Ketamine Infusions

[progresso]

Just underwent two weeks of ketamine infusions with a clinic in San Antonio, Texas and wanted to share the experience for those who might be interested. The clinic is run by an ER physician. He is former military, as are most of his employees. Ketamine came to my attention after my psychiatrist recommended ECT or TCM for my major depression which is treatment resistant. ECT is shock therapy and TCM is some kind of version of ECT using magnets. ECT works well for cases like mine, when everything else has failed, but one of its most common side effects is persistent memory loss. I cannot lose any more of my memory. So ECT was out, and TCM or whatever the magnet treatment is called is $15,000 for one month. So that was not an option either.

I have depression that has led to many hospitalizations and countless attempts with various drugs all eventually worthless. If you are in a similar situation, you might try a ketamine clinic. I would like to say who the doctor is that treated me and give the name of the clinic, but I think that might be against the forum rules. In any event, there are not too many doctors out there doing it. If you come across someone matching the description I;ve given, he;s the one.

After extensive screening and medical histories were conducted, I was approved for the program and had my dates scheduled ASAP. The next week I was in town for my first infusion. The literature I read beforehand mentioned IV doses at about 35 mg for a person my size. This doctor explained that he was going to give me a higher dose because he believes that one mechanism of action that accounts for Ketamines remarkable rapid antidepressant effect is the psychedelic experience the patient undergoes during the infusion. Then, he explained, that the drug companies are trying to develop a form of Ketamine that removes the psychedelic component, relying instead on the action increasing the activity of the neurotransmitter glutamate. He asked me if I was okay with having a higher dose and getting the benefit of both methods of action, and I agreed.

My first infusion was 88 mg over 40 minutes, and there is no way to convey the changes it started. The infusion is performed with very thoughtful staff who never leave your side. There is a flat screen TV and art and meditative videos to set the mood. My experience was perfect in virtually every respect.

The doctor met with me before and after each infusion. We talked about everything from my experiennce to the questions I had about the drug. My tolerance did go up. My second infusion was 100mg, third through fifth were 150mg and my sixth was 200mg, which was the most he had given in the clinic to date, though he said in the ER they safely use doses far greater than that with no problems. I had zero side effects and quick recovery each time.

He sent me home with ketamine lozenges, which I;m supposed to take weekly. The question really is how long the benefits of my infusions will last. The lozenges are something he is now giving out to most patients to help extend the therapeutic duration of the treatment. I haven;t tried one yet, but I will update with more information when I d.

Overall, I strongly recommend considering ketamine if you have treatment resistant depression and are facing ECT or magnet therapy which are IMO much more damaging to your brain without the benefit, but each to their own. I wanted to post my experience because I had a hard time finding information on this topic, which I think people should be aware of. ANd I can;t say enough good things about the clinic and professionals wh helped me. If I can post their names without getting banned or at least the name of the clinic please let me know. Otherwise if you want you can message me privately and I can tell you that way.

I still can't believe I was able to get this treatment in Texas, the most backward state out there. I'm very happy.

 

[Crocker]

Progresso I would love to hear an update. I recently finished a round of infusions at the same clinic, and agree that they do great work. The dosages ranged from 80 to 125 mg. At the highest dose I experienced some heavy tripping and was about 90% out of touch with reality. There's a robust antidepressant effect that seems to be quickly waning. I just started the troches.

 

[Morninggloryseed]

Facinating stuff. Keep us updated.

 

[oar9fi]

Just saw on the news a ketamine infusion therapy clinic opened up in my area as well this week. Looks a bit expensive, but I am glad to see the mainstream medical community opening up to this type of treatment. While i have never used it in a clinical setting, I do live with PTSD after finding my younger brother dead in the bathroom after a heroin overdose. I blacked out for an entire month after that but i really do believe in the potential in healing through dissociative therapy. Blessings to all.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

How is it that getting ketamine for depression is considered a "last resort". isn't it more benign than subjecting the brain to years of SSRIs and antipsychotics?

the only risk I can come up with is liking ketamine so much that you become an abuser of it.

 

[Morninggloryseed]

Huge bingo. ^^

 

[LucidSDreamr]

^but you get a bottle of percocets for a broken arm. wouldn't it just be better to live in pain for a few days or weeks instead of risk getting addicted to percs....then maybe if the arm continues to hurt for a year or more....then get percs if "waiting it out" doesn't work.

an opioid addiction is far more likely for most people and ketamine is one of those things only psychonauts seem to get into. seems like ket is being held to a higher standard than oxies, fentanyl and the like.

 

[transitionsynth]

^but you get a bottle of percocets for a broken arm. wouldn't it just be better to live in pain for a few days or weeks instead of risk getting addicted to percs....then maybe if the arm continues to hurt for a year or more....then get percs if "waiting it out" doesn't work.

an opioid addiction is far more likely for most people and ketamine is one of those things only psychonauts seem to get into. seems like ket is being held to a higher standard than oxies, fentanyl and the like.

It's because ketamine has psychedelic effects on perception, cognition, and judgment. Such drugs have traditionally been more severely marginalized for precisely that reason. The old Bill Hicks line applies:

"I think it's interesting the two drugs that are legal, alcohol and cigarettes, two drugs that do absolutely nothing for you at all, are legal, and the drugs that might open your mind up to realize how badly you're being fucked every day of your life? Those drugs are against the law. He-heh, coincidence? See, I'm glad mushrooms are against the law, 'cause I took 'em one time, and you know what happened to me? I laid in a field of green grass for four hours going, "My God! I love everything." Yeah, Now, if that isn't a hazard to our country... how are we gonna justify arms dealing if we know we're all one?!"

At the same time, there's some good reason for restricting drugs with such baffling effects on consciousness. A human being lacking a rational consciousness can be a very, very dangerous thing. Profound alterations to consciousness are something not to be treated lightly. Anyone who has ever had to deal with someone on a psychotic break, drug-induced or otherwise, knows that dealing with such humans can flip your whole reality on its head. In one way, authorities have every reason to fear people running around freely tripping out of their heads. On the other hand, someone addicted to painkillers is far easier to control.

In the mid-20th century it was thought that psychedelics could be used as mind-control tools, hence why there was any funding to research them at all. But experiments using ketamine and LSD as mind-control tools mostly ended up concluding that the effects were too unpredictable, or otherwise too impractical, to be used in a calculated fashion at this point. A person who is unwillingly under the influence of ketamine is is extremely suggestible during the experience, but ultimately the dissociative mechanism makes it impractical to actually control someone's mind. First of all, sufficient dosages can make the person totally unresponsive to outside stimuli. After the drug has worn off, it is difficult to induce lasting changes, and those under a ketamine mind-control are only controllable as long as they're under the dose. So permanent mind control is difficult to achieve with these. Furthermore, tolerance to both LSD and ketamine rise at alarming rates, making it extremely impracticable to establish any permanent mind-control.

Hence the move to funding research into daily-use drugs that manipulate users' emotional and cognitive responses to stimuli in a way that is far more predictable. It's way easier to market shit to someone who is completely numb and looking for something to excite them than someone whose serotonin system is bristling with psychedelic hallucinations, realizing at once that all possible happiness comes only from within one's own mind. The former drugs also modulate important emotional and cognitive mechanisms like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, and benzodiazepines.

In short, and at the risk of sounding like a bit of a consiparcy nut, it's because funding for mind-control moved from psychedelic compounds to SSRI's once they realized that psychedelics were a pain in the ass to deal with.

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

doctor explained that he was going to give me a higher dose because he believes that one mechanism of action that accounts for Ketamines remarkable rapid antidepressant effect is the psychedelic experience the patient undergoes during the infusion. Then, he explained, that the drug companies are trying to develop a form of Ketamine that removes the psychedelic component, relying instead on the action increasing the activity of the neurotransmitter glutamate. He asked me if I was okay with having a higher dose and getting the benefit of both methods of action, and I agreed.

It is interesting to note that patients often assign the success of ketamine for depression and ibogaine for opioid use disorder to the mystical experiences and psychedelic action, while scientists often believe that the non-psychedelic effects of those two respective drugs are very important. I think there is some evidence for the latter being the case, but its certainly possible that dissociation has its benefits, perhaps acting as a bit of a reset switch while the other effects work their magic.

 

[swilow]

How is it that getting ketamine for depression is considered a "last resort". isn't it more benign than subjecting the brain to years of SSRIs and antipsychotics?

Its seriously (and with no pun intended) insane. Our society has such absurd and misplaced values. If something is "illegal" or considered "illicit", its a bad thing, its dangerous. That is simply not so and society needs to grow up.

I find these stories heartening because they balance out a lot of the other nonsense that has been attached to ketamine such as 'coincidence control' and talking to dolphins. Plus it can help to destigmatise a drug that abusers have given a bad rap to by overuse and destroying their bladders.

the only risk I can come up with is liking ketamine so much that you become an abuser of it.

That's true, but I think there are studies that for people prescribed opiates for pain and find them effective, abuse doesn't always occur. Let's remember we are a community of people that like drugs. Many people really do not like the actual pscychedelic effects of ketamine. In this form of treatment, the subjective effects are really secondary (in terms of actual supportive science) to the metabolic and neurochemical alterations induced following NMDA antagonism. IMO, the benefits of the dissociative experience itself- wqhich is a beautiful and often totally insane experience- are dubious. I rarely truly recall what has happened but I remember the feelings of love and peace and usually feel comforted and warm afterwards- and again, that is because of the non-hallucingenic effect of ketamine that have made it of note in treatement for depression. Though its interesting to wonder whether the anti-depressant acivity increases or decreases with or without the trip.

But yeah, I am sure some people will abuse it but I really believe that would be a minority. Of course, I've no reason to think that because most people I know who take ketamine recreationally really enjoy it. But they are recreational users already.

Whilst I have never undergone such treatment, I have been using 3-MeO-PCP for the last two months and my own depression and suicidal thoughts have really declined. It could be many other factors such as emerging into summer (I am in Australia) or the fact I am on holidays but I feel a certain lightness ATM. It could also be some other drugs in me.

There have been some trials in Australia this year for ketamine infusion therapy. I don't know much about them though.

 

[lysergamide]

I think if someone has the chance to go and do this as a one-off run, without the chance of getting ketamine off the streets etc this could be successful. However, having an on-off addiction with ketamine myself and having been a user since long before the droughts I find now ketamine causes me more depression and anxiety than anything. It's a completely opposite effect to what I remember early k-holes being and what I hear people describing with it.

If I take ketamine I need to be taking it for as long as I want to remain functional then after the first line, once I run out it's a minimum two day recovery of feeling unmotivated, depressed and irritable. It also induces really bad anxiety.

 

[dopemaster]

A pain doctor shot me down on the treatment. I am fucking pissed.

He said it is "just not for someone like me" and I say "what do you mean by that" and he walked out.

Well, that was the last time I went there. I get a ketamine cream with lidocaine, gabba drugs, muscle relaxers, and anti-inflammatories.

The cream works wonders. It is the only time I can really even sleep in a bed alone at this point when I use it on my back and arm. I sleep better sitting up or flat on my back on a hard surface. There is something comforting about having someone else in the bed and without that I can't really like sleeping in a bed.

I dunno if it is chemical (pheremones) or just used to being in a relationsip, marriage, or having sex often. It seems to me as long as the bed still smells like a woman it relaxes me to sleep.

I suppose I have problems beyond just chronic pain but God damn I feel like if I piss clean I should have access to the same medical treatment as the next guy. My insurance covers it. I have a horrible reputation is this city and I am also heavily tattooed so who knows what that doctors problem is but I did tell him on the way out that I wanted the treatment or I wouldn't be paying the bill and took my health insurance cards back.

They are still trying to get ahold of me to get my medical info and I say good luck, I would love to get a call from the medical board to tell them about this discrimination that was completely uncalled for.

 

[swilow]

Seems weird that a doctor would walk out. Perhaps he felt you were being aggressive?

Fwiw, this is a pretty new treatment. I would be surprised if most doctors even knew about this. And given the fact ketamine is so often used recreationally it doesn't surprise me that a doctor may suspect ulterior motives.

This thread is about ketamine for depression. As an analgesic, I wonder if the effects are too intense or unpredictable to use regularly for pain management.

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

I have heard of ketamine topicals being used for pain amplification/sensitization syndromes such as complex regional pain syndrome (formerly known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy) and there appears to be extremely limited abuse potential for the topicals but they don't address the issue of NMDAr upregulation centrally in the spinal cord. Once you're using ketamine internally there are also neurogenic bladder concerns with chronic use.

NMDAr upregulation is implicated in pain sensitization and can be nasty - it may be possible to dose an NMDAr antagonist low enough to avoid significant side effects while maintaining some relief. Some of the clinics are attempting to dose ketamine for depression low to avoid psychedelic effects as well, relying on the Glutamate mechanism of action by a metabolite.

Different NMDA antagonists are also going to have variations in how they block NMDAr, memantine for example tends to have some selectivity for problematic NMDAr that lead to a lot of calcium influx over NMDAr that may used moreso sparingly in cognition.

 

[thespice]

That is simply not so and society needs to grow up.

Spot on, society as well as the medical profession need to grow up.

 

[Crocker]

I completed my fifth ketamine infusion a week ago and have had 80-90% remission of clinical depression. I've had no side effects to speak of-- unlike the dozen or so antidepressant meds I've tried over the past 20 years. This particular clinic tailors the dosage to the patient and is willing to go higher than the typical .5mg/kg over 45 minutes. I'm realistic about the possibility of relapse but hopeful that the sublingual lozenges will provide some measure of ongoing efficacy.

 

[vortech]

Happy to tune in to this thread this morning. It sounds the system is coming into its right mind. The last-generation conception of mental illness treatments, and the poor success numbers are all that is needed to push the health community into new territory with the rise of ketamine clinics. The arylcyclohexylamines saved my life, so I speak from deep personal experience, and reading these stories is as good as another infusion of ketamine for me today, to bring back the healing revelation

 

[dopemaster]

Seems weird that a doctor would walk out. Perhaps he felt you were being aggressive?

Fwiw, this is a pretty new treatment. I would be surprised if most doctors even knew about this. And given the fact ketamine is so often used recreationally it doesn't surprise me that a doctor may suspect ulterior motives.

This thread is about ketamine for depression. As an analgesic, I wonder if the effects are too intense or unpredictable to use regularly for pain management.

Yeah maybe, I did wait like a year to go there for thr infusion treatment and they new damn well.

I got alot of ink and scars and tried to hit the office in the other county where my record isn't flagged as junkie for lack of better words.

It don't matter how clean you pee is or how long since you stuck a needle in your arm to them.

If they hadn't opened a new office I would have got it, hell the receptionist told me I was approved over the phone when they called and I didn't ask.

I was actually pretty humble till he said "It's not for people like you" and I couldn't play a race or sex card, well I coulda said "you mean queer?" when I askes for clarification because I get asked quite often if I am homosexual.

He just said "do you want the rx or not" while acting like he would rip it in half.

So there was no where to go with that.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

He said it is "just not for someone like me" and I say "what do you mean by that" and he walked out.

Well, that was the last time I went there. I get a ketamine cream with lidocaine, gabba drugs, muscle relaxers, and anti-inflammatories.

.

neither are opioids apparently. i dont really understand how profiling of pain patients is legal. but it is. youth, blacks, tatted people. if you have pain and you aren;t 40+ white and clean cut you are basically fucked in the US. known many a junkie that wears long sleeves in the summer to their visits if you know what i mean. no problem as long as its a nice long sleeve shirt and you speak like a douchbag

 

[cashmunny]

Ketamine Infusions versus othere ROA

I completed my fifth ketamine infusion a week ago and have had 80-90% remission of clinical depression. I've had no side effects to speak of-- unlike the dozen or so antidepressant meds I've tried over the past 20 years. This particular clinic tailors the dosage to the patient and is willing to go higher than the typical .5mg/kg over 45 minutes. I'm realistic about the possibility of relapse but hopeful that the sublingual lozenges will provide some measure of ongoing efficacy.

I'm glad to hear of your success. It's encouraging.

I see a private Doctor with a smallish office who gives IM shots and also prescribes the spray and lozenges. But there is a organization out there, "The Ketamine Advocacy Network" that is a .org domain and they say that IV is the way and the only way to get the antidepressant effect and it has to be 0.5 mg/kg and it has to be dripped IV over 40 minutes.

And I can't figure out if they are a shill for a clinic that only does infusions so they can make more money or if it is true what they are saying. I have only had the spray and lozenges and IM shots. Not the IV drip. And the results have been erratic. At first I just fell in love with it and I abused it. I sucked the nasal spray into a syringe and IM'ed it. It was just so blissful and almost painfully beautiful a state to be in compared to depression. But I don't think I ever had a remission that lasted longer than a day after the effects wore off. There isn't a lot of research comparing the two ROA out there.

so from what you are saying and from this advocacy group I'm tempted to fork over the cash for some IV infusions. I'm near LA so I'm sure I could find a clinic that does them.

I wonder why a psychiatrist in private practice can't just setup an infusion drip next to his couch? Are they not allowed to inject into blood vessels or something as part of the limits of their scope of practice? Shit a bunch of off duty nurses at the Red Cross are setting up a bag and IV , the flow is just reversed.