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ketamine for Bipolar Disorder? (and unipolar depression in general)?

Ketamine has shown excellent efficacy for both bipolar and unipolar depression, and is offered clinically for both in the US, Canada, and other countries. I have anecdotally found great success in using it for my bipolar depression.
 
Can’t speak to its efficacy personally but it has worked wonders for my best friend. She had tried every SSRI/SNRI in the book, lamotrigine, TMS, Electroconvulsive therapy, and nothing seemed to work. She was at the end of her rope and decided to give ketamine therapy a try about a year ago. She’s never been better. It even Made her feel good enough to quit her benzo and Adderall prescriptions as well.
 
I fucked this effect by abusing the recreative experience it gives instead of being grateful for the acute and initially week-long glowing energy.* Yeah, I neither felt better than in the honeymoon phase of me and the dissociatives (even before MXE I was using DXM for antidepressant purposes). Now it's gone, seemingly for 'good', I was one year off any dissociative and tolerance is where it was before. So one wants to stick strictly to the recommended dosages and use periods. But there's no need neither justification for expensive clinics, vital signs supervision (lol, K is used because it's the only anesthetic which DOESNT require that, in way higher dosages) and infusions.

Interesting that K works in bipolar people w/o triggering mania. Even SSRIs do that, I myself got hypomanic during first weeks ever of paroxetine, and I'm unipolar.

* My personal hunch is that the dissociative experience is inseparable from the antidepressant effects at this layer. They will for sure find some chem based on all the K research but it will work on other receptors, not NMDA.
 
i think an even more interesting question is what form of ketamine is best for treating depression (bipolar or unipolar)... Spravato, the new nasal spray formulation, contains only esketamine. whereas most ketamine infusions are done with racemic ketamine. kind of odd no?

the simple answer to this disparity is that they just wanted to patent esketamine. i think this is a pretty good explanation tbh.

but then one asks, why not arketamine instead? or why intranasal esketamine instead of IV esketamine? should there be a psychotherapist present or should it be solo (some ketamine clinics today do have a therapist present, some don’t)? i’m sure y’all can think of many more questions too

for a quick rundown of some literature i recommend these two videos:



 
thegreenhand said:
i think an even more interesting question is what form of ketamine is best for treating depression (bipolar or unipolar)... Spravato, the new nasal spray formulation, contains only esketamine. whereas most ketamine infusions are done with racemic ketamine. kind of odd no?

the simple answer to this disparity is that they just wanted to patent esketamine. i think this is a pretty good explanation tbh.

but then one asks, why not arketamine instead? or why intranasal esketamine instead of IV esketamine? should there be a psychotherapist present or should it be solo (some ketamine clinics today do have a therapist present, some don’t)? i’m sure y’all can think of many more questions too

for a quick rundown of some literature i recommend these two videos:



Click to expand...

Is TDC still making videos?
 
Any addictive drug is good for depression, but ketamine is contraindicated for bipolar people like me. : /
 
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