--- title: Psychedelics Are Latest Promising Long COVID Treatment description: Scientists are studying whether psychedelics, like psilocybin and MDMA, could help treat Long COVID symptoms. canonical: https://time.com/6271806/psychedelics-long-covid-treatment/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-04-17T18:08:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-11T20:26:05.000Z article:section: Health og:title: The Latest Promising Long COVID Treatment? Psychedelic Drugs og:description: Psychedelics show promise where few other drugs have og:url: https://time.com/6271806/psychedelics-long-covid-treatment/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0038310547110aac/698a3c0386f68ec1076f2557/psilocybin.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5326 og:image:height: 2996 og:image:alt: Psilocybin mushrooms og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Latest Promising Long COVID Treatment? Psychedelic Drugs twitter:description: Psychedelics show promise where few other drugs have twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0038310547110aac/698a3c0386f68ec1076f2557/psilocybin.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Latest Promising Long COVID Treatment? Psychedelic Drugs > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=70f67b21-509c-4013-800d-0f1e85294bd5&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Michael Pollan on the Healing Power of Psychedelics [Watch (HLS stream): Michael Pollan on the Healing Power of Psychedelics](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Z7yskoOT.m3u8) (4:20)  _Published 2018-05-16. Author Michael Pollan explored the therapeutic properties of psychedelics for his latest book, "How to Change Your Mind." His research includes firsthand experiences with the drugs._  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Updated: Dec 11, 2023 8:26 PM UTCPublished: Apr 17, 2023 6:08 PM UTC  Copelandia Mushroom Panaeolus Cyanescens or Copelandia Cyanescens is one of the most potent mushrooms in the world Copelandia Mushroom Panaeolus Cyanescens or Copelandia Cyanescens is one of the most potent mushrooms in the world Getty Images  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Updated: Dec 11, 2023 8:26 PM UTCPublished: Apr 17, 2023 6:08 PM UTC After more than a year of being short of breath, tired, and riddled with heart, motor, cognitive, gastrointestinal, and [menstrual](https://time.com/6268429/long-covid-reproductive-health/) issues, Ruth was willing to try anything to make her Long COVID go away. So she turned to psychedelic drugs. Ruth, 31, who asked to be identified by only her first name, had tried psychedelics a few times in the past and was familiar with the [research on their therapeutic use](https://time.com/5295544/war-on-drugs-ptsd-mdma-rick-doblin/). Feeling like she had nothing to lose, she took five grams of psilocybin mushrooms in December 2021. That single trip changed her life. She woke up the next morning with a normal heart rate, breathing more freely than she had in a long time. After that, her period stabilized and her brain fog and motor dysfunction cleared. She got her energy back. She still has a few lingering symptoms, and though it’s impossible to say for sure what happened, Ruth credits psilocybin for her renewed health. “That’s probably difficult for a lot of people to process or believe,” she says. “But it really worked.” One person’s dramatic recovery does not prove anything, scientifically. But there’s a growing movement to study whether psychedelic drugs could [treat Long COVID](https://time.com/6263356/long-covid-treatment-prevention/), an often-debilitating chronic condition for which there is currently no proven cure. Psychedelics and Long COVID are a somewhat unlikely match. While there’s been [a boom in psychedelic research in recent years](https://time.com/6253702/psychedelics-psilocybin-mdma-legalization/), much of it has focused on mental-health conditions such as [post-traumatic stress disorder](https://time.com/4586014/fda-ecstasy-mdma-ptsd-treatment-trial/), [depression](https://time.com/6106152/psychedelic-medicine-health-care-workers/), and [substance-use disorder](https://time.com/6167638/psilocybin-addiction-therapeutic-breakthrough/). The research on psychedelics and Long COVID, by comparison, is negligible—and there’s a lot standing in its way. Psychedelic drugs are federally illegal, categorized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as substances with high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. But research is growing. Dr. Joel Castellanos, associate medical director at the University of California, San Diego’s Psychedelics and Health Research Initiative, says he hears from plenty of Long COVID patients who have either tried, or are interested in trying, psychedelics. One patient saw such dramatic improvement in their fatigue, headaches, depression, and brain fog after using a combination of psilocybin and MDMA that Castellanos is currently working to publish a case study about their experience. Though case studies do not prove cause and effect, Castellanos says he’s “excited about psychedelics. It’s a brand-new way of looking at a lot of different symptoms that people experience.” Dr. Sue Sisley, who researches psilocybin at Scottsdale Research Institute in Phoenix and also works in a community Long COVID clinic, became interested in using psychedelics as Long COVID remedies after patients told her they were trying them on their own and seeing improvements in their energy, cognitive function, and memory. “I was initially skeptical,” Sisley says. But “none of the medications I was \[prescribing\] for them were helping substantially,” so she thought it was worth exploring something that apparently was. Sisley recently advised lawmakers on a [bill](https://apps.azleg.gov/BillStatus/BillOverview/78594) working its way through the Arizona state legislature, which would provide up to $30 million to research the therapeutic potential of psilocybin for 13 different conditions, including Long COVID. Her hunch is that psilocybin may help Long COVID patients by [stimulating new neuronal connections and tissue growth in the brain](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf0435) and reducing inflammation throughout the body. The research funding earmarked in the bill could help suss out whether those hypotheses are right. There’s already some research—albeit not in humans—to suggest that inflammation may indeed be a target for psychedelic therapies. Charles Nichols, a professor of pharmacology at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine, [has found that](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002839082200291X?via%3Dihub) some psychedelic drugs have anti-inflammatory effects in rodents. If the same turns out to be true in humans, Nichols says it’s logical to think psychedelics could bring some relief to people with Long COVID. That’s been the case for Renée, 53, who also asked to be identified by only her first name. After a suspected case of COVID-19 in 2020 left her with smell loss, a rapid heart rate, dizziness, ringing in her ears, brain fog, psychosis, hallucinations, and [suicidal thoughts](https://time.com/6186429/suicide-long-covid/), she decided to try microdosing: taking just enough of a psychedelic to spark a physiological effect, but not enough to get high. She started by taking small amounts of LSD every few days for a month. “I started to feel connected to humanity again. I had emotions again. I had some joy again. I felt normal,” Renée says. Her cognitive functioning improved dramatically and she felt her creativity come back—a boon for her quality of life, since she’s an artist. She still microdoses periodically, now with psilocybin, and says she views it as medicine. While some people, like Renée, regularly use small doses of psychedelics, Dr. Saleena Subaiya, a physician and researcher at Columbia University Irving Medical Center who also has Long COVID, is launching a small pilot trial to explore whether single-dose hallucinogenic treatments can relieve Long COVID symptoms. After study participants receive a psychoactive medication, Subaiya and colleagues will track them for two months to see whether symptoms including depression, brain fog, and fatigue improve. Psychoactive drugs have been shown to regulate neurotransmitters, stimulate the growth of cells in the brain, and reduce inflammation in the central nervous system, so it’s possible those properties could translate to improvements in brain-related symptoms of Long COVID. Still, Subaiya is wary of overpromising, particularly given the hype around psychedelics and the fact that there is no proven cure for Long COVID. Despite the positive rumblings about Long COVID and psychedelics, they have not yet proven effective, Subaiya says. “The safest way to engage with these substances right now would be in a trial,” Subaiya says. “We’re dealing with very powerful psychoactive medications. People need to proceed with immense amounts of caution.” **Correction, April 18** _The original version of this story misstated the amount of psilocybin Ruth took. She took five grams of psilocybin mushrooms, not five grams of pure psilocybin._ ## Transcript I guess the biggest misconception people have about psychedelics is that these are drugs that make you crazy. And we now have evidence that that does happen sometimes, but in many more cases, these are drugs that can make you sane, or more sane. [ MUSIC ] If you ask people about what psychedelics, or LSD, they're gonna think about the Timothy Leary, this flamboyant psychology professor. Studying psilocybin and LSD and then telling everybody they should take it. I'm very glad to be discredited, I don't want credibility. I want incredibility. [ LAUGH ] The drugs kind of escape laboratory and were embraced by the counter culture and proved to be very disruptive to society [ MUSIC ] So you had this full scale moral panic that eventually doomed the research but what people don't know is that that's 60s episode was really one small chapter in a much longer story. Psycho drugs are one kind of another have been used by different societies for thousands of years. If you compare mental health care with any other branch of medicine infectious disease, cardiology, oncology there have been very few achievements. Mental health treatment has not lengthened the human life span. So we need some new thinking, we need some new ideas and psychedelics may well be that new idea. There's a really exciting field of research underway, right now, looking at psychedelics. Especially psilocybin, the ingredient in magic mushrooms, to help people deal with mental illness of various kinds. Addiction, depression, obsession, and the fear and anxiety that surrounds a terminal diagnosis. And the feeling among the scientist is that these chemicals allow us to essentially reboot the brain. All those kind of deep grooves that lock us into patterns of both thought and behavior are dissolved and temporarily suspended in a way that allows us to break those patterns. We're now in a different world. The adults now, many of them have experience of psychedelics, they're not gonna react in such a panicky way, I don't think. Many of the people in charge of our institutions, probably regulators at the FDA, people at the American Psychiatric Association, they have personal experience of psychedelics. And they're, I think, gonna bring a more rational, Attitude toward them. I learned that there is a thriving underground of psychedelic therapists. These are serious professionals but they're doing something illegal. And I was able to find my way into this. Community and after interviewing several of them I found a couple people I felt comfortable enough to entrust my mind to. This isn't doctors giving you a pill and sending you out into the world. You are, for a period of four or five hours, in a room that's decorated like a kind of cozy den or study, you're lying down on a couch, you have eye shades on. And headphones, which are playing a very carefully curated playlist, to make you go inside, to have an internal experience. And you're with two guides at all times. Some people are put in touch with childhood trauma. Some people have encounters with death and I mean, it can be very dark. But with the help of the guides, you use that material and try to understand it. So after the session, you always come back the next day and have what's called a period of integration. Where the guides, who are trained therapists, help you interpret what happened and figure out ways to put it to good use in changing your life. My best journey was this fairly high dose [ INAUDIBLE ] journey. I had with a guide. What was stunning about it was I did have an experience of ego disillusion. I reached a point where myself kind of fell apart into these paper post its. That just got scattered into the wind. I saw myself. And I know that sounds weird. Who's the I that saw myself, but there is this split in consciousness that happens. But I saw myself scattered to the wind, but I was all right with it and I learned a really important lesson in that moment, which is that I'm not identical to my ego. 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