So I had an appointment for therapy yesterday with a psychologist at the clinic I am hoping to get Ketamine treatment at.
Just to recap, I managed to convince my GP that the clinic was legit, led by a psychiatrist and staffed by psychologists (many who are trained in trauma), and advanced care paramedics, and that there is research data demonstrating it is helpful for people with PTSD/CPTSD. She is going to clear me to get the treatment but first I need to get my blood pressure down as high BP is a contraindication for the treatment. I started the med this week and am beginning to see lower readings but it may be a week or two before it stabilizes enough to clear me.
The therapist did know about Complex PTSD - hurrah! She got everything I told her - what a good feeling. She is going to start the paperwork for treatment rather than wait until I have the actual clearance my GP. That will reduce any delay getting an appointment as they have a waiting list. I will be assessed by a psychiatrist, will get labs done including an ECG, and I will have prep sessions with her. I feel so much safer knowing they take a lot of precautions.
I guess the prep sessions involve formulating what you intend (hope) to get from the treatment. Apparently if you know what you want it makes difference as to what you get out of it versus just going where the medication takes you. An example would be intentionally tapping into and igniting your protective and/or nurturing self to help you recover and live a more positive life. Well I am down with that that's for sure.
She said she has seen some good results with those who have CPTSD and PTSD but of course warned me to be cautious about my expectations in case it does not work well for me. That's going to be hard I admit.
So what a day yesterday. I had my call with my GP and she agreed to me reducing off Zoloft entirely and very slowly. she called a compounding pharmacy and ordered it in liquid form for me so I didn't have to try and figure out doing so with capsules and powder. She is in agreement that first I reduce the SSSRI (Zoloft), then the benzo (Lorazepam) and then the sleeping pill (Zolpidem), one at a time and each slowly.
She also increased my blood pressure medication so we can get it to where it needs to be for me to do the ketamine therapy.
I'm hopefully anxious if that makes sense.
Hi Kizzie
That's good you have your GP's support.
Hopefully anxious is about as good as it gets sometimes :) but congratulations on this path forward being available.
Tks Phil, BP was spot on when I just took it now - first time in IDK how long. ;D What a strangely lovely feeling that was.
I'm picking up the titrated Zoloft today so will start that tomorrow.
I also just now got a note from my GP saying my labs from yesterday came back good.
Onward!
Kizzie,
I'm feeling genuinely excited for you. I'm so glad your GP is helping you move forward to something that is holding real promise. HUG!!!! :hug:
Tks Papa! I so hope this will lead to my being able to try the Ketamine assisted therapy. It will be good to have you to talk to about the experience. :blahblahblah:
Everyone at the Ketamine clinic is primed and ready to move me through the process as is my GP so hope this med does the trick. I'm not sure how long she will need to see a stable BP to clear me, probably a week or two.
(Note: Just want to add a note here for anyone reading this that I am not intending to push Ketamine assisted therapy. I am going to try it because I'm out of options with conventional meds - SSRs. benzos. They worked for 30 years but not anymore so I'm having to try a new direction with my GPs blessing and support.)
:cheer: for the good news Kizzie!
Hi Kizzie,
Congrats on being able to try and give this a go. I really like what they suggested about going into it with an intention - finding your protective and nurturing self. What a great feeling that would be.
I've been taking ~.2g psilocybin 4 days on and three days off and notice a slow change. I feel I'm becoming more open (?) and that something is slowly chipping away in the background. Instead of being locked up, I think I'm more expressive as well, less worried about what people will think. It's in no way a psychedelic trip and function the same as I would without but am perhaps more self aware but also not an aha so this is what it's all about moment.
Sending you support,
dolly
Hi Dolly,
I desperately want to do what you are doing with the micro dosing. I'm getting frustrated at how I can't figure out how to get this treatment. I live in Seattle where psylocibin is now decriminalized, but I still don't know anything about it, or how to legally purchase it. My personal depression is worsening again. It's been almost 3 months since my last Ketamine Infusion, so it's time for a refresher. Ketamine works fantastically, but requires maintenance infusions a few times a year. I've scheduled a refresher for three weeks from now, but psylocibin is said to be far more effective and longer lasting than Ketamine. I just can't figure out how to get started with psylocibin.
If you have any information on where you got your information? A good website? A good magazine? I currently get Psychedelia magazine, which praises the treatment a thousand ways but doesn't tell me where to find help. I'm toying with the idea of flying to Denver and paying thousands for hotels and rental cars and flights just because they do the treatments there now.
If you're not comfortable sharing how to get started, I fully understand. So please don't feel bad if you can't help me right now. I have Ketamine right now to keep me going, but I live by the belief that when you seek you find, and if you don't seek, you don't find, and so I'm seeking, seeking, seeking, and I know I'll eventually find what I'm looking for. If not now, maybe in the near future.
Hey Papa - maybe you could start a new thread about psilocybin so it doesn't hijack this thread which is about psychological reactions to meds basically? Tks. There's actually a thread here you could add onto - https://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=12183.0. It has lots of info.
I'm interested in talking about psilocybin too as I found one of the Vancouver dispensaries you mentioned Dolly - https://mushroomdispensary.com/. They ship all across Canada so that may be my next go to. It isn't legal here yet though so I will have to think about that.
Kizzie,
Absolutely. Thanks for the links, and any further questions I have will go into a new Psylocibin thread. :)
:thumbup: Tks PC! I'm quit interested in psilocybin too although like you I''d really prefer to have an experience, knowledgeable professional helping me. I think like Ketamine, it and MDMA are right around the corner.
Have DM'd you PC
So there's a new fly in the ointment of psychological reactions to medications. I finally was able to get an appointment with a psychiatrist here in Alberta (they are like gold apparently), after trying with my GP's help and some psychiatrist colleagues of hers to find out what if any SSRI I should be on.
Turns out after taking a thorough history and assessing me he agrees that I can no longer tolerate SSRIs and should be tapering off (as my GP and I decided to do anyway). So that confirms what I've been saying for a while here now and I wanted to share it here for other members who may end up going through something like this that yes you can become intolerant to your psychiatric medications even after 30 years.
SSRIs are what are causing my 24/7 anxiety which is counterintuitive, but that's what was happening much as I thought way back in Jan and before I went through all the * of being switched to three SSRIs.
The take away is that we really do have to advocate for ourselves in the face of professionals who aren't listening well enough when we tell what is going on with us. My GP finally did as did the psychiatrist but not without a lot of painful proof that SSRIs were now causing me anxiety rather than helping with it. I guess that is the downside of science - prove to me you can't take SSRIs anymore even if it causes you a lot of suffering because you have mental health issues so it must be you not the medication.
I know I'm ranting but this has been such a long horrible period in my life and I just want to yell a bit.
Anyway, so there's another fly in the ointment and that is the psychiatrist is going to recommend to my GP that I taper off the SSRI as I am doing, but more quickly (there's a whole body of discussion/thought about how you should taper), and then start a small dose of the antipsychotic Risperidone because I do have anxiety and depression due to my CPTSD (i.e., apart from that caused by the SSRI).
I spent quite a bit of time over at the forum "Surviving Antidepressants" (https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/) when I was trying to find out if the SSRIs might be causing my anxiety. If you pop over on the site you'll see they have a LOT to say about reactions to psych meds. Anyway, now I am totally unsure about going back on anything other than the Ketamine I'm on track for. I will be discussing this with my GP on Tues. Lots and lots of questions! And now the anxiety is about what to do - can't win! :Idunno:
i get your hesitancy about taking the risperidone. kizzie, i don't want to be a downer here, just informational. i've been on risperidone and i reacted very badly to it, plus my shrink at the time didn't believe me that i was having major physical problems after only 3 days of taking it. my other thought about all this is that your shrink may not be on board w/ the whole ketamine idea and would rather prescribe 'standard' meds for treatment.
i'm glad you're going to talk to your GP. one other suggestion is to look risperidone up online to find out more about what it does, what the side effects might be, just to give you further information about how it can work in the brain and what it can cause in the body. and i agree w/ you 1000% that we have to be on top of our situation in order to communicate and advocate for ourselves w/ the professionals who are supposed to be helping us. wishing you all the best as you navigate this medication minefield! love and hugs :hug:
OMG San, I hate that you had a psych who didn't believe you. :pissed: That's a huge problem when it comes to having any mental health issue - suddenly what you have to say is suspect. Argh. So sorry you went through that. More of us need to tell our stories of being dismissed, invalidated, not having our wishes taken into account, not being given enough/proper info. There's a sense of elitism in medicine that even my son has picked up in 2nd yr - can't write about it right now because it's too painful, but we (patients) have to do much more pushing back, questioning, making our opinions/needs/wants known, etc., all to remind medical professionals we are thinking feeling human beings worthy of respect.
My GP hasn't received the report from the psych yet so is going to phone to get it expedited. In the meantime she completed my physical yesterday for the Ketamine and sent everything over to the clinic. The clinic head is off until Tues so will review everything then to see if I'm eligible. His assistant didn't think there would be problem though.
My GP isn't sure about Risperidone and Ketamine either. She does know I am very keen to try the Ketamine so I wouldn't be surprised if we do the Ketamine treatments before looking at Risperidone. It could be that I may not even need a psych med like Risperidone that ongoing Ketamine assisted psychotherapy will be enough for me. Now that would be awesome as I'd rather not take any more psychiatric meds period. The psych may push it but he's not my psych per se, more of an advisor to my GP and I and it is my choice afterall.
Oh God my heart just dropped a few feet reading Risperdone on here. I've never heard of that for anxiety, depression, or PTSD? My mom was on it. I've only heard of it being used for psychosis for bipolar and schizophrenia? I think the side effects are enormous? I can't imagine you feeling better on it...
And I'll just add sometimes my PTSD does present as hallucinations...hallucinations that seem to be flashbacks...especially smells and images. These are very different from psychotic hallucinations where you think things are real and you can't walk down the street without screaming at them.
i agree w/ everything you've said about the medical profession, kizzie. i was given risperdone when the shrink thought my bipolar (my diagnosis at the time) was worsening on my reg. meds. i was in mexico at the time and too sick to put up a decent argument in spanish. i am on meds now, but for anxiety and to help me sleep (xanax and trazadone) and they're working just fine for what they've been prescribed. trazadone is an old school anti-depressant w/ sedative effects and i'm on a small dose. but i had to fight for it cuz the other meds which were first prescribed for me did not work at all. sometimes it's a crapshoot.
i'm so glad you have a GP who is working WITH you on all this. i also agree w/ armee that there is often an elitist attitude around docs and shrinks. they may have all the book learning and can quote references by the 100's, but they don't care too much about the individual unless the symptoms are within the bell curve. the bell curve covers about 80% of clients, but that leaves 10% on either side who don't fit w/in the parameters. unfortunately, that 20% is too often ignored or dismissed.
reminds me again of the story of the black swans. no one believed in them back in the day, believed all swans were white, and dismissed stories about them w/o looking at the possibility of their existence. one day an explorer discovered them in australia and brought 2 back to his homeland for proof. now a 'black swan' is a term for something unpredicted or unpredictable. i believe we are black swans, in that we may be unlike what others want to believe about us, but we are so very beautiful just the way we are.
good luck w/ your continuing journey, kizzie. i sure do hope you find relief. love and a hug filled w/ stand your ground. :hug:
We (those who don't respond to meds in the predicted way) are the black swans, I love it San. I did not know that story by the way.
I may have posted this study already but recently a GIANT black swan was revealed in medicine about the assumed link between serotonin and depression The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrella review of the evidence (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0)
Our comprehensive review of the major strands of research on serotonin shows there is no convincing evidence that depression is associated with, or caused by, lower serotonin concentrations or activity.
The chemical imbalance theory of depression is still put forward by professionals, and the serotonin theory, in particular, has formed the basis of a considerable research effort over the last few decades. The general public widely believes that depression has been convincingly demonstrated to be the result of serotonin or other chemical abnormalities, and this belief shapes how people understand their moods, leading to a pessimistic outlook on the outcome of depression and negative expectancies about the possibility of self-regulation of mood. The idea that depression is the result of a chemical imbalance also influences decisions about whether to take or continue antidepressant medication and may discourage people from discontinuing treatment, potentially leading to lifelong dependence on these drugs .
This is not to say that SSRIs have not helped many, they have but not in ways they were thought to and for reasons not fully known.
The impact of this study is huge; as the authors suggest, doctors and patients are making life altering decisions based on flawed assumptions about anti-depressants. Yikes.
yikes, indeed, kizzie. as part of the 'helping' scene, i've been taught and have believed for years the chemical imbalance theory. it's amazing to me, once again, how much we didn't know what we didn't know. thanks for this. love and hugs :hug:
I second the 'yikes indeed'.
Armee what I've read about risperidone so far is that it is another one of those meds that is used "off label' for issues it has not been approved for by the FDA. The psych who assessed me said it would be a very small dose 5 or .5 mgs (?), but I have to wait until my GP gets his report as I couldn't hear him very well and I didn't know what to ask about it. He did see the look on my face though and said not to worry because it was going to be such a small dose. :snort:
Personally I am going to be asking the question "Can I do without it period?" especially if the Ketamine seems to help me. After everything I've been through since Jan I'm pretty much done with psychiatric meds and looking to try psychedelics paired with therapy.
good question, kizzie - i hope you get an answer that is healthy and safe for you. backing you up on this. love and hugs :hug:
Tks San, back at you :hug:
I should know more this week, maybe even tomorrow and I will be sure and pass along whatever I learn/experience with all this meds biz. We need more info on the subject, that much is clear to me.
So a lot has happened since I posted last. It has ended up that I am going with a more expensive clinic for the Ketamine treatment because with the one I started intake with I would have had to wait until at least the week of Oct 10th. Truth be told I can't do this anxiety and depression anymore. I did all the assessments for this other clinic (and there were a lot!), and will start Ketamine therapy next Fri (Sep 23). I have a team rather than a single therapist and it includes psychiatrists, psychologists, nurse practitioners and a few other specialists I haven't heard of before. They work with a lot of trauma survivors huzzah! They do a weekly case review of each client as a team so there's a lot of expertise guiding treatment. Expensive as I said but honestly my husband and I just want me to be well again so we went for it.
I am excited but also a bit of a crying wreck because not only am I tapering off the SSRI I'm on, but also the meds I was taking to help with the anxiety (a benzo and sleeping pill). Apparently they block the effects of the ketamine. It's only a week and I don't have to be right off them by next Friday, but I will start to feel anxious again because now I'm having withdrawal along with the anxiety still caused by the SSRI. It's just been a really nine long months and I don't want to go through any more anxiety period. I'm also scared the Ketamine won't work for me.
So one take away from my experience is that apparently to get the most out of the Ketamine you need to be off or reducing certain medications. It helps to know this in advance, I didn't and it threw me big time. I thought I could take the meds I was using to keep the anxiety at bay right up until I started Ketamine and then taper off and it would be fairly easy because I would be feeling better and wouldn't need them. So much for that idea!
As hard as this is if you do choose to try Ketamine therapy and the clinic doesn't require this you may want to find one that does so you get the most out of the treatment. Ketamine is a money maker and it's likely not all clinics are doing the best by their clients.
good advice, kizzie.
i am so glad you're having a team effort to surround you as you begin this leg of your journey. fingers crossed and prayers flying that you get some relief from what you've been experiencing for way too long. that withdrawal stuff is so horrible. standing with you as you enter this phase, and hoping heartily that the ketamine works for you. sending love and a hug to embrace you and this new endeavor, :bighug:
Hi Kizzie
Hugs, hugs, hugs. :hug: :hug: :hug:
I was about to check in with you.
I'm glad you were able to move your Ketamine infusion forward with a new clinic, and I'm glad to hear that you are going to be surrounded by more clinicians with Trauma experience.
While I waited for my first infusion, I was so depressed I was seriously concerned for my life. I too was very terrified that the Ketamine wouldn't work. It was my biggest fear going in. The fact that it helped immediately, was my greatest relief coming out.
As for this next week as you're coming off all the medications, I am sending as much love as I can through the ether. Prayers. Meditations. Healing energy. Whatever we all call it. In spirit I'll be contributing as much healing energy as I can to you every day.
A lot of people care about you, even those of us who haven't met you face to face. Feel us with you.
That must have been a huge shock to suddenly have to taper quickly. I feel really relieved for you though that it is happening soon and that you have a good strong team of specialists supporting you. Big strong hugs holding you up until the 23rd and then some, OK? We're holding you here.
Tk you so much San, :hug: Papa :hug: and Armee, :hug: I so need more support in my life than I have allowed up until now and I hope the Ketamine therapy will help me be more open to that. I'm good at giving support, not so good at asking for it.
I think of you a lot these days Papa and hang onto how you felt going to your first infusion and then how quickly you felt better. I hope the same holds true for me and that at some point soon we will both have access to psilocybin therapy. It would be the icing on the therapy cake ;D
The psychiatrist who did my assessment this week (very long and thorough - was exhausted afterward), said something to the effect that she thinks the treatment will pop me out of the trauma track I'm stuck on. At this point you can shoot me out of a canon if that's what it takes.
So sadly the first session of Ketamine treatment went quite badly as I've written elsewhere (I think I have, in a bit of a muddle still). I was extremely anxious when I went, the dose they gave me was too high (and the lead psychiatrist admitted this to me), and the protective part of me stopped everything about 3/4's of the way in and said "No more, this is too much."
I really crashed in the days after that but was able to talk with both my GP and the lead psychiatrist and I am going to try again at a much lower dose and once I can get my anxiety to settle a bit. Instead of putting me on an antipsychotic Risperidone like the psych who assessed me at the end of Aug suggested (and which could take weeks to work), the clinic psych put me on 500 mg of Gabapentin 3 times daily with my GPs blessing. Apparently Gabapentin can calm anxiety fairly quickly - we'll see. The clinic psych strongly believes that Ketamine is one of best/strongest antidepressants available but we just need to lower my anxiety which has gone over the top and approach me in a softer/gentler manner or my fear responses will kick in again.
On a really positive note, yesterday I finished tapering off the SSRI I was on. Done with SSRIs after 30 years on them, wahoo!! :cheer: :phoot:
Thank you for the update, Kizzie.
I've been feeling a lot of concern over you and your situation. What GREAT news that you've concluded your SSRI treatments. I hope the Gabapentin does its job and gets your anxiety under control. My wife uses Gabapentin with great success to keep her anxiety, and her fibromyalgia, and her Ehlers Danlos Syndrome under control. With Gabapentin, she can sleep well at night and relax during the day. I've often wondered if I should ask my doctor for a prescription of it also. I've never taken one, so I don't know how it works. But it sure seems to help Coco. (She's Gramma Coco and I'm Papa Coco).
My fingers are crossed that the Gabapentin is as good for you as it is for Coco.
I'm so sorry they overdosed you on Ketamine. I mean, I'm real sorry. I had hopes that your first experience would be as magical as mine was. I now hope that you're able to go into your next, reduced dose, with a lot more peace and success.
They did start me off on a reduced dose for the purpose of testing how I responded to it. But I had already brought my anxiety down by going 100% No Contact with the news prior to the treatment.
On a personal note: I've never taken Gabapentin, but I think I told you that I've reduced my anxiety by going Full No Contact with news. The news is an EF trigger for me. Since March, the only news I've been willing to watch or read was the local reports on the wildfires threatening my sons' homes. Almost every news story is an EF trigger for me. Having been bullied nearly to death, and knowing that my beautiful little sister WAS bullied to death, I can't even LOOK at the bullying that's being allowed to flourish in today's world without going into major EF anxiety. So, I don't look. Avoidance is my strategy for now. I live with my head in the sand and it's working for me. But, no kidding, just reading headlines about how so many politicians and corporate scum keep getting away with being sick, sociopathic, mass bullies, can send me into an EF tailspin that lasts for several sleepless nights and anxiety-ridden days. So, NO contact of any kind with world news is the only way I can keep my anxiety in check.
I sincerely hope you are able to quickly find whatever strategy works for you.
Big hug. :bighug:
Yes, it was a bit of a banner day finally tapering off the SSRIs after 30 years on them, 30 years for heaven's sake and I never questioned being on them and none of the GPs I had ever did either (I had a lot of different docs because my H was military and we moved a lot) . Once I am doing better anxiety/depression wise with the Ketamine treatment I will taper off the Lorazepam and Zolpidem. I hope to be "clean" by Christmas.
I have to say the Gabapentin is working quite well, not taking away the anxiety entirely but reducing it substantially. I was so bound and bent I needed a psychiatric med like Risperidone to get the anxiety down to a level where I could function (I really was falling apart), and here the clinic psych prescribes something I'm already using for Restless Legs Syndrome.
All I can say is halleluiah I have something that worked that fast without any noticeable side effects and will get me back to the Ketamine treatments. The psych was quite adamant Ketamine is the best (legal) anti-depressant available so I'm game to try again. I will be talking with him today so we'll see what he has to say. Now that the Gabapentin has worked some magic I'm ready to try again. I did tell him twice now at some point I'd like an explanation of why I suddenly developed such bad anxiety, why nothing my GP and I tried helped reduce it, and why he and his colleague who assessed me came to conclude I was actually suffering from clinical depression. I've had a few bad depressive episodes in the past and they looked much different than this. :Idunno: I am a just want to Know kind of person.
Re the news and anxiety, I haven't watched the news in a very long time for the reason you suggest, it drives my anxiety way up. I don't even watch many TV shows as most are too much right now. They have to be funny/ gentle, and there's not a lot of those out there. I like the show "Ghosts" both the UK and US versions and James Harriet's All Creatures Great and Small, that's my kind of entertainment at the moment. It's too bad because I used to love all kinds of shows and movies. Hopefully the Ketamine will help me not to absorb the bad things quite as much as I do at the moment. It's like the article you shared about N's and the tip to observe not absorb. Right now I just absorb anything grimy or abusive or greedy and it's just too much. I don't know if you watch The Good Fight (one show I can watch still most of the time), but in the latest episode one of the main characters goes for Ketamine treatments because she is depressed by what is happening in the world and one of the things she does is stops doom scrolling on all her devices. Sounds like us doesn't it?! So we're not alone in the anxiety all the media coverage is causing if it's showing up as a theme in TV series.
So sorry to hear your son(s) have wildfires to deal with by the way. My H and I know what that's like as we had fire on three sides of us the year we moved here to the wide open spaces of Alberta. We do get grass fires here but they get on those quite quickly and there's not the same amount of fuel or rough terrain issues to deal with like in BC. It was a nightmare there.
It's so nice to have you to talk to about this Ketamine journey Papa, thanks so much for being open about your experience and for your support. It means a lot. :hug:
kizzie, i smiled to myself while reading about how limited are the shows you can now watch. got the same thing going on here, not only for absorbing the gruesome but also because of triggers. same w/ movies. i've been enjoying young adult fantasy shows (gets me out of this world) and stuff like baking/cooking competitions (no triggers, cuz i don't really cook). i give you a lot of credit for staying away from the news. i go in spits and spurts, but turn it off much sooner now.
keep up the good work! so glad you're moving forward w/ the meds and looking at more ketamine on the horizon. you've done an amazing job hanging in with all this. love and hugs :hug:
Kizzie,
I'm so glad you and your psyche are making these positive changes in your medicines. I'm starting to feel some hope that you've taken an important left turn in your long-running path toward healing. For 30 years, your GP has just been giving you more and more drugs. But a few weeks back, you decided to alter course, and I'm feeling hopeful that it's the best thing you could have done.
I'm with you on the TV shows and movies too. There can be NO sociopaths, NO bullies, NO liars getting the better of the good people...or I shut it off. I like Ghosts, and lately I've been watching the old TV sitcoms of the 80s and 90s. Golden Girls, Fraiser, Monk, Newsradio, New Girl, Cheers, Taxi, even the old 1967 Batman series. The bad guys weren't that bad in those TV shows. And the laughs are so good for my mood. Golden Girls, Fraiser, and a new show called The Wonder Years can get me laughing harder than most other shows put together. And it's such a relief to have no truly evil villains in the show. Just mindless one-liners and hysterical plots.
The Gabapentin is what keeps my wife going. I am very glad to hear it's giving you a noticeable relief to your anxiety.
That's a great idea about watching some of the older shows - hadn't thought of that but you're right they weren't as gritty. My H mentioned Gilmore Girls which we both loved, but yes so many shows like Frasier too. :thumbup:
San - if you like young adult shows (and can download), try an Australian show called Mystic. There's also a US show called Locke and Key and a new one out called The Paper Girls that are pretty good.
Oh I did really like the Paper Girls!