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#ketamine for treatment resistant depression
growing-home · 2 months
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i spent nearly two decades of my life severely depressed and suicidal and for so long i believed wholeheartedly that it was my fault. i believed that the reason no medication or therapy had ever worked for my depression was because i wasn’t ACTUALLY depressed— i believed i was just lazy, bad, manipulative, and just using depression as an excuse for the inherent badness i thought was inside me. this was a story that was told to me and reinforced over and over again by treatment providers.
this past summer, i tried my 30th+ psychiatric medication, not expecting to see any results. the day i realized it was working was the day i realized that i was…planning my future???suddenly i no longer wanted to stay in bed all day and never go outside. i no longer wanted to isolate. i wanted to see people, talk to people! i started spending more time with friends and facetiming people and talking on the phone, things that i rarely did in the past. when i had been depressed, the only movies/tv shows i could focus on were super intense, fast paced, and scary or disturbing because that was the only way to hold my attention. after starting this medication, i started enjoying SITCOMS! i no longer felt like i was fighting to just get through every single day of my life.
there was such a clear and measurable difference in the quality of my life that i started to question why i believed that my depression had been my fault. it became very clear to me that a large part of my depression had been biological. i had not been lazy or bad. i had been sick. my brain was sick the same way other organs get sick sometimes. this brought up a lot of grief for me— grief for all the lost time that i’d spent trying to find something that worked, grief for how much pain i had been in for so long. but it also brought up sheer FURY at all of the therapists and psychiatrists who had treated me like i just wasn’t trying hard enough to get better.
i had been labeled treatment resistant, of course, and the only recommendations i had received after being given that label were TMS, Ketamine, and ECT. once i had tried all three with no success, i believed i was just a lost cause. i thought i was out of options. i was made to feel that way by so many treatment professionals. i was told that nothing was working because of my complex trauma and that once i healed from that then i would stop being depressed (as if it’s that easy to just fully recover from CPTSD!) i was told that i just needed to do more DBT, i just needed to live and breathe DBT skills and then i would get better, even though i’d done intensive DBT programs for years with no improvement to my depression. (yes, it helped me to change my behavior and quit self harm, but behavior change isn’t necessarily indicative of a change in mood. i could do all the right things all the time and still be in excruciating mental pain.)
i was told that i just wasn’t trying hard enough, or that i must have a personality disorder, or that i just needed to exercise more, or eat less, or eat MORE, or eat differently, or get a job, or get a dog, or do yoga, or acupuncture, or biofeedback, or find purpose in my life— psychiatrist after psychiatrist looked for something to blame everywhere but in the mirror. instead of admitting that they weren’t equipped to help me, they made me believe that it was MY fault i wasn’t getting better. and i believed them. for SO long, i believed them.
and now after finding a medication that works for me, i see everything so much more clearly. psychiatrists need to put their enormous egos aside and actually treat patients with treatment resistant depression instead of blaming us for suffering from a (partially at least) biological illness. if you’re a doctor and you know that a patients illness is outside of the scope of your abilities, either do more research and get more training to help them or refer them to someone who specializes in what they need. don’t keep them around letting them pay you thousands of dollars while you make them try the same thing over and over and over again and expect to get a different result. people act like things like ECT are a last resort option, and in doing so make people believe that if it doesn’t help then you’re out of options. but nobody ever tried me on tricyclics. nobody tried me on MAOIs. nobody told me about how some dopamine agonists like Pramipexole have had some success in treating treatment resident depression. instead i was made to feel like asking to not be suicidal daily was asking for too much. if you’re a clinician who thinks that’s asking for too much, you’re in the wrong profession. we can do better than that. we NEED to do better than that.
in my experience, out of every profession, doctors have some of the biggest egos i’ve ever seen. i say this as someone who is both mentally ill as well as physically disabled. many doctors HATE it when you do your own research. they HATE it when you have suggestions, or when you ask for what you need. it’s almost as if they feel threatened by it, like they need to believe that they are superior to their patients because of how much time and money and energy they put into going to med school— they need to believe they hate their hard work was worth it so they have a tendency to dismiss any ideas their patients might have. i don’t care how many years you’ve been in school. you do not get to tell your sick patients that it’s their fault they’re sick to justify your laziness and refusal to learn new things. put away your god complex and actually listen to your patients.
and the strangest part to me is that the longer you have been suicidal for, the less seriously they take it. the same way that the more chronically ill you are the less people believe you. it’s bizarre— when people see pain that is beyond what they can fathom, instead of feeling empathy, they tell you you must be faking it or that you must be looking for attention. i’ll never understand this. it’s as if they think that suicidality doesn’t need to be taken seriously unless the patient has successfully completed suicide. and i think it’s very clear how that logic is flawed. i was treated like i just wanted attention whenever i asked for help with my chronic suicidality and it made me terrified to ask for help with ANYTHING. i still constantly am afraid that if i’m too honest with clinicians then they’ll think i just want attention. attention isn’t a bad thing to want, all human beings need some degree of attention, but regardless that doesn’t negate the severity of a person’s suicidality. i wasn’t attention seeking by asking for help. i was STRONG. i was really fucking strong, far stronger than i should’ve had to be. i fought for my life every single day and i am lucky to still be here but it’s not luck that got me here. it’s ME that got me here.
i don’t want to make it sound like i speak for everyone who has suffered from TRD, because i don’t think that would be fair. i can’t tell you if there’s a med out there that’ll work for you. all i can tell you is that most psychiatrists prematurely tell chronically suicidal patients that there is nothing they can do to help them or that they’re out of medication options. if you’re a psychiatrist or doctor and you feel yourself getting defensive while reading this, i invite you to get curious about where that activation is coming from.
and if you are someone with treatment resident depression or chronic suicidality reading this, i am telling you now: your illness is not your fault. i don’t know if it’s going to get better or not, but i can promise you— it is not your fault and it never has been.
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suncaptor · 3 months
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Though getting spravato would not be so hard since all I would need to do is prove I'm treatment resistant and I was able to do that years ago and already was not helped by TMS just last year which also requires that. but I just read so many people and studies showing less or no efficacy of esketamine compared to ketamine infusion. Does anyone have experience with that?
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powerrangersystem · 9 months
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@lexxxxicon asked how ketamine treatment works, so this post will explain it very basically from what I understand.
According to Yale Medicine, esketamine, which is the form of ketamine used in therapy, "triggers glutamate production, which, in a complex, cascading series of events, prompts the brain to form new neural connections".
So basically, the thought is that ketamine therapy triggers your brain to create new neural pathways. If you guide this pathway production in more positive directions, the thought is that you will be able to form more positive outlooks. This is something that more traditional antidepressants have not been shown to do.
You can do ketamine therapy by yourself or with a therapist present. I have done both and both have been helpful. With a therapist present, we set an intention before the session to guide the pathway formation in a positive direction. I now also do this when I do the therapy alone as well.
The Yale page also mentioned that "In several studies, more than half of participants show a significant decrease in depression symptoms after just 24 hours. These are patients who felt no meaningful improvement on other antidepressant medications," so that's encouraging.
Hope this helped! Let me know if any of you have any more questions.
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newhologram · 2 years
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Hey, it me!! ✨Featuring my little futon. Wall Street Journal interviewed me about what the at-home experience is like. Only a little of our long talk made it in but I‘m happy to have been able to share my story with them. They had to pick just one pronoun to represent me but as a reminder: I am genderfluid so he/she/they are all good. Just be warned, the transphobes are raging about me in the comments 😂
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butchyena · 5 months
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mental health docs on the phone tried to softball me lol
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redacted-metallum · 1 year
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worrying that the random ad i got on a podcast for literal fucking ketamine is from a company called "joyous"
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mymarifae · 1 year
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i may be angry about needing 534976934743 hours of sleep after every ketamine infusion BUT!! i think... i can say that they’re starting to make a difference :’) which is very relieving and very exciting
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livewelltalk · 10 months
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Ketamine is a drug that has been used as an anesthetic for decades. In recent years, it has been shown to be effective in treating depression. Ketamine can provide rapid relief of depression symptoms, and the effects are sustained with repeated doses.
Explore the world of ketamine treatment for depression with this comprehensive guide. Discover the cost, potential side effects, and what to expect during the treatment process. Ketamine has emerged as a promising alternative for individuals struggling with treatment-resistant depression. Uncover the facts, benefits, and considerations surrounding this innovative therapy.
Gain insights into the effectiveness of ketamine, its potential risks, and how it may provide relief for those seeking an alternative approach to manage their depression. Check out → Ketamine Treatment for Depression: Cost, Side Effects, and What to Expect
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latenightn0tes · 2 years
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intention
is it working? i dare to ask myself, the chemicals stabbing into my tongue. just wait. i am so unaccustomed to idleness that i pull up an article to read while my brain warms up.
gracefully and without warning, the universe folds into itself; fractals of noise and texture are my only landmarks. words cease to hold meaning and i flounder - am i dead? how can i be sure? - My sadness flees in the face of this depth, these echoes bouncing around for miles, unyielding. i can't stop weeping, and this brings me back, occasionally, to my body. i am not sad, but determined. i gag into my own mouth. he tells me to start journaling, an hour after the medication dissolved under my tongue. to my therapist's credit, i do not think of sadness, not once; i am too busy trying to inhabit my body, move my hand, pen to paper, all to write a shaky "HOW" and immediately lose myself to my churning thoughts.
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natasharomanoff · 2 years
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okay holy fuck. so i started ketamine therapy yesterday and i can’t even describe accurately just how insightful it was. and honestly i’m not even gonna try right now, what happened last night is for me and me alone. maybe as i keep going i’ll find the language but im content right now just knowing that what happened last night is the start of something profound
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vrepit-salt · 2 years
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Special K
Signed up for special K therapy, me talking about my depression, TW for depression, S/I ideation, pain, covid mention and heavy themes under the cut
I signed up to receive ketamine infusion therapy, not only for my severe treatment-resistant depression but also apparently it’s great for chronic migraines too.
I’m going through a depressive episode, and my depression has literally never been this bad ever in my life, and nothing is helping it, not even medication and CBT. I’m to the point where I’m under so much distress I’m basically running on autopilot and even existing is a chore and I don’t know how I’m functioning rn. I feel like I’m detached from reality and I cannot physically feel positive emotions when I should. So I want to try it out before I get to the point of actually kms forreal (thought about it a few times over the past couple weeks ngl). I don’t want to do anything, not work, or go to school, or clinical, or even get up out of bed anymore. But I know I have to, or else I’m going to lose everything I’ve worked so hard for. My physical health isn’t the best right now either since covid kicked my entire ass. 
And the debilitating chronic migraines I get often cause me to essentially be out of service for a minimum of 6 hours, since I basically get a “postictal state” like in seizure cases, with me being physically and mentally drained after a migraine attack. My migraines make me vomit uncontrollably, cause vision changes, sensitivity to light, sound, temperature and touch, and at times have made me loose consciousness. The pain is severe and the only thing saving my ass so far is giving myself two sumatriptan injections in my leg. 
Gonna be posting about ketamine therapy after I receive it, since it is an experimental treatment and I want to document it here. 
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sybilsherbal · 2 years
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Depression for treatment-resistant depression, ketamine was approved in 2019 because it serves as a NMDA receptor blocker. magnesium is also an NDMA blocker.
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pearl-kite · 2 years
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Like, even now that my parents both know I have adhd and they're trying to be better about it, they still 100% don't understand that the brain cannot start on some things some times. The way my mom thought all of my depression and issues with work in November were because I forgot to refill my adderall and that it would magically fix everything? Yikes
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powerrangersystem · 9 months
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We are starting ketamine treatments again to help with a depressive episode brought on by trauma resurfacing.
We are happy to answer questions about the ketamine treatments and how it helps with both depression and trauma processing if anyone would like to ask.
Just let us know what questions you have!
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jackieblueinmyroom · 2 months
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I'm gonna get better if it fucking kills me.
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I don’t want to do ketamine treatments. I don’t want to have to go get ECT done. It’s not fair that TMS didn’t work and that my meds don’t fucking work and that I’m depressed and want to die all the time. I’m so scared.
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