There’s an existing IMHO thread about psilocybin but I didn’t want to hijack it with an odd/obscure question.
I’m doing LASIK or SMILE eye laser surgery in the next 2-3 weeks. I’m also planning to try psilocybin or MDMA in the next 2-3 months.
I was wondering if there was any risk of psychedelic drugs causing corneal neuralgia (a condition causing permanent, severe eye pain) if someone uses the drugs relatively soon after LASIK - the reason being that psychedelics are known to create all kinds of new neural pathways, and neuralgia is a brain condition, not an eye thing (but it’s caused by the brain misinterpreting pain signals from eye nerves.)
I asked doctors and half said yes, half said no, so I’m all the more confused now.
I have no what is possible to occur, but minimally I can state that I can no case reports of increased pain syndromes after psilocybin, and much in its potential role in the treatment of chronic pain syndromes, albeit with sparse and low quality evidence.
During my trip (detail in that other thread), I did notice that I had less of fine motor movement, so that could cause unintended eye injury consequences and from what I know about lasik it does take time to heal, so I wouldn’t plan a trip 2 weeks or so after the procedure for that reason alone. You want it to heal right. But also realize that there is very little modern medical research on it for obvious reasons. So it’s a bit of a wildcard in the respect you ask.
Serotonergic drugs (which increase serotonin levels, notably SSRI antidepressants) have been shown in a small percentage of patients to cause pain, including muscle and joint pain.
Since psycilocybin is a serotonergic drug, there’s at least a theoretical possibility of it having the same effect in susceptible individuals, though reports I’ve seen mention only headache as a pain-associated side effect.
If the OP’s eye doc(s) are uncertain, prudence would suggest not using such a medication in at least the immediate post-op period, especially if the patient has not taken it previously.