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MDMA Recovery (Stories & Support - 5)

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Lol I talked to my psychologist who I found and he comes from a STEM background like me in addition to psych.

Said that in his experience "My greatest asset is my greatest weakness (for this stuff)". The same obsessiveness that drives success makes this hard to get out of.
 
Yeah, the DP/DR is probably my worst symptom. But it has gotten so much better since the onset. When I get bad Dp/DR I get restless legs. I probably walked over 5 miles a day in the few months. Absolute craziness.
 
ADubbs said:
There is a chance that some of us will never get better....
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If you are referring to the depression/anxiety/DP mental stuff I do not think that is true considering all the potential treatments out there.
 
I think if people use all the resources at their disposal and stay sober, you have a great chance to recover. A lot of the people that haven't recovered won't use meds or still use/drink.
 
And by recover I mean go back to life, adjust. I don't expect my visual stuff and tinnitus to go away. I do expect to be living normally soon.
 
fnono33 said:
And by recover I mean go back to life, adjust. I don't expect my visual stuff and tinnitus to go away. I do expect to be living normally soon.
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How is your DP doing and your mood-anxiety symptoms?

I agree when those go away you will adjust with the visual stuff.

For me I just feel like i complicated my condition with the ketamine DP/DR. And im getting kinda upset and down over that cause I didnt have DPDR before. For me its mostly DR or a sense of being off rather than DP though

Like ever since the medical ketamine "trip" I never came down or something. No visual snow or Mood worsened but anxiety did bc I was left with a new symptom I never had before.

I dont understand how if ketamine is supposed to reset the brain then why it creates this crap. Im starting to wonder if thats more intedes for trauma/stress depression and not necessarily LTC depression/anxiety.
 
A combination of mdma and ketamine is what caused my dp and dr. If you were already in a sensitive state then it makes sense why dp/dr set in. That being said my dp/dr got loads better, I was living at around 60-70% for a good 6 months before a combination of things bought it all back and now im pretty ill again tbh. But given that it got better once im staying somewhat positive that itll happen again.
 
martainnn said:
A combination of mdma and ketamine is what caused my dp and dr. If you were already in a sensitive state then it makes sense why dp/dr set in. That being said my dp/dr got loads better, I was living at around 60-70% for a good 6 months before a combination of things bought it all back and now im pretty ill again tbh. But given that it got better once im staying somewhat positive that itll happen again.
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Hmm yea I guess but im confused cause the ketamine was done in a medical setting. This is pharma grade ketamine I am talking about here. The real stuff.

I did it bc of the evidence that it is good for depression-anxiety which constituted my LTC (no derealization). So this persisting really tells me that there is some fucked up shit going on in my biology that causes these reactions.

I already did indeed have hormonal imbalances from the LTC itself like low T and cortisol. But i did the testing after the ketamine again and it got worsened but then i did it again and those hormones that were perturbed by ketamine (cortisol decreasing) to baseline but idk why the DR reaction persists. My cortisol levels rebounded to the low levels they were before yet the damn DR gets set off by hormones and then persists! Fuck biology!

I never had DP/DR even at the peak of my LTC. It sucks that the doctor does not really seem to know what happened. Now i really feel like my life is over. I have never ever experienced DP/DR in my life.
 
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Socrilus, trust me on this one. Your life is not over. I've been through that thought process before and I can tell you it does get better. It will take time but it will get better.

Try the Theanine Serene supplement or just L-Theanine in general. It worked wonders for me. I also can't recommend Lamotrigine enough. I've been on it for over a month now and I'm actually considering tapering off cause I feel like I don't need it anymore.
 
Brain_fog88 said:
Socrilus, trust me on this one. Your life is not over. I've been through that thought process before and I can tell you it does get better. It will take time but it will get better.

Try the Theanine Serene supplement or just L-Theanine in general. It worked wonders for me. I also can't recommend Lamotrigine enough. I've been on it for over a month now and I'm actually considering tapering off cause I feel like I don't need it anymore.
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Thanks I guess my frustration is more so that a new symptom which was not present before came up due to the ketamine I tried with dr supervision in order to treat the LTC. I trusted the dr when they told me the dissociation is temporary and so went with it during the trip but I just dont understand how/why it lingered on. The fact that i didnt experience a benefit is one thing but a negative is terrible. Most people they told me feel quite like themselves after the treatment even if they dont benefit its not like anythinf negative happens.

So I really do believe I have a genetic senstivity to drugs.

At least it seems like with ketamine in particular the lamictal you mention apparantly reverses the DR symptoms, and maybe it can even cure the rest of my LTC so ill def look into it if in a few weeks the DR symptom doesnt go away.
 
I exacerbated my symptoms with 5 htp and caffeine. .My dp/dr was the worst it could be in a human being. I'm now about 60 percent recovered from
It. The best way I can make sense of it is that it's like an injured ankle and you ran on it before it healed. So you're still gonna heal, just takes longer. Dp/dr is so scary at first but once you get into a routine and stabilize your sleep/exercise situation it gets way better.
 
Alright maybe i can get some perspectivr as to how severe my DP/DR is

I am able to recognize myself in the mirror and get emotional responses to activities I like. I am also able to cry.

The only thing is I get strange thoughts like "do I really know these people" and "did I really accomplish XYZ" etc. And here and there just feeling like something is off.

Would this be considered mild DR?
 
I can definitely understand that frustration and it's something you have every right to feel. Just don't let it take over your mind set cause it can grow like a cancer.

It sounds like more like mild depersonalization. That's where I was just before I started lamictal. If that's the case you might react positively to it but it's always a numbers game at the end of the day.
 
Ok thanks. I can sort of get rid of it with high dose 2 mg Kpin but before the ketamine id only need 1 mg. So mathematically my condition has worsened 2x since trying a treatment which was supposed to get me off benzos. WOW.

Ketamine therapy is bullshit. I would say avoid for LTC cases. And I think it lends credence to the idea that LTC may have different mechanisms than MDD. Ever since the ketamine I just feel like something has changed but I cannot put a finger on it and something is just feels off. I can do the same things are before and my personality has not inherently changed but I just dont really feel like the world is the same but it is.....

Ill get genetic test results soon in a few weeks and when i see my BDNF genes ill be able to hopefully see why ketamine didnt work.
 
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socrilus said:
Ill get genetic test results soon in a few weeks and when i see my BDNF genes ill be able to hopefully see why ketamine didnt work.
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Ketamine is really affecting two types of glutamate - NMDA receptors, and AMPA receptors. NMDA receptor activation leads to activation of inhibitory (GABA) interneuron, while blocking NMDA receptors with ketamine can lead to downstream release of various neurotransmitters (because an NMDA receptor blocker effectively turns off the GABA interneurons). There is also some aspect of ketamine's metabolites stimulating excitatory AMPA glutamate receptors.

Its possible that you either had a hard time with the NMDA antagonism turning off GABA interneurons or the excitatory AMPA agonism - either one tends to increase excitability in the short term.

On the other hand there are drugs that oppose glutamate - benzos, lamotrigine tends to decrease AMPA, perampanel is an AMPA antagonist.

Then there are the racetams like Piracetam, that increase AMPA. These can tend to cause anxiety and I have seen them cause the "24/7 conversation in the head" type deal
 
Cotcha Yankinov said:
Ketamine is really affecting two types of glutamate - NMDA receptors, and AMPA receptors. NMDA receptor activation leads to activation of inhibitory (GABA) interneuron, while blocking NMDA receptors with ketamine can lead to downstream release of various neurotransmitters (because an NMDA receptor blocker effectively turns off the GABA interneurons). There is also some aspect of ketamine's metabolites stimulating excitatory AMPA glutamate receptors.

Its possible that you either had a hard time with the NMDA antagonism turning off GABA interneurons or the excitatory AMPA agonism - either one tends to increase excitability in the short term.

On the other hand there are drugs that oppose glutamate - benzos, lamotrigine tends to decrease AMPA, perampanel is an AMPA antagonist.

Then there are the racetams like Piracetam, that increase AMPA. These can tend to cause anxiety and I have seen them cause the "24/7 conversation in the head" type deal
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Well I do well and always have on benzos. Since the ketamine reaction the benzos are still effective but ive been needing a higher dose when I was actually trying to find a way to get off even occasional use.

So maybe you are right (I hope so) and my doctor thought something similar. Vast oversimplification but maybe I lowered my already low GABA levels with ketamine therapy thus leading to derealization type symptoms?

Also--this was more directly in the days after and it subsided but I had a ton of restlessness following the infusions. I would wake up very early in the morning with a ton of energy out of nowhere and I was also just feeling so off. That stuff dissapated but the off sensation only declined somewhat and it still persists a bit. My doctor thinks it will abate though. I can still socialize with my friends and stuff but the problem is that something is just off but I cannot pinpoint what. Im just having some trouble returning to "normality". Like I just cannot shake off the lingering mild dissociation

Distraction brings me out of the dissociation completely temporarily but it sets back in after some time has elapsed.

I dont feel depressed necessarily but this feeling is more bothersome than the standard depression/low mood.

If it persists in a few weeks imma ask for lamictal but I would like to wait for my 23andme results to see if i carry the gene that predisposes me to bad skin reactions on lamictal. As a kid I took carbazapine for some fibrile seizures or whatever and I was fine according to parents so hopefully I dont have the SJS gene but still I want to be careful. Especially since I have had an overactive immune system in the past with eczema. That is my concern with lamictal.
 
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