Ketamine Assisted Therapy

[Kizzie]

This is a cut and paste from my journal, but I thought the info should be here as well.

I am so disappointed the Ketamine didn't work for me and made things worse in fact, but it's a cautionary tale for those thinking about this treatment. I still believe it is very promising, but that there just isn't enough research yet regarding dosage, therapy that compliments the psychedelics, and patients/clients ability to deal with psychedelic aspects of it. 

I hated doing the tripping part frankly and stayed at a dose of 175 while another woman there yesterday was up to 550 (she was stoned, right out of it and could not even put a sentence together afterward in the 'reflection' time we have after session.  My red flag went up frankly. Anyway, investigate the clinic you choose carefully, very carefully, and make sure it is more on the medical side than a business entity trying to pull in the bucks.  Listen to your gut.

I am still quite interested in Ketmaine or psilocybin but won't try them unless I am 'clean", that is not using other medications.  That's where I think I got messed up. Using benzos or Z class drugs like Zolpidem can inhibit the effects which is why I don't think it worked for me. I don't think they should have let me into the program but hey it's $7500 and that's hard to pass up.  I was also put on another quite high dose of Gabapentin by the head psych which my GP is convinced now likely led to the breakdowns and we are now tapering off of or at least down.  The head psych also upped my Ativan to help with the breakdowns.  Anyway, when you put it all together, as good as a clinic may have seemed (4 psychiatrists for heaven's sake), they are not all good.  The fact that I ended up having major breakdowns (which they tried to say where progress, the trauma walls breaking down - can't fathom what they thought people would do after only 6 sessions which the programs was). and was put on yet another med and more of Ativan which is a no no - just spoke volumes to my GP and I.  Get outta there!

I did want to give the clinic another chance as the head psych had agreed my therapy session be less focused on digging up very difficult trauma and focusing on positive/resiliency themes  instead and to their credit they did.  However, I found out in the middle of the session she was an Occupational Therapist with trauma training versus a psychologist.  Nothing against OTs whatsoever, but they are not remotely knowledgeable enough working with a survivor in a depressive episode with Complex PTSD. You need much deeper trauma  training and skills.

So I decided to leave the clinic, either just to pause until the TMS is done and go back for the final two sessions if my depression has lifted and they will allow that (the head psych said I could do so but things change when it's crunch time so we'll see).  There is a proviso in the contract that if you are leaving for health reasons you can get a portion of your money back.  I'm quite certain my GP will back me up leaving entirely based on my worsening mental health because of the treatment at the clinic,  but again it may be a fight to get any funds back. 

I still do believe psychedelic assisted therapy holds great promise for those of us with CPTSD, I just think now we need to be very, very cautious about what clinic we choose, that we are ready for the actual psychedelic part and we are surrounded and supported by very experienced and advanced trauma professionals.  Sadly, it seems a lot of 'professionals' are hanging out their shingles because it's a big old irresistible cash cow.

[Papa Coco]

Dang.

I'm so sorry it wasn't a great experience for you.

I hope that you're able to get clean and to also find the right clinic before trying it again.

The differences between your experience and mine are that I wasn't on any medications when I started, and I have been dealing with crushing depression while you've been dealing with anxiety. Our pendulums are on opposite ends of the CPTSD Spectrum for the time being.

As for me, Ketamine is a good experience, but it's only an infusion in a quiet office. It's relaxing and helpful, but I wish I could experience having a therapist in the room working IFS with me while I'm in the zone. I wonder how much better doing IFS at the same time as Ketamine would work as a permanent improvement to my chronic depression.

[dollyvee]

Like Papa Coco said, I'm sorry the Ketamine wasn't a great experience.

Maybe seeing a psychologist outside the clinic who has a background in both integrating psychedelic experiences and extensive trauma training would be helpful as a second opinion?

[Papa Coco]

Ketamine, an open mind, and odd animal friendships

Before I post, I want to say that people respond to Ketamine Infusions in different ways. I have a body that, for some reason, reacts to stimulants very, very quickly. I can get stoned on sugar. I was a raging alcoholic who, for many years, passed out drunk on my third drink. I can feel serious hyper anxiety and a sharp rise in my Blood Pressure from the sodium in my blood if I ate too much processed food the day before. So, the fact that these Ketamine Infusions affect me so strongly is kind of "par for the course" for me. My practitioner tells me that I'm in the upper end of her clients who respond quickly to the KIs. There are others who respond even better than I do, but I'm doing pretty well. Statistically, most people respond positively to the KIs. They are worth looking into for anyone who has them available to them.

I post this as FYI Information for those who are wondering what Ketamine is, and if it is worth trying.  I'm not an expert, I don't know how Ketamine affects others. I am simply sharing witness to my own experience in case anyone is interested in researching it.

----

I had my 9th Ketamine infusion on Saturday. New research is showing that Ketamine opens the mind, and it remains open for 24-48 hours, and that patients who spend those 48 hours focused on happiness are able to go longer between treatments. One article I found online says that those who look at photos of smiles while connected to the Ketamine IV have even more success yet.

I spent the last two days googling "Happy People" and running images after images of smiles. I found myself drawn mostly to smiles outside the US. People who are not trapped in the hedonistic treadmill, whose smiles and laughter are tied to human connection rather than monetary status or gain. The pictures that drew me downward a bit were all those staged photos of young, attractive American business people cheering and jumping and smiling, most likely because they just took someone else's money, or got their first German car, or their first corner office....yuck!

Every time I leave a Ketamine Infusion, I spend the next few days NOT attached to my possessions, but looking for human connection, because for those few days I see the truth, that true happiness is in those human connections. I find myself leaving the house more often, and stopping to talk to store clerks, smiling and laughing with neighbors, NOT wanting to isolate the way I normally do.

For me, my 45 minutes in the Ketamine infusion are 45-minute visits with some sort of divine consciousness, where I feel equal to all other people, and like my earthly problems are a hundred percent moot in the bigger picture.  That tends to stay with me for a few days afterward.

One of the topics I went to YouTube to watch was "Odd Animal Friends". I selected one that had a kind of a documentary dialogue going with all the pictures of odd animal couples. I knew that seeing the unconditional love between an elephant and a dog, or a cat and a duck, would warm my heart and bombard me with happy thoughts of pure love while my mind was opened by the Ketamine. The dialogue of the video I selected taught that animals who are connected to their own herds almost never build friendships outside their species. But an elephant whose been left alone and a dog who was rescued and is now alone will bond as tightly as if they were siblings. Naturally, I see that in my own life. When my own FOO finally became so ugly that I couldn't pretend to love them any longer, I found myself feeling sort of like a late life orphan, and I quickly bonded more tightly with the non FOO people in my life. It drew me much closer to my wife and son and prepared me to be more deeply connected with my daughter-in-law when she came into our lives, and then my grandsons. I was nearly killed and eaten by my own herd, and then rescued by people from other herds, and I found a bond that was better, stronger, more pure than that FOO crapola I'd been tricked by for 50 years.