. I also don't have any personal experience with it and would also want to be familiar with it myself before recommending it to someone else.

Look into Ayahuasa as a treatment. Not necessarily the heroic doses, but mini-dosing so it can be used multiple times per week. I've experimented with weekly small doses of pharmahuasca myself and I noticed improved mindfulness and a general feeling of well-being. Research suggests harmine, THH, and DMT facilitate neurogenesis (in a petri dish and in mice). So we're going to try pharmahuasca for Parkinson's very soon. I'll report on findings.

My shamen friend recommends breathwork and a mushroom ceremony (like 2-3 grams). There is an alternate school of thought that Parkinson's is a mental disability (self induced). And perhaps this is why Ayahuasca was used as a traditional treatment.

Please continue to share, I will try to stay timely in responses.

Parkinson's is a dopamine issue (to a lesser extent noradrenaline too), the basal ganglia becomes damaged and secretes less and less dopamine. This in turn affects motor control, cognitive function etc as it all relies on dopamine.

There's many papers showing neuro-regenerative effects caused by classic psychedelics. In addition, studies have shown serotonin and dopamine increases when using psychedelic's meaning the basal ganglia is directly effected by psychedelics themselves as many have shown to increasing dopamine and serotonin firing when under the influence. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is one of the factors that psychedelic's seem to increase (particularly harmala as well as DMT, ibogaine, psilocin etc). BDNF helps neuro-regneration. Harmala I believe for memory releases more BDNF which can help recruit a type of stem cells, both which repairs neurons. There's also evidence calssic psychdelics causes stronger and new connections.

How much neuro-regeneration is taking place in the basal ganglia would be unclear. But there is evidence that BDNF and glial-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) has repaired neurons in the basal ganglia, again which is responsible for producing dopamine.
In any case, we also know there is an increase in dopamine release with psychedelic's like psilocin as they affect the basal ganglia directly causing it to fire off and release more dopamine.

So just from this information there is potential when using psychedelic's for a Parkinson's:
-There is a possibility of neuro-regeneration on basal ganglia which potential could repair it and therefore make more dopamine available or at least slow the damage down.
-Psychedelic's can increase dopamine release via the basal ganglia (that is undamaged). Meaning more dopamine could be available for the body to function better.

Ibogaine is in interesting one, it doesn't increase dopamine levels but has been shown to normalize them, so perhaps in a Parkinson's patient it would modulate and increase dopamine. It has also be shown to increase nerve cell growth for repairing damaged neurons. Increasing BDNF etc. However it can modulate dopamine by blocking certain dopamine receptors, this is why it works well for addiction. So there may be a trade of with ibogaine.

So a combination therapy couldn't go wrong plus by alternating different psychedelic's, tolerance and down regulation of receptors may lessen as each psychedelic acts slightly differently. Therefore treatment may be more effective.

There's so much to learn and that we don't know. Many studies have only gone as far as animal studies but there is a growing amount of data now.

My partner has had good success particularly with harmala & DMT (as well as other psychedelics) for their MS. Although very different conditions, increases in BDNF/ new connections is likely what has attributed to their quick recovery. It is a similar mechanism of action for how it may help Parkinson's patients. We have no set routine of how we use the medicine. However, usage is likely to increase as the disease progresses much later down the track.

Great info Trip. Thanks!

No worries, I really should add some article links to back what I am saying. I'll edit this post if or when I have time.

If you look at the post I did on my partner's MS there's a short list of a few studies I was looking into at the time, some that will be relevant to Parkinson's. There's also many studies available online that focus on psychedelics and Parkinson's. that's if you have time to read them.

Also Lion's Mane mushroom has shown to be an effective neuro-regenerative mushroom. There's some evidence there, I looked into it after reading one of Loveall's posts.

This may be relevant/interesting

https://psychedelicspotl...sons-disease-pharmather/

I was happy to come across this post. I was diagnosed with Parkinson's a few years ago. It's been a difficult adjustment, not so much physically as it is mentally and emotionally. This past year I've utilized cannabis in microdosing, along with my prescription medication to help control the physical symptoms with pretty good results. Parkinsons can have a broad range of emotional and cognitive effects on an individual. I've used DMT a couple of times to see if it would alleviate some of these symptoms. My experience so far, has been promising.

Thanks, Trip for your very informed post.

beta-carbolines, and more specifically harmine as an aid against Parkinson's seems to be effective. I'll paste the wikipedia article

"The extract of the liana Banisteriopsis caapi has been used by the tribes of the Amazon as an entheogen and was described as a hallucinogen in the middle of the 19th century.[20] In early 20th century, European pharmacists identified harmine as the active substance.[21] This discovery stimulated the interest to further investigate its potential as a medicine. For example, Louis Lewin, a prominent pharmacologist, demonstrated a dramatic benefit in neurological impairments after injections of B. caapi in patients with postencephalitic Parkinsonism.[20] By 1930, it was generally agreed that hypokinesia, drooling, mood, and sometimes rigidity improved by treatment with harmine. Altogether, 25 studies had been published in the 1920s and 1930s about patients with Parkinson's disease and postencephalitic Parkinsonism. The pharmacological effects of harmine have been attributed mainly to its central monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitory properties. In-vivo and rodent studies have shown that extracts of Banisteriopsis caapi and also Peganum harmala lead to striatal dopamine release.[22][23][24] Furthermore, harmine supports the survival of dopaminergic neurons in MPTP-treated mice.[25] Since harmine also antagonizes N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors,[26] some researchers speculatively attributed the rapid improvement in patients with Parkinson's disease to these antiglutamatergic effects.[20] However, the advent of synthetic anticholinergic drugs at that time led to the total abandonment of harmine"

Now harmine has a short half-life. And obviously no one knows what dosage you need for Parkinson's without getting floored by the harmala trance. People mention getting used to the harmine nausea, so yes if someone tries this it will require dedication for fine-tunning the dosage

Thanks, L-dreamer, good read

Update on the microdosing... He regularly wakes with intermittent freezing in his left leg. The microdosing stops the freezing.

Also, there is a community using Ivermectin to treat Parkinson's. My family member has been dosing IVM daily for the past several weeks. A couple weeks ago he didn't take his C/L or microdose for the day. Usually people can't go cold turkey on C/L as there will be withdrawal symptoms. On that day he had no withdrawal symptoms and no symptoms of Parkinson's other than excess saliva production. We haven't repeated the experiment yet.

Maybe I'm redundant and I apologize if this has already been posted, it's a short study on Peganum Harmala that mentions Parkinson's disease : Pharmacological and therapeutic effects of Peganum harmala and its main alkaloids.

Here's some screenshots from my 2 favourite studies at the moment one on a few classic pyschedelics another on harmala. Basal and veh are the controls.
Neuron formations and connections.

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(18)30755-1.


I can't get rid of that emoji it's an 8 and )
[MOD EDIT: sorted!]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-0

Harmala's are probably most beneficial. Their only downside is the short halflife.

There is an experimental drug that is basically being sold as a research chemical, wich is called 9-mbc, or 9-me-bc. It is chemically related to harmala alkaloïds, but has a half life of about 20 hours.

It a relatively novel substance though, with a not very well known safety profile. And from what i've seen it's pretty expensive as well.

Harmalas would almost certainly have a negative counter effect to the plethora of parkinsons meds most patients are regimented.

I've regularly consumed Mucuna standardized extract for it's L-Dopa content on top of/with Harmalas, works well and if you take the Mucuna 2 hours before or two hours after the Harmalas (and thus the gut's MAO-A inhibition window) then it's not particularly potentiated because the L-Dopa isn't consumed at the same time as the gut's MAO-A is inhibited, although there could still be some potentiation elsewhere from like brain/liver MAO-A inhibition, as well as Harmaline's COMT inhibition especially. I haven't noticed any negative side-effects in that department and L-Dopa/Mucuna balances out and synergizes with the Rue/Harmalas, or at least my own neurochemistry, quite nicely.