Ketamine infusion therapy

[dynodavie]

Ok so i detoxed off of oxycodone in February of this year and so far have managed to stay free of the oxy for a little over 2 months now, I have been using pregabalin @ 400 mg twice a week but always making sure to get at least 72 to 96 hours from last dose to help deal with paws from oxy and planning a cutback to one day a week pregabalin then eventually off the pregabalin as well, only problem is I'm still dealing with a lot of depression and anxiety and also spells of saying f**k it and get back on the oxy but have managed to stay off the oxy so far. Does anyone here have any first hand experience with using a clinical Ketamine infusion regimen for help with long term sobriety and depression and anxiety that comes along with it ?
If so did it help ?...willing to try anything to help not relapse on the opioids, I've even been hitting meetings when possible but just feeling like i need a little more help, thanks for your time...

 

[Azed]

As I am sure you are aware, pregabalin is used off-label for anxiety. So that it probably helping you out a little with the anxiety/depression. I am not sure of your relationship with your doc, but if you have a good one then you should be able to discuss your difficulties with cravings. It can definitely be a struggle to get off oxycodone and stay off of it. Talk to your doc about how you are feeling say how you have been doing. I'm not sure how you feel about anti-depressants, but they may be a good option. Do you have prescription insurance? You may be able to get Spravato, which is intra-nasal ketamine. It looks like ketamine infusions aren't covered by insurance so you would be paying a boatload of cash every few weeks. I have heard good things about the ketamine infusion therapy and the literature points to reductions in anxiety, depression, and suicidal idealization.

Best wishes

 

[AnnEOakley]

I started ketamine nasal spray treatments in May for depression. I’ve been using oxycodone for depression relief for more than 5 years. When the ketamine works, I have no cravings for oxy or alcohol. Stunning lack of cravings. I do experience bouts of anxiety and agitation and my Xanax use has increased because of that. The problem is— the ketamine, so far, only works for 3 days then I’m desperately depressed again and pounding anything that could help. In other words, oxy is back forefront in the mind. If the treatments work to eventually last longer than 3 days, I can imagine not using oxy. But that is just a hypothetical fingers crossed wish. The only thing that takes the edge off oxy withdrawal for me is gabapentin. Using gabapentin, I stayed off oxy for several months. But… anxiety and depression… unless I can solve those issues, cravings will always be there. I have hope for ketamine but … not a lot of hope just yet. More a lot of fear that it’s just another addictive monkey in the arsenal I haul around on my back.

 

[Las Veghost grower]

So are you dynodavie from MM ?

 

[hotgirls.jpg.exe]

I get regular ketamine infusions for chronic pain and I was really surprised at how efficacious it was for depression and especially anxiety as I have a years long history of crippling agoraphobia that has left me totally housebound at points. The protocol for chronic pain is different though, at least here in Australia - I get hooked up to a continuous infusion for 7-10 days at ~22mg/hr (depending on my weigh at the time, I am very thin, and how I'm handling it mentally). I know this isn't 100% an answer to your question but thought I would share my experience.

 

[plumbus-nine]

Aren't these ketamine infusions very expensive, as in 1000$ per week? That's ridiculous. How should the people in need afford them?

Yeah, the afterglow of dissociatives (which is what I suspect to be relevant for the pain and depression killing effects) tended to last 2-3 days wheb I still got. Overused and killed the beneficial effects unfortunately but it was amazing before. The only time I wasn't just free from depression but felt absolutely awesome for no real reason, not in a manic way - actually better than that. Life got meaning for the first time ever with DXM.

Oh that means, for the folks not being able to afford ketamine infusions, you could try DXM in low doses like 150mg, if you're lucky you get the afterglow after the acute effects have faded.

 

[G_Chem]

I get regular ketamine infusions for chronic pain and I was really surprised at how efficacious it was for depression and especially anxiety as I have a years long history of crippling agoraphobia that has left me totally housebound at points. The protocol for chronic pain is different though, at least here in Australia - I get hooked up to a continuous infusion for 7-10 days at ~22mg/hr (depending on my weigh at the time, I am very thin, and how I'm handling it mentally). I know this isn't 100% an answer to your question but thought I would share my experience.

I’d like to know more. How often do you do these 7-10 day regimens? Does the pain killing effect last past the infusion? Are you literally hooked up the whole time?

-GC

 

[hotgirls.jpg.exe]

I’d like to know more. How often do you do these 7-10 day regimens? Does the pain killing effect last past the infusion? Are you literally hooked up the whole time?

-GC

Once every 6-12 months. It reduces the central sensitisation I have from chronic pain musculoskeletal pain (I have hypermobility and arthritis and it's caused a lot of damage to my body) and spinal cord damage from NMO. So it doesn't totally kill the pain but it turns the volume down on it. It also rapidly drops my opioid tolerance and these two effects combined are what allows me to cut my oxycontin dose so quickly with pretty much zero withdrawal effects except for having the shits for a day or so lol. Yes I am hooked up the whole time, 24/7, it's a good opportunity to watch trippy tv/movies and listen to hours of music every day cuz it's not really safe to be walking around too much. It's not a k hole dose but it definitely gets you quite altered, like doing a 50mg bump on the hour every hour for a week straight. I'm charted for regular valium while I'm hooked up cuz it does get to be a bit of a headfuck after a while and it can be very difficult to sleep at the higher doses.

The last time I had it done was in February of this year and unfortunately I herniated a disc in my thoracic spine while I was in there (gotta love that defective collagen) which was then compressing the nerve roots so that interrupted the painkilling effect - I was in AGONY so my central nervous system simply didn't get the opportunity to turn the volume of the chronic pain down when the acute pain was overriding everything, if that makes sense. I'll probably be going in in October and I'm hopeful to get a better effect this time. But regardless of the direct effect on the pain stuff it does WONDERS for my mental health and that has a downstream effect on pain.

 

[plumbus-nine]

Is it possible that ketamine works against pain by sensitizing opioid receptors to endogenous opioids like endorphin and enkephalin? I wondered for long time whether dissociatives are indirect opioids by either sensitizing or release of opioid peptides. And at least do they restore/reverse tolerance to exogenous opioids.

 

[VerbalTruist]

Ok so i detoxed off of oxycodone in February of this year and so far have managed to stay free of the oxy for a little over 2 months now, I have been using pregabalin @ 400 mg twice a week but always making sure to get at least 72 to 96 hours from last dose to help deal with paws from oxy and planning a cutback to one day a week pregabalin then eventually off the pregabalin as well, only problem is I'm still dealing with a lot of depression and anxiety and also spells of saying f**k it and get back on the oxy but have managed to stay off the oxy so far. Does anyone here have any first hand experience with using a clinical Ketamine infusion regimen for help with long term sobriety and depression and anxiety that comes along with it ?
If so did it help ?...willing to try anything to help not relapse on the opioids, I've even been hitting meetings when possible but just feeling like i need a little more help, thanks for your time...

Ketamine therapy was helpful for my opioid cravings, but I would suggest maintenance if you feel like you are truly struggling to stay sober. Ketamine therapy is amazing for depression though.

 

[VerbalTruist]

I called a clinic and they quoted me $3000 for a series of infusions and they said they do a series and your receptors regrow or some shit? It wasnt just the ketamine itself for the pain it was what the ketamine infusion induced in your brain that was the important part?
i dont really understand
and I kind of sank into a depressive shock and tuned out after I heard the price

How many sessions does that include?

 

[cdin]

I called a clinic and they quoted me $3000 for a series of infusions and they said they do a series and your receptors regrow or some shit? It wasnt just the ketamine itself for the pain it was what the ketamine infusion induced in your brain that was the important part?
i dont really understand
and I kind of sank into a depressive shock and tuned out after I heard the price

I think that your clinic, and most K clinics play up the viability of ketamine as a treatment to charge people these outrageous prices. Ketamine is a great reliever of symptoms, and with targeted psychotherapy can be a catalyst for change, but ime it definitely does not CURE anything. I have been using K IV to the specs of the PTSD studies for years and while i have copped a crazy ketamine habit, i still suffer from ptsd, anxiety, depression etc. --- IMO it's roll is to break someone out of a long term depressive crisis, but the help it gives is, like ibogaine, a process interrupter - it will give you peace of mind to get out of bed and start up an actual treatment course. that is my feeling anyhow.

I've seen the small studied examples of nueronal growth etc, but i remain skeptical as to how much of this translates into real world long term help.

 

[plumbus-nine]

I called a clinic and they quoted me $3000 for a series of infusions and they said they do a series and your receptors regrow or some shit? It wasnt just the ketamine itself for the pain it was what the ketamine infusion induced in your brain that was the important part?

I think it's not fully known yet what ketamine does really. During depression there's impaired neurogenesis and antidepressants restore that but it isn't as easy as regrowing receptors as this happens naturally all the time , receptors are recycled, destroyed and regrown as anything in biology. Sorry, I can't explain it better for now.

Wonder if ketamine is special (possibly, they say a specific metabolite is responsible for the beneficial effects, at least against depression but I'm not sure if it is possible to decouple the beneficial effects from the dissociation) and whether infusions are necessary (I think not). In the end one could acquire shitloads of ket vials for the price of one infusion.

As said, I got robust antidepressant effects even from DXM (which is proposed as a fast acting antidepressant in some papers though but they are pretty general, listing similarities with ketamine and SSRIs) but it was hard to find the sweet spot, sometimes the same dosage which once causes a trip did little the other time. So I don't feel comfortable recommending DXM unless you'd done it before. But I see no reason why not to prepare a ketamine nasal spray and titrating it a bit.

Anybody knows what dosages these clinics use? In my old country they approved a nasal spray whose name I forgot but they start with something like 40mg and titrate up to 72 if necessary.

 

[cdin]

I think it's not fully known yet what ketamine does really. During depression there's impaired neurogenesis and antidepressants restore that but it isn't as easy as regrowing receptors as this happens naturally all the time , receptors are recycled, destroyed and regrown as anything in biology. Sorry, I can't explain it better for now.

Wonder if ketamine is special (possibly, they say a specific metabolite is responsible for the beneficial effects, at least against depression but I'm not sure if it is possible to decouple the beneficial effects from the dissociation) and whether infusions are necessary (I think not). In the end one could acquire shitloads of ket vials for the price of one infusion.

As said, I got robust antidepressant effects even from DXM (which is proposed as a fast acting antidepressant in some papers though but they are pretty general, listing similarities with ketamine and SSRIs) but it was hard to find the sweet spot, sometimes the same dosage which once causes a trip did little the other time. So I don't feel comfortable recommending DXM unless you'd done it before. But I see no reason why not to prepare a ketamine nasal spray and titrating it a bit.

Anybody knows what dosages these clinics use? In my old country they approved a nasal spray whose name I forgot but they start with something like 40mg and titrate up to 72 if necessary.

it's purely anecdotal, but i have recreated the situations used in ket infusion therapy treatment from whitepapers in my own home - the only difference is no psychotherapist and the IV dose is administered all at once, otherwise same relaxed position, relaxing videos and environment on a projector etc ---- and after many years of this i still suffer from clinical PTSD and depression. I go back to k again and again because of the symptom relief, but it does not "cure" me. not for more than 72hrs anyhow. I strongly suspect that the lack of psychotherapeutic process and a good provider is the missing ingredient, hence my assertion that it is a catalyzing agent as opposed to a cure in and of itself.

 

[cdin]

I agree about the playing up its benefits for charge more

I know one person who did ibogaine and he said it took away all his cravings and emotional damage he felt “like a child” but after 5yrs he relapsed


DXM like robotripping? Or is that something else? what is DXM?

I wish someone would do that for me

i will second your friends experience with ibogaine. and yes, it is an "interrupter" as well. it will stop an addiction process, but if you continue to make negative choices that won't matter. and yes, post ibo it was like i was a baby. I also slipped back into negative habits afterwards. All things trend towards - there are many things that will help you along your way, but none of it is a substitute for good mental health care, and positive life choices about your environment and how you manage yourself. IMO the most any exogenous substance is going to do, is like ket or iboga - give you a window to start making those choices. IMO relying on exogenous compounds for a "cure" to what ails you is a recipe for disaster, after searching High and low through the pharmocopeia that is the position i have come to.

 

[plumbus-nine]

DXM like robotripping? Or is that something else? what is DXM?

Yeah, that DXM. I got it recommended by an online friend when I was 17 and should become the first real drug I did besides alcohol. I eventually found a sweet spot somewhere between 75 and 150mg, where it induced a mild, empathogenic trip for a few hours and a long afterglow which slowly faded over 2-3 days or even 4. I never felt and should never feel as good as during these days. I thought I finally found the answer to my suffering, and while this didn't work out because I eventually became addicted to the dissociative experience so did it work for surprisingly long (many months). I didn't stop because of tolerance but other side effects (hypomania) which led to a DUI incident where I lost my license and became obsessed with getting it back (thus the need to live abstinent).

An interesting point is that as long as I only used DXM as an antidepressant and to enrich my life but engaged in social interaction, exercise etc it continued working and my addiction spiral began when I, years later, tried to use dissociatives like deschloroketamine as an escape.

But of course DXM is a 'dirty' (promiscuous) drug to which people can react very differently yet I feel that low DXM dosages are underrated. Most people want a solid experience and jump right for at least the second plateau (300+mg). In that DXM FAQ by W. White the 'first plateau' is well described as being MDMA-esque but some people seem to get tolerance more fast than others. I think if it's possible to stretch the dosing to once or twice a week then you might have a year(?) or even more time before tolerance will want its tribute, thus quite some time to change stuff in life.

 

[plumbus-nine]

I drank a bottle of DayQuil looking for that dissociative robotrip feeling this past year and didn’t get it
the ingredients seemed like they should have given that effect but maybe more then one bottle?
i loved robo tripping b4 I got real drugs in my life lol

I don't know the amount a DayQuil contains, but most have somewhat around 300mg per pack which would have given me 2-3 dosages of 100-150mg. I wonder if not everybody gets what they labelled 'plateau 1' or if it is reverse tolerance happening and one needs to start higher and then taper down to find the sweet spot. But I had atypical reactions to the robo, as I got full blown panic attacks when dosing over 500mg for example. I guess much is still not really known despite DXM being on the market for 60 years now.

DXM is extensively metabolized, afaik it is even used to test for your CYP2D6 enzyme by measuring the ratio of DXM to the metabolite DXO. Poor metabolizers won't get much DXO and thus no dissociation while rapid metabolizers will end up with little DXM.

They use DXM together with a 2D6 inhibitor to increase exposure to DXM in a drug approved for pseudobulbar syndrome (easy and probably volatile affect).
Oh, what I forgot to mention. During all the trips I've been either on venlafaxine which is a quite potent 2D6 inhibitor, or bupropion which inhibits 3A4 (if I'm correct now). I only got the MDMA like effects in combination with an antidepressant (what makes your serotonin levels to rise dangerously) and I always forgot about this.

But yeah, good question somehow. Did I just love it because it was the first drug? But these low dosage trips and specially the afterglow felt so great and so naturally, no other substance should give me such profound happiness with such low costs (hangover, rebound, tolerance and addiction) as DXM did. I was using it for years on and off until recently it stopped working and feels just psychotic for me now. But loved it even after I got to know MXE.

 

[hotgirls.jpg.exe]

Ketamine literally disconnects your spinal cord sensations from your brain/the rest of your body, that's how it downregulates central sensitisation, but it needs a continuous infusion for that to happen. And yes it downregulates opioid receptors so decreases your tolerance in a long term fashion - the first infusion i had i went from 80mg oxycontin a day down to 20. I'm on 30 atm (15 twice a day) but i'm hoping to get down to 5 twice a day with the next infusion and try using cannabis for pain instead. Unfortunately I'm always going to need opioids due to my various health issues (neuromyelitis optica, ehlers danlos, arthritis) as I'm anaphylactic to NSAIDs but I'm extremely lucky to have pain doctors who understand that given the *gestures at general situation regarding opioid prescribing*

 

[dynodavie]

So are you dynodavie from MM ?

no, not familiar with mm, may i ask what it is

 

[Las Veghost grower]

no, not familiar with mm, may i ask what it is

Only one of baddest assed bands around