Where to get ibogaine treatment

A chef prepares meals and clinic staffers oversee the patients. Once Dextraze is medically cleared, he can take ibogaine. It will be given at night, when the short-acting opiates wear off and Dextraze starts to go into withdrawal.

The clinic staff have been warned Dextraze that he may see visions that aren't pleasant. Still, Dextraze is eager. The day Dextraze is due to take ibogaine, he fasts after breakfast. Two nurses and a doctor monitor Dextraze and the other patient there at the time. Aeden Smith-Ahearn, the treatment coordinator, is also on hand to help.

Six years ago, Smith-Ahearn came to Mexico to get ibogaine treatment for his own addiction to opioids. He's been an ibogaine enthusiast ever since. Smith-Ahearn estimates his clinic has treated more than 1, people in the past five years, and that more than 95 percent of them are from the U.

He says most patients seek ibogaine after several tries at conventional treatment -- when they reach a point where they believe ibogaine is less risky than continuing to use drugs. Paul Castillo, who will administer the ibogaine, also works in a hospital emergency room in Mexico. He became a supporter of ibogaine after a friend who owned another clinic asked him to help monitor patients. After [ibogaine], shining eyes, smiling," Castillo says.

Castillo follows treatment guidelines from the Global Ibogaine Therapy Alliance , a Canadian nonprofit that developed the guidelines in and updated them last year. They recommend continuously monitoring patients — especially their hearts. The clinic says it gets the ibogaine from a lab it trusts in Africa. Right before he gives Dextraze the medication, Castillo hooks him up to a heart monitor and puts in an IV.

He checks Dextraze's blood pressure and temperature. Then he gives him a capsule containing a small "test dose" to make sure Dextraze doesn't have an adverse reaction. After about an hour, he administers a full dose based on Dextraze's weight and drug history. The treatment is partly spiritual, Castillo says, so he and the nurses speak softly, dim the lights, and put on soft flute music.

Smith-Ahearn burns sage in the treatment rooms, he says, for cleansing. Dextraze lies on a double bed, hooked up to the medical monitors with a sleeping mask over his eyes. Normally, in withdrawal, I wouldn't be this relaxed. For about the next 10 hours Dextraze lies in the darkened room, mostly quiet.

The medical staffers stay with him most of the night. The next morning Dextraze describes sometimes feeling as if his body was vibrating.

He also says he saw visions, like someone was showing him photos of the negative things he has done. But once I said, 'OK, I did those things,' it got better. And Dextraze says for the first time in three years, he doesn't have any withdrawal symptoms. It's not clear exactly how ibogaine eliminates withdrawal, but most studies describe it as affecting the brain's receptors in a way that resets them back to their pre-addictive state. Alan Davis, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University, has been a leader in studying psychedelic treatments.

One of Davis' research papers surveyed 88 ibogaine patients, and 80 percent reported fewer or less intense withdrawal symptoms.

I think there are a lot of unknowns about why it works for some people. Davis' research also found that many of those who reported success from ibogaine attributed it in large part to the psychedelic experience. Essentially, they said they benefited as much from the psychedelic trip as they did from the removal of the physical withdrawal symptoms. Davis is studying this in other psychedelics, too — namely the substance 5 MEO-DMT, which is said to cause an intense mystical experience.

Dextraze's psychedelic experience under ibogaine was considered somewhat minimal. Smith-Ahearn puts a sand-like substance into a small glass pipe and lights it. Dextraze inhales from the glass pipe, holds it in for a few seconds, and lays back on a bed in the treatment room.

Almost immediately, he starts intensely tripping. He's smiling and yells out while staring at the ceiling, addressing people or things unseen: "Yeah dude I knew it, man. I don't have to hang onto anything anymore. I don't ever want to come back from this.

Please don't ever go away. After about 20 minutes Dextraze becomes coherent again. When he's able to describe the experience, he calls it one of the most positive, intense things he's ever been through. It's like I understand the world, and I know now that I will never be a slave to drugs again. Psychedelics are increasingly being used and tested for a variety of disorders such as PTSD and depression.

Another addiction clinic in Mexico, the Baja Ibogaine Center, offers the anesthetic ketamine to patients struggling with depression. The stigma with opening methadone treatment clinics is limiting. Adding ibogaine would be a huge leg up for some. We have naltrexone, which is an abstinence-based therapy that is given after completion of opioid detoxification. We have had methadone, which is an old drug that has been in use for many decades. For some people, ibogaine may be a nonaddictive alternative to a lifetime of liquid handcuffs.

The risks of taking ibogaine clearly do not outweigh the potential and unproven benefits. Mash argued that clinical research is precisely what is needed to determine the risks and benefits of ibogaine. Pardo and Richards report no relevant financial disclosures. Volkow is NIDA director. Blanco C, Volkow ND. Brown TK. Curr Drug Abuse Rev. Opioid overdose. Accessed Oct. Corkery JM. Prog Brain Res. Drug Enforcement Administration. Drug scheduling. Mash DC, et al. Viome specializes in gut health testing kits — but do they actually work?

Find out everything you need to know and more. Denatured alcohol is ethyl alcohol with substances added to make it unfit for human consumption. Here's how it's different from I isopropyl alcohol. Learn why this happens, as well as other causes of white patches on your tongue. Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect. Medically reviewed by Timothy J. Legg, Ph. Keep reading to learn more about the use of ibogaine treatment for addiction. What does the research say? What are the risks?

Additional treatment options for addiction. Read this next. How to Recognize and Treat Opioid Addiction. How to Recognize and Treat Tramadol Addiction.

Illicit Drug Addiction. Medically reviewed by Kevin Martinez, M. Medically reviewed by Deborah Weatherspoon, Ph.