Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Voriconazole... sorta like LSD

Frankie hopes to be one of the 33% of patients who gets an LSD-like visual trip when taking voriconazole for invasive aspergillus.
Voriconazole (the brand name is Vfend) is an antifungal drug that is pretty decent at penetrating the blood brain barrier. This is a good characteristic for drugs that you want to use to treat brain infections. Invasive aspergillus  gets rocked by this drug. However, this drug also supposedly produces an LSD-like trip in 33% of patients (I wonder how many patients experienced this before a drug abuser made the connection that it was like LSD). That sounds pretty sweet. If I had the choice between different medications, I would probably choose this one. Then again, if I'm sick enough to need this drug, I probably wouldn't be in a good enough condition to appreciate the visual trip. If anything, it might makes things worse.


Still…. Seeing as how I don't do illicit drugs and never will, if I ever get an invasive aspergillus infection I just might take advantage of the opportunity for some fun. It's not very often you get the chance to get an LSD trip under the guidance of a physician without any moral conundrums, so you might to think twice before passing it up.


I am a medical student at BCM and all thoughts are my own. I am not a doctor. Please read the disclaimer.
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Posted by at 6:04 PM
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2 comments:

  1. I think you're correct in guessing there's fair chance it might make things worse if you're quite sick. Set and setting are very important in determining whether a psychedelic drug user's experience is positive or negative, and if you're feeling terrible, well...bad trip time! Could make for some interesting stories, nonetheless :)

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  2. I've been taking it now for 6 days, and will be on it for two months. When you're really that sick that you need it and you have a high fever and you feel like general crap, the tripiness is kind of just one more layer of suckitude. Plus there are a multitude of other side effects that make you feel pretty bad anyway. All the fun gets sucked right out. I'm getting more of a shroom effect than an LSD effect, but I'm an old lady and don't really remember the fun old days anyway.

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