The Magic in Truffles
Catherine's Magic Truffle Microdosing Journey for PMDD
TW: Before we get into Catherine’s story, this article references suicidal ideation. Please proceed with caution if you are having thoughts of self-harm or wish to avoid this type of content. BIG hugs.
Please also see our MICRODOSING HARM REDUCTION GUIDE for female biology.
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Catherine didn’t realize how cyclical her mood swings were until friends and family started noticing and commenting about her ups and downs. Suffering from intermittent mood swings since 2017, it wasn’t until 2019 when Catherine was formally diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD. Discussing it openly with her doctor, Catherine shared her PMDD symptoms which ranged from general impatience to suicidality in the one to two week window before menstruation, also known as the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle.
Luckily her doctor was well informed about PMDD and rather than dismissing the experience, she was immediately concerned about the severity of symptoms - especially the suicidality. While Catherine didn’t believe she would ever act on her suicidal thoughts, she knew the situation required immediate treatment.
Firstline treatments for PMDD include birth control and / or SSRIs. Catherine’s doctor offered birth control at first but Catherine was reluctant because of negative experiences in her 20s. Next up was an SSRI, but Catherine felt uneasy because of how severe her symptoms were.
“I didn’t want to aggravate anything, I was quite scared of it getting worse, because it was already really bad.”
This is an important point, because SSRIs have risks and like myself, Catherine was hesitant to try them due to the risk of worsening depression and suicidality. Intuition is an important component of selecting appropriate treatment options and she was diligent about selecting options that were right for her. Leaving the doctor’s office without treatment, Catherine’s doctor expressed concern about the potential severity of untreated PMDD.
PMDD is a severe condition that is sometimes overlooked in healthcare systems leaving women in vulnerable mental states to fend for themselves, oftentimes desperate to find something that works. In Catherine’s case, her doctor was supportive and informed, and after a few months of attempting to manage PMDD without treatment, Catherine returned to her doctor with worsening symptoms. After her initial reluctance, she decided to try Prozac due to a lack of other options.
“I never really wanted to be on them. It was three weeks of just feeling really awful, anxious, and horrible I couldn’t eat or sleep and I felt really shaky so I stopped taking them. Probably in retrospect I didn’t give them enough time, but I didn’t really want to be on them in the first place. And I’m not against them, I know that they can save lives, but it just wasn’t for me. I always felt like there was some kind of root cause that I wanted to get to the bottom of and it was frustrating that I couldn’t find a medical professional that was interested in that.”
By this point, Catherine’s cycle had become irregular and for someone with PMDD, irregular cycles can be a complete nightmare. The condition often requires rearranging tasks around phases of the menstrual cycle to avoid stress while symptoms may be present. If the cycle is irregular, there’s no way to plan or prepare ahead of time. After seeking out naturopathic practitioners and doing her own research, Catherine came across seed cycling and decided to try it to help regulate and stabilize her cycle.
Seed cycling is a growing trend in naturopathic medicine aimed at balancing hormones throughout the cycle. The goal is to balance estrogen in the first half of the cycle and progesterone in the second half by consuming different types of seeds believed to support the reproductive system.
“It started to really help me, but I was still feeling pretty bad. I had a long list of things I was trying out for PMDD and when I got down to the bottom of the list that’s when I was ready to try microdosing. I was more comfortable with that than SSRIs. I vape cannabis when my symptoms are really bad and it really, really helps me. I was just more comfortable with something a bit more natural.”
Truffles vs. Mushrooms
At first, Catherine looked into growing psilocybin mushrooms but didn’t trust in her abilities because of previous experiences with houseplants. I think many of us can relate. Mushroom growing can be a challenge at first, but thankfully Catherine was able to skip this step because in her research, she found that psilocybin truffles were legal where she lives.
Both psilocybin truffles and psilocybin mushrooms contain psilocin, the psychoactive ingredient being studied for a variety of mental health ailments. Psilocybin mushrooms are the fruiting body of the fungi that grow above the ground, whereas truffles refer to the sclerotia, or dense mass of mycelium that grows underground. Legality differs based on location and in some places, truffles can be purchased legally. For more information on microdosing truffles, check out this article.
“I’ve always been really worried with PMDD, with the bad episodes, like the more I go through it the worse it gets. One of the things I’ve noticed since microdosing, the only way I can describe it is before it was like my brain was on fire, especially when I’m going through a PMDD episode - everything’s on fire. And it feels like someone took my brain and put it in a really nice, cool, soothing bowl of water, it feels like something is fixing me, but in a really subtle way. It feels almost like after sun cream for a sunburn - like aloe vera for my brain.”
Catherine has been microdosing using the Fadiman protocol - one day on, two days off- during the entire month for four months. For some, microdosing for the entire cycle is helpful to prevent or lesson the severity of symptoms in the luteal phase. For me personally, I found that microdosing during the entire month was more effective because it helped me manage stress and reduced the severity of symptoms during luteal.
“I’ve been doing seed cycling and microdosing religiously and I feel like they compliment each other nicely, because the seed cycling seems to help with the physical symptoms and the microdosing helps with the mental symptoms. I haven’t had a bad month since December and it’s almost July. It’s been like night and day for me, it really has. I had a minor wobble last month, just a little weepy and some anger, but nothing like a full PMDD episode. I don’t want to say it yet because who knows, but it feels like PMDD could be in my past. The bottom of my list was a hysterectomy because I’d rather do that than just die. I never got that far down the list thankfully, but I would have done it because of how desperate I was, because I didn’t want to lose my life - I love living. I had to remind myself of that at times, when I was in the depths of PMDD, I had to remember that my body was playing tricks on me.”
For more case studies like this on microdosing for PMDD, check out Hailey’s Microdosing Journey and Jess’s Really Good Day. BIG shout out to Catherine for sharing her story with us. Have a story you’d like to share? Send an email to tina@womaninthebasement.com, I’d love to hear from you! I’m falling in love with meeting like-minded people and learning from this community. HUGS