Experience with ketamine therapy for depression

[LabRatPsychonaut]

Am I the only one who feels that ketamine and MXE feel completely different? I tried some, went through a half a gram throughout using 4 times. I always do 50 - 60 milligram bumps spaced out 45 minutes between, so I have never m holed or anything. I am positive of the source, stuff is amazing. Bright white shiny granules. No burn at all when insufflated. It just produces such a different feeling than ketamine I feel. It makes me feel weird and wobbly in a good wayat the same time, but gave me some weird fucked up thoughts. I remember thinking "I need to get healthier," even though I'm not even overweight or out of shape. Then maybe 3 weeks later I had an asthma attack that almost killed me and had to be hospitalized for a week. I am not attributing this incident to using mxe to clear things up, just thought it was strange that this happened. I for some reason expected me to love mxe a lot more than I do, because I love ketamine. I bought mxe because it was cheap as hell compared to ketamine, but I really don't enjoy it too much.

 

[Foreigner]

A thread was created here to discuss the differences between MXE and Ketamine. Much of it seems to be subjective and based on personal experience, but the total sum of what people have written leads me to conclude that MXE would not have the same therapeutic value as ketamine. I mostly base this opinion on the nature of the k-hole being less intense, less psychologically impactful, and "less spiritual" with MXE than with ketamine. Many users report that there is a depth to ketamine which MXE lacks, while others report no difference.

PCP (phencyclidine), another NMDA antagonist that is molecularly similar to ketamine, does not have the same therapeutic quality and even has delitirious effects. We can't assume that molecular similarities means that there will be similar functions. The extent of my work with NMDA antagonists for depression has only been able to conclude that ketamine is for sure useful, and there is scientific backing for this. MXE lacks empirical data.

 

[pmoseman]

... if you have two solutions both of 0.9% concentration, then mixing equal amounts will obviously make them both diluted to half their original concentration. ...

0.9% + 0.9% = (9 mg + 9 mg) / (1 cm^3 + 1 cm^3) = 18 mg / 2 cm^3 = 0.9%
Math... almost always works.

 

[fubigpharma]

Wow! I just came back to check the thread and what a great surprise. Thank you so much, Foreigner. You are the best. I will definitely PM you. Thank you again for all your help and knowledge of this subject matter.

 

[Anon0631]

I suffer horrible Seasonal Affective Disorder. I would usually need to be on SSRIs by the beginning of September and go through to March. But so far I've not needed to because of weekly bumps of 35-50mg racemic Ketamine. My body clock has already gone haywire but my mood is fine. It seems that lower doses work better than higher ones but I'm still playing around a bit.

I actually really dislike the effects of Ketamine but I can survive an hour of discomfort if it means that I'm spared such a massive load of fatigue and depression throughout the rest of the week. I've thought of co-administering 1mg of Xanax to kill the psychedelic effects but I'm concerned that this might affect the efficacy too. Any thoughts would be welcome.

I'll keep reporting back on progress. If I can survive the winter without resorting to using horrible medication, it will be the best thing that ever happened to me.

 

[cashmunny]

I actually really dislike the effects of Ketamine but I can survive an hour of discomfort if it means that I'm spared such a massive load of fatigue and depression throughout the rest of the week. I've thought of co-administering 1mg of Xanax to kill the psychedelic effects but I'm concerned that this might affect the efficacy too. Any thoughts would be welcome.

Lamictal will kill the psychedelic effects of ketamine without detracting from the antidepressant effect.

http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=481584

I can vouch for this as I take Lamictal and ketamine together for bipolar disorder. 100 mg of Lamictal taken a few hours before will knock the shit out of most of the psychedelic effects. The antidepressant effect doesn't seem to be affected.

 

[fubigpharma]

@Anon0631: Glad to hear you can treat your SAD symptoms successfully with Ketamine. As far as trying smaller doses for more efficacy, that seems to be the case. You might try monkeying around with your dosage--starting maybe at 30mg or something to test efficacy? At higher doses (at least IV and IM injection), Ketamine seems to almost act in the opposite manner than at low dose and ultra-low-dose ketamine. at high doses, it eventually is a CNS/respiratory/cardiac depressant; at LD and ULD an antidepressant with neurogenerative and neuroprotective qualities. High doses--it's neurologically damaging, of course. I'd just stick to the motto: "as little as possible for threshold of efficacy". Although that's not a motto!

I think in chronic K abusers their tolerance goes up as well, so again, I'm thinking low dose keeping the tolerance away. They're prescribing DXM in the form of pills called Nuedexta (for pseudobulbar effect, off-label for depression). This also works on some of the same NMDA receptors, but not at all exactly. People seem to report tolerance to DxM and Nuedexta rather quickly. It also hasn't shown the efficacy (so far) of ketamine. I know because my pdoc wanted to put me on Nuedexta for MDD when I said I wanted to try ketamine. I said no--it's nowhere near as promising and it's cripplingly expensive. She thinks my wanting to use ketamine or get k infusions is "drastic". This from a woman who thought it was "an idea" for me to get ECT at one point. I frigging kid you not.

Anyhow, thanks for your reporting. Take care!

 

[Reverend Random]

I alerted some of the academic ketamine / depression researchers to the existence of this thread. They were very interested and said they would use it to form ideas about dosing schemes in their studies. Nice one.

 

[Anon0631]

If any of the above mentioned researchers are reading this, maybe you can chime in with opinions about whether the co-administration of benzodiazepines to reduce the psychedelic effects would affect efficacy?

UPDATE: It certainly seems that 35mg once a week is more effective than 50mg once a week via insufflation. I'm 80kg

 

[cashmunny]

I tried intranasal and IM and was trying to IV. I couldn't keep it to small doses. I abused it.

 

[Foreigner]

I alerted some of the academic ketamine / depression researchers to the existence of this thread. They were very interested and said they would use it to form ideas about dosing schemes in their studies. Nice one.

This is awesome Thank you. I hope they will post their findings here!

Lamictal will kill the psychedelic effects of ketamine without detracting from the antidepressant effect.

http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=481584

I can vouch for this as I take Lamictal and ketamine together for bipolar disorder. 100 mg of Lamictal taken a few hours before will knock the shit out of most of the psychedelic effects. The antidepressant effect doesn't seem to be affected.

As I said in my OP, I believe that the psychedelic effect is why ketamine works better than other NMDA antagonists that the pharmaceutical industry is currently developing. The mind-altering properties give you special insight into your problems, and frankly at 12mg or lower the effect is not that intense.

Could you share with us why you feel the psychedelic effect should be discarded?

I tried intranasal and IM and was trying to IV. I couldn't keep it to small doses. I abused it.

That is one of the risks of this regimen, especially if you have a prior history of abusing ketamine. In my case, my past recreational use was minimal so I did not have the addictive association, and I never take the dose higher than my therapeutic amount so that I can keep myself ignorant of what more might be like.

 

[Anon0631]

Could you share with us why you feel the psychedelic effect should be discarded?

For me it's that I don't like the psychedelic effects of ketamine. With 5ht psychedelics (phenethylamines, tryptamines, ergaloids) everything seems to make sense. With disassociatives, nothing seems to make sense.

 

[PDDChronic]

I'm onto my second day of the treatment, snuffling 6-10mg each hour. Already feeling much better, thank you very much.

Just a really stupid question. I haven't had a coffee since beginning the treatment because I'm not sure how it would interact/ whether it is even a good idea mixing the two.

Any ideas? Did anyone doing the treatment keep on with their coffee habit? And how does it mix with K?

Obviously it's an irrelevant question to ask at recreational doses, so I can't really find the answers on old googs.

 

[Mysterie]

I haven't had a coffee since beginning the treatment because I'm not sure how it would interact/ whether it is even a good idea mixing the two.

copied from Jamshyd's original thread

NOTE that throughout this procedure it is assumed that one has no other drugs in one's system, including Cannabis. Nicotine seems to be acceptable.

better safe than sorry imo

 

[PDDChronic]

Thanks, yeah I read that.

Also, the only other thing like this I've tried is DXM cough muck. I have to say, it seems to have some kind of an edge, being that it's a nonselective serotonin reuptake inhibitor as well, but I'm not sure, if that's a good thing or not because it left me feeling kind of high for the week that it worked. Not to mention the fact it made me vomit through my kneecaps, and eventually stopped working all together (only after three consecutive doses, one each week), due to tolerance.

Ketamine seems to be leaving me feeling a lot more normal... as in -- feeling like my self (there is no xSRI brain warm buzzy high feeling). Anyone else find this?

Like others have mentioned MXE would be interesting. After I finish this regime, and I'm back to my miserable "other" self, I'll report back. I'd love to do something similar experiment with low dose DXM, or MXE later on, to suss out all the differences. It's just damn near impossible to get a hold of pure DXM, and I'm over the cough syrup bullcrap.

A big thank you to Foreigner et al, for your willingness to self-experiment, and take some risks, and push forward towards something that has the potential to be life changing!

 

[Foreigner]

Just wanted to post a long term update.

I recently went through a big move which caused quite a bit of emotional turmoil and a feeling of being uprooted. I've been having a hard time adjusting to my current circumstances, resulting in depression. Somehow I forgot that I even had ketamine as a tool on hand, believe it or not. I just got into that headspace of being down and not feeling like anything could change it.

A couple of days ago I did a single 10mg dose and I've been normal since then.

The conclusion I've come to based on all my experiences and the observations that other people have shared with me about how I seem to be in these depressed states is that, for now, I have some kind of incurable depression. It's not caused by any unresolved turmoil within me, despite all my years of best efforts in analyzing that. It's surely something biochemical. I'm not attached to the identity of being a "depressed person", but it's apparent to me that nothing so far has permanently fixed this. Like any disability, it's a maintenance situation and I do the best I can.

Thus far the only management tool that works without impinging side effects or the need for regular dosing is indeed ketamine. My earlier hope that this would be a cure was unfounded. I think if life is going fairly well and all outward signs are good, I am less prone to depression; but as soon as there are challenging circumstances that require me to mentally process a lot of challenging stimulus, it's like my neurons can't handle it and I experience drastic down-regulation. I don't even feel emotional about it, it just seems like some kind of brain issue.

I will continue taking maintenance doses of ketamine as needed. They are greatly relieving. I don't enjoy the prospect of being dependent on any kind of drug for life, but I have to look on the bright side which is that it's rather a miracle that I found something that works this effectively at all -- and it's incredibly cheap per dose. For that I'm grateful. My search for a real cure continues, but in the mean time I am satisfied with this kind of medication. I just wish doctors in Canada were allowed to prescribe it already, so I could avoid having to seek illegal relief.

 

[pmoseman]

Thus far the only management tool that works without... the need for regular dosing is indeed ketamine.
....
I will continue taking maintenance doses of ketamine as needed....

Um? The forest is that way.
I assume you mean that with anti-depressants you must maintain regular dosage or suffer the consequences. I am not familiar with these meds, but surely that can't be true of all meds.
....
A bit of advice I hope might be meaningful to you is, sometimes it is healthy to be depressed. I was most depressed when I was lonely. It was really much worse than other kinds of depression.

 

[Foreigner]

Um? The forest is that way.
I assume you mean that with anti-depressants you must maintain regular dosage or suffer the consequences. I am not familiar with these meds, but surely that can't be true of all meds.
....
A bit of advice I hope might be meaningful to you is, sometimes it is healthy to be depressed. I was most depressed when I was lonely. It was really much worse than other kinds of depression.

What I meant was, I can take ULD ketamine as needed... like once a week, or every couple of weeks. The dosage schedule is highly variable, compared to other drugs which require daily dosing to maintain a certain blood level. I personally don't trust modern anti-depressants. I've been down that road and all they did to me was impair creative introspection with their emotionally numbing effects. I've also considered that maybe I have a different condition that was misdiagnosed as depression, but I doubt it.

I realize that depression is often a product of circumstance but in my case it isn't. In my short life I have lived in many diverse circumstances, locations, personal situations, etc. There isn't one situation where I didn't feel the bite of a depressed body. I've racked my brain for years trying to analyze what makes this condition tick for me, including childhood shit, and all it did was burn me out. I've done CBT as well, but it doesn't stick because whatever biochemical shortcoming I have happening always takes hold.

I do believe for some people it's possible to deconstruct oneself to the bare bones and still not have a solution. For some people it really is neurochemical. But like I said, my search continues. I'm still hopeful that there is a trigger or problem I've overlooked. In the mean time, I have a more than adequate remedy in ULD ketamine.

 

[PDDChronic]

I absolutely concur. I need to nose 5-10mg every week to two weeks.

Some people aint gonna like this, but weed does seem to counteract the positive action. I slowly figured this out.

It seems to take away what the ketamine put in place, rather than *cause* depression.

Since giving up weed the space in between having to re-dose have dramatically expanded. This sucks, because I love weed. But I love normality more.

I think we chronically depressed peeps have a genetic thing going on with stress causing brain cell damage which induces depression, and the ket repairs this process . This is the current thinking on the mechanism of ketamine in the journals as well. I recently read -- if left unchecked -- chronic depressed people can have slightly shrunken brains from all the battering they get.

Any kind of stress, and I need the ket mechanics doing their repair work. I wonder if this means I won't get dementia? *fingers crossed* lol. Either way I have a sinking feeling that I will need to maintain until the gene therapy is developed to turn off the switch all together.

 

[perpetualdawn]

PDDchronic: 5-10mg, that's not very much K from a recreational standpoint right? Interesting that the antidepressant effects are present from such low doses at such distant intervals. I don't enjoy K much, and don't suffer depression, but it is fascinating.