DOSE:

0.5 - 1.75 g

oral

Mushrooms

(dried)

BODY WEIGHT:

125 lb

As a responsible drug user, I like to do as much research as possible before trying a new substance - to make sure its safe for my body, to make sure I'll enjoy the high, etc. I'm writing this, because I wish I saw this before I did shrooms.

Now what happened to me is an extremely rare side effect - one that I had to search through the depths of the internet to find - 'dislocated jaw' and 'shrooms' produced only a handful of hits, deep in forums such as shroomery.

Long story short, as the title suggests, I dislocated my jaw on shrooms. Correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but here's the long story that unfolds over approximately 3 weeks time:

During the end of September I was sick with a bad cold, and my ears got clogged. I tried to 'pop' my ears by (DON'T DO THIS) opening my mouth all the way wide and pushing my jaw forward to attempt to open the Eustachian tubes (thus popping the ear). I did not succeed, but my muscles surrounding my jaw were sore and overstretched. A week goes by, I get better, it's a gorgeous day out, so I decide to do shrooms for the first time with my friend at a local park. I want to say I did .5g of shrooms, but it was so long ago so I don't remember well.

I had a nice experience, nauseating for the first 30 mins or so after it kicking in and then it was just nice. I don't know how to describe it - colors more vivid, my depth perception fucked (I thought I could grab planes out of the sky), overall felt good. Like a body high from weed, plus weird psychedelic things like trying to grab planes out of the sky. My recommendation if one decides to do shrooms - do them outside, on a very nice day, earlier in the day - go have like a picnic but without much food. I'll be starving later and whatever I eat, it will be the best thing I ever ate once my appetite comes back.

But here comes the trouble: the next day my jaw was killing me, like I had lockjaw. I didn't think much of it, I assumed it was from trying to pop my ears, not from doing shrooms. Here's when the problems really start - a week later (so two weekends in a row) I decided to do shrooms again. This time with a different friend who peer pressured me into having way more than I wanted to (being my second time, I still wanted to low dose). Not that half of an eighth is a large dose (hardly!), but it was large enough to be unpleasant for me.

The nausea was of course worse, but once that passed - the visuals were weird. I was inside with a somewhat good friend, and a friend who was more of an acquaintance. First mistake. Only do shrooms with people you feel close to, or you won't feel right. Second mistake, it was nighttime, and it was cold out, so we hung out indoors. The claustrophobia was insane. I hated my friend's yellow walls so much. So fucking much. I still hate them haha. All of the colors were garish, pukey, and EVERYTHING. WAS. MOVING. I repeat, everything. Was. Moving. That's a bit unsettling, but kind of cool, and kind of the point of psychedelics to some extent. My friend had a painting of a landscape on the wall, and the tall grass was blowing in the wind in the painting. Also, I was wearing patterned underwear, and I could see through (my not see-through) underwear. Everything was pulsating, breathing it seemed. My underwear was breathing. Don't ask. Also - EVERYTHING WAS 3D. You know when you see an old school 3d movie and the edges of things are cyan/red? Well I had something like that going on with my vision. Or the cover for the movie called 'Enter The Void', but a little less extreme. Again, hard to explain.

But whatever about what I saw, because what I felt was the absolute worst. My jaw went out of alignment. MY JAW DISLOCATED. My face was crooked. My jaw was crooked. This wasn't my imagination - the friends I tripped with have depression and take anti-depressants so they barely got a high (hence why I got too much of a high - we combined all of our shrooms into a fruit smoothie and then split the smoothie into 3) and they confirmed that there was indeed something wrong with my jaw. My bite was fucked, when I tried to eat I didn't do so well. And the pain was ridiculous. I could feel my TMJ and notice that something was not right in the joint. After the trip ended and I was in driving condition again, I went home, and went with my mother to the ER. Long story short, the muscles surrounding the joint spasmed out, possibly because of the shrooms, and that's why my joint went out and my mouth went crooked. Since I wasn't sure if shrooms would react with whatever the hospital was gonna give me, I let the doctor know what I did. Needless to say, from that point on my treatment was different for sure, they treated me like a drug addict. No painkillers, just IV tramadol. Generally, tramadol takes people out in the dose they gave me - I was still up and screaming/crying/weeping/rocking back and forth/sobbing/hysterically crying.... Yeah, I was in pain AND I was pissed. Since that experience I haven't told any of the doctors I've gone to since about what brought on my jaw being fucked - I just tell them I went out and got really drunk one night.

And that leads me to the next point. My jaw still isn't right, and likely never will be. It popped out on Christmas, and it popped out about a month ago. It's very very painful, and unfortunately these days doctors don't really prescribe painkillers too much, even when they are medically necessary. Doubly so if you're a punk-looking female in her mid twenties like myself, living in an area with a prescription opiate and heroin problem. Also, the cost of going to doctors because of my jaw is very very expensive - and I have insurance. I would say that by now I've spent roughly $600-700 on treating this damn thing. I'm now at a point where I need a splint made up for me + physical therapy, the splint alone is easily $250 and I have no idea if my insurance covers it. If that doesn't work, I'll need trigger point botox injections near my temples to paralyze the muscles. And if that doesn't work, I'll need jaw surgery. This is no joke, this is very serious.

Nearly everyday my jaw hurts. And when you hurt your jaw, you end up hurting other parts of your body like your neck, upper back, shoulders. They're all connected. And the never ending headaches/migraines. And every time my jaw hurts, I think about how all of this could of been avoided had I not done shrooms. Every time I have to pop an opiate painkiller, I think of the risk I'm putting myself at for gaining an opiate addiction. I really, really wish I could go back in time and un-fuck my jaw up.

So yeah - my experience was rare, but I want it to be known. And please, don't do shrooms if you've ever had jaw problems, its just not worth it. Really. I'm very pro-recreational drug use, I think its fun and mind opening. However, sometimes the damage done on your body IS NOT WORTH IT. The pain isn't worth it! I swear!

I'm not saying the shrooms definitely caused my jaw dislocation - obviously over stretching it to pop my ears had to be a major cause - but I do believe they were a significant cause. My theory is the over stretching weakened the muscles and made them susceptible to problems, I ignored the first warning sign after the first trip (lockjaw), and still did more shrooms a week later. Who knows, maybe if I waited a few months to do it a second time nothing bad would of happened.

Exp Year: 2013	ExpID: 103220
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 24
Published: Dec 20, 2022	Views: 315
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Mushrooms (39) : Post Trip Problems (8), General (1), Small Group (2-9) (17)