Ketamine For Depression? (Page 23)

It was recommended by the members of a separate thread that one be started that directly relates to ketamine and it's use to treat depression.

If anyone besides myself would like to discuss it's use as a treatment for depression, feel free to post your questions, answers and experiences here.

This thread is an offshoot of a related one that discussed a treatment of Scopolamine for depression.

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Paula - I'm sorry - I spent 2 hrs last nt., detailing my Keta infusions (finished at 3:30am), & they didn't post it!! (Unless it's in a "secret corner" hiding somewhere) - but I've done several searches for keywords that I remember using in my post...and..NOTHING. NO POST!!
I think (& the reason that I said that I may post it to erowid) is, I prob. posted way too much about my "trips" - BUT - I also posted a LOT about the depression, the aftermath, my experience with the doctor, how long the effects lasted, and the benefits, tips, etc.
I'm going to re-post a shorter one (with less "trippy" stuff), or I'd be glad to exchg e-mls w/you (how could we do that?)

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Paula - in fact, I might have some other tips that could help you, & some of yours might help me. I PRAY.

I have SEVERE, treatment-resist MDD, along with OCD, Anxiety, ADHD, even some PTS. I, too, am DESPERATE for help. Won't be able to stand it much longer.

I give the administrators my permission to let (only) you have my e-mail address

*ADMINS: WOULD YOU PLEASE give Paula -to whom I am replying- my eml address? {edited for privacy}
Thank you!
Ken

Paula - reply to this post, (IF they won't give my e-mail to you for some reason). We'll fig. something out. Ken

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Hello Folks,
If any of you survived my last novel regarding the effects of intranasal and I saw quite a few responses that I thought interesting. I will be brief. For one I have heard our happiness is relevant to our choiçes and wishes. I can say b s*** to that or. I can say that the good people that wrote in and are wanting to try this drug. Go for it. Just don't overdo it or you will "sort of trip". I forgot I did 2 sprays and did one more one time and I was back at woodstock,,,,, the first one. It only lasted an hour or so and if your in to that then fine however I looked at it as this. One, a new prospective on life for sure. As Carly Simon says "take another picture" don't look at things the same old way" etc etc. And two, quite possibly two fold uses. Depression will not exist because of some way the drug goes through neurons. Over my head. Different pathways ( help me here???) A last thought and please forgive my abruptness but I think the transfusions are a final straw by some practitioners to make a buck off of the remarkable effects to some folks on this drug. This drug has been here it seems for a while so there is not a lot of interests from our good friends the bottom feeders at Nasdaq these days so some folks are selling transfusions. This irritates me for they accomplish much better results with intranasal and obviously over a more convenient ( for the patient this time ) and affordable ring than getting a transfusion. Come on. I may be wrong. One bottle that should hold 40 ml of 10% ketamine should last for about 20 to 30 days. The "compound" cost 49.00 a month at a local "compounding pharmacy", I was prescribed it for extreme pain and all of a sudden ( within 4 days a 40 year depression was GONE. I wish all of you the best luck and hope in the world. It seems that hope went South in this room. You are all intelligent people that are going through some bad times right now with your health and I would be naive to say I understand. However, If you can just remember you all are worth it, and things can change in a day. They did for me. I have hi hopes for you all. regards and if there is anything I can do to help let me know.
md

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GLYX-13 update: local study center contacted me this morning. Open label is repotedly on track for June as of now. Let's hope!

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@ken, the moderators review posts which often results is longer lag times. Hopefully your post will show :-)

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@Ken- They used to let us give out email adresses privately but for some reason they have done away with that. you could just post the tips on here. Still not having any results from the intra-nasal. @ City Girl- In the trial for the Gly-x, do they make you wash out all of your AD meds? if not, I would be interested.

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Paula: I'd just like to say thank you very much for the recommendation. We were able to meet with Dr. Berent. He was fantastic and very thorough. I would highly recommend him to anyone. We'll be starting the treatment this week. Wish us luck!

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@toxieboxie- Glad you got to see Dr. Berent. He is a great guy. The IN Ket still is not working for me but hopefully you will have success. Keep me posted!

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@ Ken- obviously they did not give me your email so you will have to communicate with me on here. I would love to read of some tips you have! Please reply!

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Hi LM-

Do you mind telling me what your Dr.'s name is? It sounds like you are in California, as I am. Thanks for any info.

Nancy

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Have seen many references to LDN. You can ask your primary md to write a script for a compounding pharmacy. Naltrexone is a weak opiod and 4.5 mg is very low dose, and for a reason. Once a day injestion causes a very short and weak opiod level, probably not noticeable. After a number of days of this little dose, your brain should upregulate (increase) the number of opiod receptors trying to capture a greater response. This also makes your it possible for your brain to experience the naturally low dose of endorphins in your brain which for some reason don't upregulate the opiod receptors on their own. So, don't take extra LDN to try to feel better faster. You'll not achieve the purpose of the therapy, which is to increase opiod receptors. To understand this better, the opposite would be large opiod ingestion by pain patients. Over time the brain downregulates the number of opiod receptors, so that larger doses are needed, which further downregulates the opiod receptors, etc. This very low dose weak opiod is trying to make the opposite happen, which is to greatly increase opiod receptors, making your low level of endorphins actually have somewhere to express themselves so you can feel good. That's the theory anyway.

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I have been taking 1.6mg/kg of ketamine orally once every three to five days for the past three months. The effects have been dramatic. Yes, there is a period for about 1-2 hours after taking it that you feel weird, not worried, but weird. That effect can vary each time, and changes depending on the dose.
As for the antidepressant/anxiolytic effect. I had tried antidepressants in every category but the MAOIs, dozens of combinations, never with lasting and sufficient effect. ECT worked, but I lost 2-3 months of memory. rTMS worked wonderfully under one protocol, but the study ended and the new protocol being studied did not work for me. I tried ketamine 1mg/kg orally in the doctors office (recliner chair, low lights, ambient soundscape). Before taking it I was anxious, pessimistic, distracted, unable to look people in the eyes. About 10 min after taking the dose it was as if the bubble's that defined the boundary between my personal space and outside, and the one farther out that defined the extent of space that I ignored, both popped. Sounds in the distance seemed louder. But I didn't feel that the area beyond my personal space was scary. 40 min in the doctor came in to talk to me. There was a slight lag between thinking and speaking, but I was able to explain how I felt. And I was already able to look him in the eye for thirty seconds at a time. Two hours later, I was feeling relatively normal. I could interact with people, I felt hope, felt worthwhile. I was not ruminating, and not anxious. It was not completely normal, but compared to two hours earlier the difference was amazing. We ended up increasing the dose so that the effect removed the depression completely and (hopefully) lasted at least three days at a time. I feel worthwhile, interested in life, I feel happy and sad (a full range of emotions) at appropriate times, I do not ruminate the same ideas over and over in my head which helps allow me to sleep, I am not anxious around other people, I hug my kids and feel good when they hug me back, I can read for fun and feel like working around the house. I do have a lower tolerance for chaos (want things to be more tidy) than previously, and I think I am a bit less risk adverse than before. I can talk to other people, and enjoy it. When people smile, I smile back. Food has flavour, sleep is restful. I feel as if there are good and bad things in my life, but on the whole things are ok, manageable. I feel normal.
Ketamine is a useful option if you have tried all the other ones. Recognize that what little research is out there shows that it is working for that small group of people who are severely treatment resistant (most tried a dozen or more combinations over a decade or more). It is quite possible that people in this group have a different biological problem than most people manifesting depression. So if you have not tried all the other options, there is little evidence that ketamine would work for you. Its long term effectiveness is unknown. And it does not reset the neurotransmitters, it masks the effects, and when it kicks back out...imagine going from fine to depressed in an hour. Not nice. You need to commit to not driving for 24 hours after taking a dose, and I strongly advise not cooking/ironing/doing fine motor work for a few hours afterwards as well.
I currently take between 1.6 and 2 mg/kg ketamine as an oral/sublingual syrup once every three to five days. It is doing wonders for my anxiety, and generally working well for the depression. Note that I am taking to medication orally/sublingually, which is different from how most patients in the U.S. take it. The anxiety effect tends to last at least three days, the antidepressant effect at some points in my menstrual cycle only last 2 days. So I am learning what depression without anxiety feels like, and also to identify what are early warning signs that the drug is wearing off. If you have control over timing of treatments you want to space them out as far as possible while still preventing the depression from recurring, and taking as low a dose as possible. This should reduce side effects and in theory make it more likely that the drug will continue to work. If I know the warning signs and none appear on day 3 I wait an extra day, if none on day 4 I wait till day 5.
Essentially you should know this: ketamine is a promising option for people with severely treatment resistant depression, it has annoying side effects for the first 1-2 hours, if it works for you it can be very effective, and it may not work for you. You also need to recognize that if you are prone to addictions, or find yourself increasing your dose, or taking it more frequently, not only are you likely giving up on the antidepressant effect, you need to see a doctor about getting off the drug before you hurt yourself.
Also note that if you are in the US (which most people on the board here are) you seem to only have the option of intravenous infusions which are ruinously expensive, or intranasal treatment. The nasal method can lead to loss of sense of smell and polyps, I think you are supposed to use a neti pot regularly if you use a nasal insufflator to reduce chance of problems. My experience is with a syrup that I hold in my mouth for 10 min then swallow. Less of the ketamine is bioavailable this way, but it is less expensive, controllable in terms of dose, and has predictable results (for me at least). My impression is that the infusion lasts far longer, but you are likely to only have access to it for a short time because of cost. Any compounding pharmacy can make tablets/capsules or a liquid. Ketamine is a generic drug, and most of the cost should be the compounding fee. If you can convince your doctor to do a trial of ketamine for you, consider the oral liquid. You can titrate the amount more exactly. Who knows, you might be one of the people who finds 1mg/kg oral every week is enough. From what my psychiatrist said, it appears that if it is going to work you will see some effect within the first 24 hours of taking the first dose. A quick response, like mine, is a good sign that the drug will have a beneficial effect at a reasonably low dose.
Depression is probably a group of problems. Certain antidepressants work because of the type of physical problem that manifests in depression symptoms. Before trying ketamine see if you are likely to be helped by existing antidepressant subtypes, because what little evidence is out there showing ketamine works is almost exclusively on people whose depression does not respond (or does not respond adequately) to any of the antidepressant groupings (alone or in combination).
Best wishes to you. I hope you find some help either with ketamine, with physical or cognitive/behavioral therapy, or with something like rTMS, or DCTCS. There are new pharmaceuticals in development based on ketamine. Hang in there, eventually something will work.

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Good lord,
I thought I was the only novelist in this place but Cathy has me beat hands down. For truthful remarks, information, weight of text and a dead on and accurate summarization of "exactly" the benefits of that drug are. And believe her or anyone that has gone through 40 years of depression in one form or another couldn't say it better. Just wanted to say thanks for the information Cathy. I agree with everything you said. Just could never write it that eloquently. So thanks.
md

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Hello everyone, My name is Robert and I wanted to drop in and apologize for the late information. You likely know of my friend, Keller, who was a frequent poster here. We worked closely on a number of projects together and were good friends. Unfortunately, Keller, as you knew him, died in a car accident involving a drunk driver this spring. He was not at the wheel and died instantly.

We met many years ago at counseling sessions in our home town and fast became friends. He was a good man and I hope to be able to bear even a portion of his legacy. I know that the identification and treatment of the root causes of depression was one of his prime goals in life.

I need to catch up, but I hope to be able to share what he was working on at the Muscadine Foundation with you and work to find management if not a cure.

Again, I am sorry for the delay in bringing you this bad news, the family asked we not release anything for 90 days just to allow them private time to grieve.

I personally have high hopes for the treatment of refractory depression using treatments around the NMDA model for depression especially the use of LDN, Ketamine and Magnesium synergistically.

RK Brumbelow
The Muscadine Foundation

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I wondered where he was. I am so sorry!

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Wow, I am shocked and saddened to hear of Keller's death. I wondered why we had not heard from him lately. He brought a tremendous wealth of insight and information to this site. For that alone, he will be greatly missed. I pray for his family and friends who surely have lost so much more than those of us on this site have.

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Glyx-13 "extension study" is apparently starting. However, although I was told I would be eligible but now I am not. They are only taking 100 of 350 participants. I am heartbroken.

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Hello Nancy,
I hope you are well. I only wish that I was in California. Been there a LOT on business and a way to fly across the county and get in a rental car in San Fran and drive ALL the way down hwy 1 yes ALL the way...to LA,,,,And then on to Vegas,,,,then up 395 and the eastern edge of those beautiful Sierra mountains and go back though Yosemite and back to San Fran. God a mighty that is a trip...1836 miles.....Im in NC and my doc never provides me enough. Cant find it anywhere. Hope that helps. All the best. m

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Hi,
I am scheduled to get my 3rd infusion with Dr. Brooks tomorrow. Sofar I have not seen a big difference so we are going to increase the dosage. Can you tell me if your depression is somewhat under control. I am so hopeful but am also anxious that it may not work. We are paying a lot of money and I'd like to think it is worthwhile (my husband is sitting there watching my every move and is hoping that all of a sudden I will be this cheery self confident person) how many treatments did it take you to see a difference? I agree Dr. Brooks is a very nice man. I am 50 years old and had MDD and General anxiety disorder for the last 25 years

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Hi, I also had 3 infusions with Dr Brooks. He increased the dosage on the 3rd time, but it still didn't work for me. I pray that it works for you!! I am also 50, and have had MDD, social anxiety, etc for as long as I can remember. If you think of it, can you ask him if he has looked more seriously into using scopolamine infusions? I tried the ketamine in January and he said he was thinking of trying scopolamine for his patients who didn't respond to ketamine. But again, I really hope the higher dose of ketamine works for you!!!

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