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KatManDu
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Registered: 10/26/14
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Seizures, shrooms and terror - A search for answers
#20755404 - 10/26/14 01:59 PM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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Hello Friends,
I wanted to share my experience with Magic Mushrooms and hopefully see if anyone can shed any light on what I may have experienced and best route for moving forward.
I will start with the long version and then finish up with quick notes for those who don't want the in depth story.
So I am a long term user of Cannabis and had experimented with shrooms in the past as a teenager. I'm now 32 and about 2 months ago my cannabis supplier started to offer shrooms (I guess they become very popular around Halloween). I considered myself to be a novice psychonaut at the time and figured I would give them a try considering how enjoyable they were the previous time I had used.
I bought a half ounce and took some with my friends about 6 weeks ago. Best night of my life, Everything I did felt like the best thing I had ever done. I felt very introspective and at peace with the universe. I felt a oneness with all living things. Needless to say I was ecstatic that such a wonderful drug had entered into my life.
I continued to experiment several times over the next 6 weeks. I had been working on meditation before my discovered of the shrooms and decided to try and incorporate the shrooms into my routine. It was working quite well, I felt as though I had come to many realizations about myself, the way I had been living my life, even perhaps a feeling of deeper understanding of the universe. I was excited to see where this path may bring me and what further mysteries of life were awaiting my discovery.
So everything was fine up until last night. I will do my best to attempt to describe how I felt but please bare with me as its difficult to bring to words the way I felt at the time.
I had been meditating quietly listening to music, feeling absolutely great. I had done 1 gram red cap mushrooms (cubensis I would assume) and my normal protocol was to wait about 2 hours and then ingest a bit more if I was feeling good. After the 2 hours had passed I took another 0.5 gram cap as I felt quite high and didn't want to aim for my usual dosage of around 2g. In retrospect this was likely my first mistake. I was already high as balls off the first gram and probably did not need the top up.
About a half hour later I found my self sitting in front of my computer watching this amazing video of starfish. I'll include it here below so you know how epic this was to watch.
Watching it again now it seems far less awesome than it did last night. Anyways I was watching this full screen on my 30 inch monitor when suddenly I felt a terrifying and odd sensation flow through my body. It was something I had felt before in a much milder sense. I can only describe this as a sort of "shockwave" that ran through my body, felt like an electrical impulse surging through my body and culminating in my brain accompanied by a small flash of light and mild lightheaded sensation. First I felt just one shockwave but soon I felt about 4-5 more in rapid succession. The feeling itself was not unpleasant persay but definately did not feel good. It felt almost as if I had been shocked electrically and left me with a very strange sensation throughout my body. A tingling as if the electric charge was radiating throughout my body.
Now I have never had a seizure before in my life but I can only say that somehow I just knew i was on the edge of having one. My first instinct was to immediatly turn off the video as I was concerned the visuals may be responsible for this. I was very scared that if i was not able to control and stop these "shockwaves" from taking place I would surely hit the floor, pass out, possibly have a seizure and god knows what permanent side effects such a thing could have on my brain. At the time I knew nothing about seizures and was not sure if they could result in brain damage.
This thought process took place over about 30 seconds and I immediatly took action to try and stop this from happening. I went downstairs to my living room, turned of all the lights, unlocked the front door in case i had to call 911 for help, and lay down spread eagle on my stomach (the thought was if i had a seizure and perhaps vomited, this way I'd be less likely to choke on my vomit and die due to being on my stomach!) with my cell phone in my right hand with 911 pre dialed.
So while lying down on the floor my brain felt as if it was on fire. It didn't hurt but it just felt as if i was WAY to stimulated and the only reprieve from this feeling was to try and essentially "check out" . Basically to try and think of absolutely nothing and forget I was tripping on shrooms. The moment I allowed myself to enjoy or let go, I immediately felt the shockwaves coming on again.
After about 20 mins or so I was so terrified of the impending possible seizure I decided to "let go" or stop fighting the shockwaves or whatever they were and just see what happened. I allowed myself to see amazing visuals in my head again, the second I started to enjoy the trip again I instantly felt the shockwaves. I believe it was the visuals that were triggering this, oddly enough even visuals inside my head seems strong enough to propegate this sensation. this time the shockwaves were even stronger, and accompanied with a strange aura I felt surrounding my body and attempting to take control. I felt as though a seizure was just about to take place any second!!
I must confess at this point I was alone with no sitter a foolish decision on my part indeed and it was at this point that I really started to panic. If i allowed this feeling to take over and "see what happens" I could suffer permanent injury or even death.
I realized once again I had to fight this with all I had. I once again summoned forth all my internal abilities to try and "turn off" my brain. I tried to focus on the mundane tasks of life such as chores I would have to do tomorrow or going go the gym. This seemed to work and after about another hour of what I can only describe as pure hell and terror, I felt as though the danger had passed. I crawled over to the fridge and ate some berries.
I then crawled back upstairs and got into bed I lay there and the periodically felt the shockwave/electric impulses pass through my body but at a far lower power then before. I knew I was no longer in danger of having a full blown seizure but now the reality of the situation began to hit me.
Even though I had so much gratitude and love for this drug and all it had taught me, I at the same time felt as though I had no choice but to terminate this love affair for good. I could not risk my health and well being any further. I got up and poured the remaineder of my stash down the toilet.
I'm not going to lie it was a very tough moment for me to flush away such a beautiful plant, but I just did not trust myself that in the future I may forget how scary and dangerous last night was and use again without anyone to look after me. To be honest I'm not even sure It would be a good idea to use at all even with someone looking after me at this point.
So since I woke up this morning I have been doing non stop research on seizures , shrooms and any sort of link between the two. I found a bunch of trip reports on Shroomery that matched up pretty closely with mine, although in these cases the individuals were not able to stave off the impending seizure event. I think this one matched up most closely to what I had experienced.
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/14967252
I then did some more research on seizures and it seemed the symptoms of impending seizure matched up very closely with what I felt. I am now utterly convinced I nearly had a grand mal seizure and may in fact have experienced a petite mal seizure and just not have realized it at the time. Check out this info below on seizures.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/822551_6
Doing a little bit more digging I found that psilocybin, and psilocin, are in fact known to cause seizures in high and even low doses depending on the individual. In fact from further reading I found that absolutely anyone can have a seizure if their brain reaches a certain point of over stimulation. Apparently the brain fires neurons based on electrical impulses and when these impulses get too intesnse and extreme you experience a seizure. the brain essentially hits reset you hit the floor and seize up. The convulsions are caused by contintual over firing of neurons in your brain.(odd that i experienced the sensation as an electrical shockwave and then find that the brain operates on electrical impulses, not sure what to make of that) See this Wikipedia page below to confirm this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_seizures
If you fast forward down to drug induced causes you can see psilocybin and psilocin, clearly listed as having a known link to seizure events.
I was thinking of going to see my DR but I'm sketched out to do so for 2 reasons.
1 my Dr is a super straight edge who is convinced even cannabis is an evil plant that needs to be irradicated. I could only imagine the look on his face when I tell him i consumed shrooms. I am quite confident his response would simply be, drugs are dangerous, dont do them or your risk your health.
Secondly even I thought he would be helpfull on this, there simply is very little medical research surrounding this topic as psilocybin and psilocin are illegal and testing on humans is highly taboo. So what help could he offer me even if he was inclined to do so?
This is why I have decided to reach out to you guys on this forum. I have already decided that i need to take a step back from this drug and really re evaluate whether or not the risks are worth the rewards.
I wanted to know if anyone could weigh in on my experience and offer any advice or guidance, perhaps someone has conquered similar issues to what I have gone through? I really don't want to say good bye to this drug forever but I fear as though without anymore info and any certain way to avoid this in the future, I would have no choice.
I fear at this point that any subsequent trips would just be consumed by paranoia that I may have a seizure and never be the same again. I have read that once you have one seizure your sensitivity to them could increase and then occur with higher frequency in your life. This is again not a risk I would be able to stomach.
I would also like to add one more thought to this novel. I did some homework on the internet looking up trip reports here and erowid ect to see what I was getting myself into before using. I did notice the posts where people mentioned having seizures and in many cases, a very experienced forum member would chime in with plenty of reasons why the shrooms themselves could NOT have been the cause of the event. They would come up with reasons like, oh you must have had low blood pressure, or its because you consumed alchohol, or you must have some hidden medical condition, or just plain refute that he even had a seizure at all and must have just passed out. I naively trusted these posters simply due to their large volume of posts and went ahead with my own experiment. I would note also that upon further review I did find some more responsibly posts by experienced users advising extreme caution and expressing this possible link to seizures. Unfortunately I had the bad luck of clicking on all the wrong threads I guess!
In retrospect, If i had done my research properly beforehand and realized the true nature of the risks I may have decided not indulge. I guess my point to that is I feel a bit let down by some of the more experienced users. I will not single anyone out but I feel as though these folks were mostly offering advice based on their own internal experiences and preaching as if this should apply to all. If they had done their proper research for even 10 minutes online, they would have found a very real connection between shrooms and seizures. I wish the more experiened users would try and get their facts straight before posting information that could adversely affect another's life.
I hope this thread doesnt get sidetracked by people trying to refute my above dissapointment with some long term members. Im sure you can show me 20 threads were these dangers were laid out properly, but i can fire back 20 more right at you where they were not so please lets not get into that type of a silly contest.
I would like to add a few other notes related to the event.
-I am healthy and go to the gym regularly -I have never had a seizure or anything close to it. (until yesterday) -I was properly nourished and very well hydrating during my trip -I eat plenty of fruit and did not have low blood sugar levels. -I rarely drink alcohol and have not had a drink for over a month. -I did some some MJ earlier in the evening to help kick start my buzz but stopped well before the onset of the event.
I can think of no other possible cause for the near event other then the shrooms themselves. Or possibly some sort of interaction between the cannabis and the shrooms, but the shrooms themselves CLEARLY had something to do with it.
I apologize in advance for the epic length of this post but I wanted to try and include as many facts as possible.
HERE IS THE COLES NOTES VERSION.
* tried shrooms in the past as a teen, recently found them again in my 30s
* Up until yesterday I was a huge supporter of this wonderful plant, I felt as though it had taught me a great deal about life, love and being a better person.
* I experienced a terrifying fright on my last trip (last night) and still feel a bit woozy and unlike my self.
* I would describe the event as an "electrical shockwave" that passed through my body culminating my in head and accompanied by a thumping sound and a feeling of being light headed. These shockwaves would come in spurts and I could only describe this feeling as the onset of a seizure event. Even though I had never had one I just knew i was on the verge of having one then and there.
* I give a great deal of credit to my ability to meditate and clear my mind with the fact that I was able to fight off this feeling just barely and avoid a potentially catastrophic seizure event.
* I am seeking advice and guidance as to what happened to me, if anyone else has had similar experience, and if their is ANYWAY to minimize the risks of using this drug in the future. I am not willing to risk my health for a drug but I would be quite dissapointed and saddened to say goodbye forever.
* I feel a bit let down by more senior forum members, here and elsewhere for pushing this link between seizures and shrooms "under the rug" so to speak. I believe many forum members have given advice based off their own experience and preaching as though this would and should apply to everyone the same without having done any of their own research about the possible link. they take the line of " I havnt not experienced this so therefore you could not have, or the cause was clearly something other than the shrooms"
* I take full responsibility for not having done my own research and taking these members posts at face value. I was naive and foolish to have not done more research before using such a powerful drug.
* I was also extremely foolish to have not had a sitter around to keep an eye on me, a desicion that could have ended tragically.
*** NOOBIES PLEASE DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKES AS I DID, THESE DRUGS ARE POWERFUL AND DANGEROUS. THEY CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOREVER FOR BETTER OR WORSE. PLEASE DO YOUR RESEARCH AND ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS HAVE A SITTER WITH YOU, YOU WONT REALIZE HOW CRUCIAL THIS IS UNTIL YOU REALLY NEED ONE***
That's All I got guys. I really do appreciate anything you can offer up to me in terms of guidance, advice or anything else you may find prudent to the discussion.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I spent alot of time on this and even if I get no responses I feel as though its important to have this information out there so new users can make informed decisions.
I apologize in advance if I posted this in the wrong area of the site.
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Shroomin Capote
Prog Head



Registered: 05/06/14
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Re: Seizures, shrooms and terror - A search for answers [Re: KatManDu]
#20755509 - 10/26/14 02:17 PM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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I cant access the Medscape link; it asks me to sign in. ive never heard of any evidence though to suggest psychs cause seizures. I think you may have just been on the verge of an OBE or something and had an extreme fear reaction. after all, you were tripping and often you can start to believe that some crazy shit is happening when its really not. idk if you did have a seizure, but if you feel fine now, its probably nothing to worry about.
and like you said, research on these things is minimal so there wont even be much info on the link between psychs and seizures. I don't think there is much of a link between them seeing that it is a pretty rare thing that happens
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joeystl99
ConstantExplorer



Registered: 05/15/11
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Re: Seizures, shrooms and terror - A search for answers [Re: Shroomin Capote]
#20755648 - 10/26/14 02:54 PM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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You said you had a red capped shroom? Cubensis are a golden or brownish color they shouldn't be red. I would assume it was another species but I have no experience with them. The effects you describe seem more like a 3gram not a one gram dose.
You know if you were going to have a seizure I doubt clearing your brain and thinking about not having a seizure would have stopped it. Your brain can do some cool things but spontaneously stopping a seizure by thinking about it doesn't seem likely to me. Laying down and putting some cold water on your head would have helped. I used to pass out and my brother used to have seizures and thats what we always did and do to stop the attacks from coming on. Alot of them are temperature related where spikes in your body temp mess shit up.
I think you were having something more similar to a panic attack. The uncontrollable surges of 'electricity' make you feel out of control and can contribute to your anxiety levels and cause panic attacks. The combination with shrooms left you in an altered head-space and would make it easy to over think things. I mean I thought my tongue and throat had disappeared and thought I was stuck in time in limbo along with a million other crazy things that weren't happening. Your body can make you feel weird things but that doesn't necessary mean that they are really happening.
You seemed to have done your research so I'm not trying to doubt you, but a panic attack is another avenue you could research as well.
Edited by joeystl99 (10/26/14 02:55 PM)
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endogenous
נפל מגיהינום


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Re: Seizures, shrooms and terror - A search for answers [Re: KatManDu]
#20755661 - 10/26/14 02:57 PM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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You might have a tendency to vitamin B6 and magnesium deficiency. It might also be the case that Tryptamines tend to use up magnesium. Medical researchers have used the terms "athetoid" and "choreiform" movements to describe muscular reaction to DMT and DET.
Athetoid -- "repetitive, involuntary, slow, sinuous, writhing movements Choreiform -- "rapid, jerking, involuntary movements
Also -- you described the mushroom as having a red cap. Were there also white puffs -- could this have been an Amanita?
-------------------- The Day of the Lord has come like a thief in the night. -- It is there but no one knows it.
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KatManDu
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Re: Seizures, shrooms and terror - A search for answers [Re: Shroomin Capote]
#20755662 - 10/26/14 02:58 PM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Shroomin Capote said: I cant access the Medscape link; it asks me to sign in. ive never heard of any evidence though to suggest psychs cause seizures. I think you may have just been on the verge of an OBE or something and had an extreme fear reaction. after all, you were tripping and often you can start to believe that some crazy shit is happening when its really not. idk if you did have a seizure, but if you feel fine now, its probably nothing to worry about.
and like you said, research on these things is minimal so there wont even be much info on the link between psychs and seizures. I don't think there is much of a link between them seeing that it is a pretty rare thing that happens
thanks for the reply! I don't think i was on the verge of an OBE. I've had mild OBE experiences before and they were always occuring when i was in a hyper relaxed state or just waking or going to bed. In last nights scenario I felt as though my brain was just wayy to excited and agitated for it to have been an OBE. I could be wrong and TBH I really hope so!
Unfortunately from what Ive read about seizures in general and other trip reports, my symptoms match up pretty damn good with an oncoming seizure event.
also too bad you cant access the medscape article Im not a member so I dont know why that is. If you check out the Wiki link i provided it also states a connection between shrooms and seizures. I plan to do more follow up research tonight
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KatManDu
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Re: Seizures, shrooms and terror - A search for answers [Re: joeystl99]
#20755688 - 10/26/14 03:05 PM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
joeystl99 said: You said you had a red capped shroom? Cubensis are a golden or brownish color they shouldn't be red. I would assume it was another species but I have no experience with them. The effects you describe seem more like a 3gram not a one gram dose.
You know if you were going to have a seizure I doubt clearing your brain and thinking about not having a seizure would have stopped it. Your brain can do some cool things but spontaneously stopping a seizure by thinking about it doesn't seem likely to me. Laying down and putting some cold water on your head would have helped. I used to pass out and my brother used to have seizures and thats what we always did and do to stop the attacks from coming on. Alot of them are temperature related where spikes in your body temp mess shit up.
I think you were having something more similar to a panic attack. The uncontrollable surges of 'electricity' make you feel out of control and can contribute to your anxiety levels and cause panic attacks. The combination with shrooms left you in an altered head-space and would make it easy to over think things. I mean I thought my tongue and throat had disappeared and thought I was stuck in time in limbo along with a million other crazy things that weren't happening. Your body can make you feel weird things but that doesn't necessary mean that they are really happening.
You seemed to have done your research so I'm not trying to doubt you, but a panic attack is another avenue you could research as well.
Hey Joey! thanks for weighing in. I think your quite possibly right. I cannot say for sure that I was on the verge of a seizure, I can only say how I felt and that my symptons do seem to match up with others who did go on to have the seizure. That being said panic attack could have also been possible. NOt gonna lie those waves of electricity flowing through my head were pretty panic inducing but mostly because I felt like i was on the verge of something really bad about to happen.
As for the shrooms themselves. To be fair my dealer just called them red cap shrooms, to me they were more of a brownish red with with white stems and heavy blue staining on the stem area. I know it seems like I took a much higher dose but my dealer said the caps are more powerful than the stems and out of the total 1.5G dose, mostly all of it was the CAP part rather then stem. ** I did actually weight the dose just to be safe so its not possible I just eyed it out wrong**
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KatManDu
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Re: Seizures, shrooms and terror - A search for answers [Re: endogenous]
#20755704 - 10/26/14 03:10 PM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
endogenous said: You might have a tendency to vitamin B6 and magnesium deficiency. It might also be the case that Tryptamines tend to use up magnesium. Medical researchers have used the terms "athetoid" and "choreiform" movements to describe muscular reaction to DMT and DET.
Athetoid -- "repetitive, involuntary, slow, sinuous, writhing movements Choreiform -- "rapid, jerking, involuntary movements
Also -- you described the mushroom as having a red cap. Were there also white puffs -- could this have been an Amanita?
Hey endogenous, Thanks for this reply. I work out a regular basis and therefore I supplement with magnesium as its very helpful for muscle recovery.
As for the b6 I eat plenty of chicken, beef and bananas so I doubt this could have contributed as well.
Unless of course some other factor is causing the magnesium or b6 to be totally used up, that would be totally beyond my level of understanding though.
also when you say did the mushrooms have white puffs, where exactly on the mushrooms should i look for that? I wish i hadnt flushed them all last night or I would post a pic
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psilocybeMAN
It gets so real sometimes.



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Re: Seizures, shrooms and terror - A search for answers [Re: KatManDu]
#20755707 - 10/26/14 03:11 PM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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red caps sound suspicious. how red?
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KatManDu
Stranger
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Re: Seizures, shrooms and terror - A search for answers [Re: psilocybeMAN]
#20755720 - 10/26/14 03:14 PM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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As I said above they were more like a brownish color with a tinge of red, the stems where fairly white with blue staining.
I had tripped on this same strain several times before and had no ill effects, Nothing but graet times and in fact I had dosed much higher in previous trips. The one difference this time being the majority of my dose was the caps rather then the stems (caps are supposed to be far more potent according to dealer)
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joeystl99
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Re: Seizures, shrooms and terror - A search for answers [Re: KatManDu]
#20755853 - 10/26/14 03:42 PM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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The cap versus stem potency question needs studied better. Caps being stronger is commonly spread misinformation. If only we could trust our dealers drug knowledge wouldn't the world be a better place. I had always heard the cap was the visual part and the stem was the body high but I've had strong trips and visuals from stems alone
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endogenous
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Re: Seizures, shrooms and terror - A search for answers [Re: KatManDu]
#20755882 - 10/26/14 03:49 PM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
KatManDu said: Hey endogenous, Thanks for this reply. I work out a regular basis and therefore I supplement with magnesium as its very helpful for muscle recovery.
As for the b6 I eat plenty of chicken, beef and bananas so I doubt this could have contributed as well.
Unless of course some other factor is causing the magnesium or b6 to be totally used up, that would be totally beyond my level of understanding though.
also when you say did the mushrooms have white puffs, where exactly on the mushrooms should i look for that? I wish i hadnt flushed them all last night or I would post a pic 
It does seem like some people are more susceptible to magnesium deficiency. Also, magnesium can become deficient if you eat alot of things containing calcium -- like milk products. Alot of supplements use calcium as a filler.
It doesn't sound like the mushroom was an Amanita if there was blue staining.
-------------------- The Day of the Lord has come like a thief in the night. -- It is there but no one knows it.
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KatManDu
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Re: Seizures, shrooms and terror - A search for answers [Re: endogenous]
#20756144 - 10/26/14 05:04 PM (9 years, 4 months ago) |
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Yea I dont think it was Amanita. The ones i took didnt look anything like the pic you posted. Yea definatly no white puffs on the cap that looked like that
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