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Is Myeloma Causing Depression?
Is your myeloma causing depression and anxiety? Speaking as a long-term MM survivor myself, the remissions, relapses, and side effects do a number on my emotions.
According to the study linked below, more than half of all newly diagnosed MM patients had clinically significant anxiety and/or depression symptoms.
Living with MM in 2025 could mean remissions, relapses, short-term, long-term, regular diagnostic testing, and late-stage side effects for 8-10 years or more. MM is incurable and requires constant vigilance.
Doctor tries Psilocybin to cure depression from cancer diagnosis | WebMD
So, what is a newly diagnosed MM patient who is feeling depressed and anxious to do? Newly diagnosed MM patients may focus so much on their chemo and radiation that they are neglecting their mental health.
Psilocybin therapy seems to have potential.
Email me at David.PeopleBeatingCancer@gmail.com to learn more about managing multiple myeloma with both conventional and non-conventional therapies.
David Emerson
- MM Survivor
- MM Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Anxiety and depression among patients newly diagnosed with lymphoma and myeloma
Key Points
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Over half of patients newly diagnosed with lymphoma or myeloma had clinically significant anxiety and/or depression symptoms.
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Depression was associated with lower QOL, underscoring the need for psychological interventions for patients with lymphoma or myeloma.
One Psilocybin Dose Eases Cancer Depression Over Long Term
A single dose of psilocybin combined with psychological support can provide lasting relief from depression and anxiety in patients with cancer.
In a phase 2 clinical trial, more than half of patients reported sustained reductions in depression, and nearly half reported significant reductions in anxiety 2 years after treatment.
Psilocybin is a “potentially paradigm-shifting alternative to traditional antidepressants,” wrote the investigators, led by Manish Agrawal, MD, Sunstone Therapies, Rockville, Maryland.
Sandeep Nayak, MD, medical director, Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, Baltimore, who wasn’t involved in the study, said that the antidepressant effects of psilocybin in patients with cancer are “consistent” with those found in larger studies of people with depression.
“If psilocybin works for major depression in general, it’s likely to work for major depression in people with cancer, even though there are, of course, unique aspects of psychological suffering with cancer,” Nayak told Medscape Medical News…
Limited Success Treating Cancer Depression
Depression remains common in patients with cancer, and the typical treatment approaches — antidepressants and psychotherapy — have demonstrated limited success.
Agrawal and colleagues explored the safety, feasibility, and efficacy of psilocybin-assisted group therapy in 30 patients (mean age, 58 years; 70% women; 80% White individuals) with major depressive disorder and curable or noncurable cancer…
Participants received one-on-one and group therapy sessions before, during, and after receiving a single 25-mg psilocybin dose. No patients were taking an antidepressant or antipsychotic medications or using medical cannabis.
Earlier results from this trial showed that, at 8 weeks posttreatment, 25 of 30 patients (80%) had a lasting response to psilocybin, with half demonstrating full remission of depressive symptoms by week 1, which lasted for at least 8 weeks.
The latest findings explore depression after 2 years in the 28 patients available for follow-up (two patients died).
The new 2-year data, published June 16 in the journal Cancer, highlight the durability of these effects…
So why does psilocybin relieve depression?
“There are a lot of theories,” F. Perry Wilson, MD, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, and Medscape’s Impact Factor commentator, said in a recent post.
Wilson noted that some researchers are using a new term — psychoplastogens — to describe drugs like psilocybin.
“The science suggests that one-time use of these agents can allow for a sudden increase in neural plasticity, allowing new neuronal connections to form where they wouldn’t in other conditions, and for older connections to break down and restructure,” Wilson explained. “If our brains are etched with the stories of our lives, if our behaviors deepen and reinforce those psychological ruts, psychoplastogens like psilocybin may loosen the soil, so to speak.”
This also suggests that concomitant psychotherapy could be a critical component of psilocybin treatment for depression, he added. “Perhaps the psilocybin shakes loose some maladaptive pathways, but putting them together in a healthy way still takes work.”
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