It all began with a mosquito bite.
In 2016, just after the premiere of my show “When We Were Small”, a few good friends decided to take advantage of the cheap plane tickets to Maui and sit on a beach to celebrate. My son was two years old. I was about to get pregnant again with my daughter. My friend came down with a very intense fever after getting bit by a mosquito. If I knew then, what I know now, I would have taken him to the hospital immediately. It turns out that our brains can’t handle temperatures of 106 degrees, which it was at times.
This fever led to Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) or ME/CFS - more commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. In his case, ME/CFS presented as joint pain, orthostatic intolerance, and post-exertional malaise. A person who used to surf, climb, hike, camp, dive, and run with me could not imagine doing more than the absolute minimum physically. It was hard. It was super sad.
He found it was hard to keep his spirits up when the pain never seemed to leave and the activities that were the most fun seemed unachievable. The tension would develop in his face as the body aches grew. It was hard to be patient. It was hard to be fun. It was hard to do everything.
Many doctors, specialists, and wrong diagnoses later, he decided that there wasn’t much for him in the currently approved medical treatments. The drugs offered didn’t help and delivered lots of unwanted side effects and long-term health risks.
In 2019 I read some studies about the success of LSD in treating alcoholism. I noticed he had developed a habit of anticipating the pain - and that was causing him to walk and move awkwardly through the world and stay continually tensed in a way that caused additional pain. I knew it was a stretch, but if psychedelics could break habitual drinking, maybe they could break the habit of pain expectation too.
I offered to support him in a psychedelic protocol to reset his pain thresholds. With quite a bit of trial and error and various preparation approaches, we came up with a schedule and a program that has helped. Drawing on release technique, focused intention, light bodywork, and guided internal body scan, I guide him.
This is the only therapy that has had any significant impact on his pain. People who suffer from chronic pain develop well-defined pathways in the brain that get stronger and recruit other muscles to support these patterns. This leads to more tension and therefore more pain. Psychedelics offer a vacation from the pain in the moment, which is helpful, but it can also get a person off the pain highways of mind afterward.
Set, setting, preparation, and intention do matter. Interestingly, when he takes psychedelics recreationally, those journeys don’t have the same effect on his pain.
I was recently at a conference at Stanford and was pleased to see that this is now an active area of research - psychedelics for chronic pain. I’m hopeful that we’ll discover more about why it works.
It has been some years now and my friend considers himself not cured but well-managed. His life has returned to normal for the most part. He is not climbing and surfing again but he seems more at peace with this life shift. Before any large event or when the pain begins to creep back, we revisit the psychedelic space for a reset. We have a rough schedule of every four months. These journeys are not fun - it is work and with ME/CFS it can be hard to save up the energy to do the journey. But in the end, there are no side effects and no long-term health risks. He has his life back. He has joy back. He has the loving, patient, and kind relationship he used to have with his kids back.
The Earth provides.