I feel bad that there were questions here that I never answered because I ignored this thread for a long time. I've been quite physically ill the past 4-5 years so other things took priority. Also this thread came up in another ketamine related thread so I thought I would bump this one.
There's probably way more clinical data out there now than I had when I wrote the OP to this thread, so don't take my methods as the gospel. That said, I have been seeing some methods being used in the medical community that, for myself personally, would be detrimental. They still don't seem to understand that chronic, sub-threshold doses are the key to neural restoration. Most doctors are giving ketamine once weekly, through IV, at doses that are not conducive to brain healing in my opinion. All of the studies, including the data used in the Esketamine trial, talked about "serious side effects" in some people. These side effects are due to the dose being too high! These patients will mostly only get a temporary effect from the treatment and after a period of time (days, weeks) their symptoms will return. Also, ketamine therapy through official channels, although guaranteed to be pure, is extremely cost prohibitive. I am seeing doctors charge thousands of dollars for a single treatment session. Esketamine, the Rx nasal spray just approved by the FDA, is almost $5000 USD for a 1 month supply. Even though they are using the (S) enantiomer of ketamine in this version, which is more costly to produce, the price is still unjustified in my view. Considering that people with treatment resistant depression and PTSD are desperate for a novel intervention, this is nothing short of a cash grab.
Anyway, I will answer the above posts now.
This is a great text foreigner, it should be published in a medical magazine! ;-)
I sure hope not! Though, I do know for a fact that some researchers have been using my small anecdotal report to build their own trials. Some of them have contacted me by PM.
Do you think it's really important to do the regimen with the schedule of administering you described (every hour for the first three days, then every two hours and so on) or could I also do it, let's say three times a day (with my threshold dose of 12mg) and therefor over a longer period of time (let's say 3 weeks).
So over the course of three weeks, I would take my dose, three times a day. That should work fine, isn't it?
In my view, which I built upon Jamshyd's (RIP) view, yes, you do need to do the recommended dosing schedule. The reason is that you want to
gently saturate the pre-frontax cortex NMDA receptors with ketamine. Too high a dose, and you'll blast them into down-regulation. Too low a dose, and they won't become saturated. To use a metaphor... you are basically gently numbing the receptors so that they respond with new growth. This new growth heals a certain kind of depression, usually trauma related. If you want to grow a garden, you have to give it just the right amount of water, not too much or too little. Same with too much or too little sunlight.
"Just the right dose" will look slightly different for each person, but it will always be below 15mg, and usually below 12mg. You have to judge this for yourself. It will feel like you might be getting high, but you don't. It's like you just drank enough beer to get slightly tipsy, but you aren't full on drunk. If you get high, you've done too much. If you feel nothing, you've done too little. The right amount will feel like you're coming up, but then it stops right at the point before you would take off. A tease, I know... but remember, this is therapy, not recreation.
First you find your sub-threshold dose. You might accidentally get high, but because this is in the beginning stage it won't matter as much. Don't TRY to get high. You have to be committed to this as a therapy. Once you find your sub-threshold dose, you do that dose every hour until the point that it doesn't feel like it's doing very much. This means the receptors are saturated. Then you decrease the schedule to every 2 hours. You hold there until it seems like it's not doing anything.
If you just start at every 3 hours, the receptors won't remain saturated and the result will not be as effective. This is my opinion.
And this is why modern medicine is failing. They only know how to come up with one treatment model, so they end up blasting everybody with the same dose, a dose that is too high. They don't know how to custom tailor the dose to each person because they would require listening to each patient's feedback. Modern medicine doesn't do individualized medicine and that's why their ketamine protocols come up short, IMO.
I mean what I understood, if you go to a real doctor for a ketamine Therapy, you get the injection, IV, only once a week, right? Or maybe once a day, but not 8 times a day or whatever.
Once a week is not enough at any dose, and usually it's the wrong dose on top of it. They get their patients high and then those NMDA receptors only down-regulate, which does not fix the depression.
On this very interesting website they say you can take it daily, weekly or only monthly:
http://howtousepsychedelics.org/ketamine/
You can take it less often once your neurology is "used" to it. I got to the point when I only had to take a single 10mg injection once a week to prevent depression. Note, if something shitty happens in your life or you're stressed out, it's not going to stop you getting depressed over that. Ketamine doesn't shield you against depression from life circumstances. It only helps heal the brain from damage caused by past trauma.
Still take Ketamine at nights when I'm going through a bad patch. I've found just a tiny tiny bump, enough to feel floaty, taken every night for maybe a week tends to get me through those super rough patches.
I've kind of stopped taking sarcosine, but NAC is still useful for my mood. I found combining Sarcosine+NAC+modifinal tipped me into mania, which is kind of fun, but was a dangerous reference point to have when hitting the deep troughs. For the same reason that same combination was not compatible with marijuana. Every now and then I hit a sativa as a mood lifter -- just got to be careful not to stray into mania.
You may want to try magnesium (bisglycinate, sulfate, malate, threonate -- avoid carbonate and oxide) as it is a voltage gate regulator of the NMDA receptors, which means it compliments ketamine quite nicely.
His report was the most incredible I have ever read in regards to treatment using ketamine.
I only had a lot of questions about the first week of use.
Do you talk about doses of 10-12mg every hour? How much ketamine did you get every day?
I was very confused because at some point in the story you talk about using doses of only 10mg.
My first attempt was with a dose of 30mg and it was very strong and made me very ill but in any way I was able to get the antidepressant benefits of this dose.
In the second week I made a dose of 10mg and it was much more tolerable.
My doses are subcutaneous.
Can you help me ?
God bless you
The first dose I took was 10mg. For me, it was too much, as my brain was a ketamine virgin. I ended up only needing 6mg per hour to achieve sub-threshold saturation. Some people may need more than this. Nobody needs more than 12mg. It's better to start with less and need more, than to start with more and need less. Either way, the beginning is a testing phase and you may accidentally take too much. That's OK, because once you find the right dose, you will stay at that dose and start healing your brain. Taking too much in the middle of the regimen (say, day 2) will sabotage the entire regimen and you'll have to start over.
30mg is way too much. Even 15mg is too much. 10mg is reasonable... though I think sub-cutaneous injection will delay delivery and this will affect your dosing schedule and the efficiency of the protocol. I would do IM instead. Jamshyd did sub-Q and he was fine though, so your mileage may vary.
