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Want Your Fairy Tale Ending, Don’t Start With Amanita Muscaria.
Most of the symptoms won’t get you high.
This is the pretty mushroom. The one frequently seen in fairy tale books. It can be yellow, orange, or red and is commonly called the fly-agaric mushroom.
While this mushroom contains muscimol, a psychoactive agent, the prodrug to muscimol is ibotenic acid, a neurotoxin. Fatalities are rare but have happened with very large ingestions, people with other existing medical problems, or ingesting them with other substances.
Spring and summer mushrooms may contain up to 10 times more ibotenic acid and muscimol than those picked in the autumn.
Toxic Dose
The toxicity is variable.
Location, season, and the environment in which the mushroom is grown determine its toxicity. Other factors include the part of the mushroom ingested and whether it’s fresh or dry.
Ingestions of 15 to 24 Amanita muscaria caps has caused death.
Pharmacokinetics
The onset of symptoms begins 15 minutes to 2 hours after ingestion.
Peak effects occur in 2 to 5 hours, and recovery usually occurs in 4 to 12 hours. Large ingestions can take up to 24 hours.
