[cryzinger]

I think another under-discussed factor in the opioid crisis is that opioids are cheap, but (American) healthcare to treat underlying pain is not. You might not be able to afford six weeks of physical therapy, surgery, etc., but you can probably afford $11.23 a month for a generic prescription.

[keepamovin]

My view of a lot of the opioid crisis stuff aside from physical pain is psychological trauma - people self medicating as an alternative to doing the work.

That’s why I think the psychoactive legislation that’s introduced recently about psychedelics is so important because those things can rapidly accelerate processing and healing psychological trauma.

My view, is if this was done 20 - 30 years ago there wouldn’t be such a large demand for opiates. I take it further and say that probably some in the drug companies understand this already and were lobbying against the introduction of more curative psychedelic treatments so that they could sell subscriptions to painkillers.

[flomo]

Cocaine and Heroin (and LSD...) were widely available 20-30-40-50 years ago. Maybe this is a "It's the economy, stupid" thing?

[mx7zysuj4xew]

Pretty much. Most Americans live awful miserable lives regardless of being addicted to drugs or not

[jazzyjackson]

Sorry what? What does ego death have to do with healing a back injury?

[AnthonBerg]

Nothing and everything: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10....

(This is a serious article by a serious researcher. There exists good work on Frontiers in….)

The 5-HT2A receptor is profoundly immunomodulatory. (Acid is arguably a more potent immunomodulator – an antiinflammatory one – than it is psychoactive.) Local inflammation is a thing in injury, "global" inflammation as well – there is strong interplay between cytokines and metabolic/anabolic/catabolic process; Interleukin-6 stimulates osteoclasts which actively break down joint tissue – and neuroinflammation also affects physiology. Muscle tone, blood flow, pulmonary function, and so on.

Ego death happens to be a phenomenon or qualia when you boop that receptor hard. I'm not sure ego death necessary for anything. It might be. Ego death is very intimately related to the individual neuronal state and memory, and inflammation is quite enmeshed with that. (Cf. cortisol.)

[jazzyjackson]

huh. glad I asked.

[AnthonBerg]

I was quite surprised to find that paper! Thank you for… the audience?, for your consideration? It's quietly somewhat maddening that this is on the books and there's so little mention of it.

Like, psychedelics? I'm not a hippie. I'm not into psychedelics. I'm into neuroinflammation, haha

[keepamovin]

I did say aside from physical ailments

[ghthor]

Chronic Back pain is correlated with emotional trauma. The physical body is a mere projection of the energetic and spiritual being. This is wahy meditative spiritual practices such as yoga and taiji are good for chronic pain, as the physical pain is a mere projection of a deeper trauma that needs released.

[bhotka]

how does my spiritual wellness affect the mechanical structure of my lower back?

[asgraham]

Ignoring the spiritual part, emotional state does have a well-known feedback loop with physical state. There’s a (largely incorrect) idea in pop psychology that just as happiness leads to smiling, smiling leads to happiness. It’s not nearly that simple, but there are some more straightforward examples: lots of tense emotional states (anger, anxiety) lead to tense muscles (jaw being the classic example). Relaxing your jaw can lead to a (temporary) relaxation of your emotional tenseness. I’ve never heard of a similar result for the lower back, but it’s not hard to imagine. If nothing else, they must be correlated through sedentary lifestyle.

[fc417fc802]

> (largely incorrect) ... just as happiness leads to smiling, smiling leads to happiness.

I don't have a citation to hand and it's really old but there was academic research supporting that at some point. IIRC they used some clever request to get people to move their facial muscles in various ways without tipping them off about what was really going on and then asked them lots of questions that touch on emotional state.

[ulrikrasmussen]

Functional disorders are a thing, and placebo surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee works just as well as real surgery: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa013259

I have heard psychedelics be described as the most effective placebo of all placebos.

[balamatom]

By directing your attention towards, or away from, physical phenomena that mechanically affect your lower back: overexertion, underexertion, posture, nutrient intake, crowd...

[munificent]

Setting the woo aside, there is a lot of data on disorders like central sensitization syndrome that show our psychological state has a very strong modulating effect on our perception of pain.

[nswango]

I mean tons of back pain is medically unexplained. It's not like physiology has a perfect record here that can be used to dismiss alternative theories.

[fwip]

Thankfully, you don't need a perfect record to dismiss theories like "a wizard did it."

[TheServitor]

Relieved to learn that my small peen is merely a projection of my energetic spiritual being.

[idiotsecant]

I feel like you missed a turn somewhere.