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Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits' for depression

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits' for depression

#91

Post by psyc »

empath75 wrote: post #78

In the late 90s/early 2000s, I went to a lot of raves and everyone who partied and took club drugs used ecstasy and ketamine regularly, often in combination. A lot of people that I used to hang out with back then are on a private email list now, where we talk about more boring stuff like our families and jobs and so on, since everyone basically aged out of the scene in our early 30s. I recently made a post about how…

I recognize this kind of story. I also suffered pretty horrendous abuse from both parents growing up. I partly credit weed for self-treatment of extreme social anxiety, and being able to get out into the world and function, if only poorly. I also took LSD and MDMA, but not nearly as much. I'll certainly credit LSD with ... other things, but that's another story.

Re: Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits' for depression

#92

Post by ada1981 »

saasthrowaway3 wrote: post #31
TTPrograms wrote: post #22

If you're an American, every time you read a new article on Ketamine for depression your thought should be "Jeese, healthcare is screwed up". Pharma companies don't benefit from getting Ketamine approved (since it's no longer patent protected), so no one is putting it through FDA for depression. As a result insurance will never cover it (under the current model). The reason this treatment isn't mainstream isn't becau…

Do you think something like "FDA-approval of Ketamine" could be successfully crowdfunded?

It's happened with MDMA via maps.org

Why not? Probably need about $25M - $50M

Also Ketamine seems to be pallative vs. a cure, if I'm not mistaken.

Re: Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits' for depression

#93

Post by voidmain »

sneak wrote: post #44
Brybry wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://adisinsight.springer.com/drugs/800037644 The very article you're commenting on directly contradicts what you're saying. Big pharma is actively running studies and trying to get this fast tracked for treatment in the US and Europe. Granted the article is somewhat poor reporting because the title should read "esketamine" not ketamine.

esketamine is simply the S-ketamine stereoisomer. TFA calls it part of the ketamine molecule but it is the ketamine molecule.

Yeah, this is basically a variation of the POTAXOR strategy [1]. Well, whatever it takes to get it into the hands of sick people! But I think it is a commentary on the system that it will take decades after we had good evidence for ketamine's effectiveness.

[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/15/fish-now-by-prescriptio...

Re: Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits' for depression

#94

Post by ergothus »

patricius wrote: post #49
TTPrograms wrote: post #22

If you're an American, every time you read a new article on Ketamine for depression your thought should be "Jeese, healthcare is screwed up". Pharma companies don't benefit from getting Ketamine approved (since it's no longer patent protected), so no one is putting it through FDA for depression. As a result insurance will never cover it (under the current model). The reason this treatment isn't mainstream isn't becau…

Getting a drug approved by the FDA is pretty expensive. Abolishing the FDA, thereby reducing the cost of introducing the drug, might be the real solution here.

Honest question: consumers are notoriously ill-informed, companies are good at propaganda and fake "clinical" evidence, and finding out if medicines ate effective AND safe is really complex.

How do you imagine abolishing the FDA would improve outcomes instead of increasing supplies (and marketing) of snake oil?

Re: Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits' for depression

#95

Post by toomanybeersies »

mabbo wrote: post #87
pw wrote: post #7

My girlfriend receives ketamine treatment for her depression, so I’ve the results first hand. It’s truly astounding. She’s seen more improvement from the ketamine than from a decade of psychotherapy and traditional psychopharmacology. The only downside is the cost (it’s not covered by insurance) and the potential that there are long term side effects that have yet to be discovered. We pay $375 for a 40-minute infusio…

> We pay $375 for a 40-minute infusion Having no knowledge on the matter, what's the price comparison to just buying ketamine illegally and taking it without a doctor's help? Depression is like (or possibly is ) a form of chronic pain. People suffering from it severely might be willing to do anything for relief. Here's good information that a currently-illegal drug can help but if you want to do it legally you might…

Ket will set you back anywhere from $50-$150 per gram, depending on where in the world you are, and is of varying quality. It looks like they're using up to 1/2 a gram for treatment.

I think the most of that $375 goes towards staffing costs, rather than the drug itself. Ketamine though legitimate channels costs about $5-$10 per gram from what I've heard.

Re: Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits' for depression

#96

Post by toomanybeersies »

herbst wrote: post #85

Just as a different perspective ketamine is (and was) pretty common in my circle and the idea that it works as anti depressant slowly faded. It never really worked for me as that, at least not more than lsd or so would. And some friends claim that it has way less effect on them today even thought it seemed have to worked before. It may is the abuse (probably higher amount on some occasions) it may are long term effec…

Mowing up a gram of ket every weekend is going to kill any therapeutic benefits you get from it.

That's different to a small dose once a month in a medically supervised environment.

One big problem with recreational drugs (from personal experience) is that you get conditioned to them if you overuse them, then life seems sort of shit without them.

With MDMA, you can even permanently lose the magic if you take too much too often.

Re: Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits' for depression

#97

Post by ada1981 »

sgift wrote: post #62
proverbialbunny wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't ketamine stimulate growth in the same areas of the brain that exercise does, and does therapy prescribe routine daily exercise? I can imagine there being a great short term benefit to ketamine, as people who are severely depressed can't exercise due to the depression. Has there been any mention switching from ketamine to daily exercise, or doing both?

How often did you have depression? Especially major depressive episodes where you have trouble to even motivate yourself to move out of the bed or do ANYTHING but just "exist" and even that seems hard? If the answer is zero (which I think it is) do those who have it a favor and shut up. Depression is hard enough without "you just have to exercise, huahua" comments.

I over came decades of suicidal depression (as well as schizophrenia and bipolar) with a self concocted protocol which included psychedelics and now don't take traditional meds.

I read the OPs intention as "use K to get the person back from the bottom of depression and then leverage that boost in mood to start a habit of excersize"

That seems reasonable and a good approach. You want to reinvest the motivation and better mood into relationships and behaviors that will continue to compound feeling good.

I'd also recommend Gratitude as a practice and ultimately some sort of somatic work where you are encouraged to go deeply into any uncomfortable feelings with your full body.

Re: Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits' for depression

#98

Post by ada1981 »

themodelplumber wrote: post #15

Ketamine is an anesthetic. Has anyone compared it to e.g. ibuprofen for this use case? Ibuprofen works very well for me when experiencing depressive symptoms. I'm down to about 2h max per depressive episode (logged at 10-30 depressing thoughts per minute, compared to none after). Mechanism intuitively "feels" inflammatory and looking at my logs seems related to exhaustion due to over-productivity, lack of rest, etc.

Your emotional body is your physical body, to a large degree. Emotional pain can be mitigated with ibuprofen just as easily as physical pain can.

Congrats on the self study and experimentation and on finding an over the counter solution.

Have you tried any non-ordinary states of concioisness work, like Holotropic Breathwork?

Re: Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits' for depression

#99

Post by collyw »

saasthrowaway3 wrote: post #31
TTPrograms wrote: post #22

If you're an American, every time you read a new article on Ketamine for depression your thought should be "Jeese, healthcare is screwed up". Pharma companies don't benefit from getting Ketamine approved (since it's no longer patent protected), so no one is putting it through FDA for depression. As a result insurance will never cover it (under the current model). The reason this treatment isn't mainstream isn't becau…

Do you think something like "FDA-approval of Ketamine" could be successfully crowdfunded?

Clinical trials a pretty damned expensive.

Re: Ketamine has 'fast-acting benefits' for depression

#100

Post by ada1981 »

empath75 wrote: post #78

In the late 90s/early 2000s, I went to a lot of raves and everyone who partied and took club drugs used ecstasy and ketamine regularly, often in combination. A lot of people that I used to hang out with back then are on a private email list now, where we talk about more boring stuff like our families and jobs and so on, since everyone basically aged out of the scene in our early 30s. I recently made a post about how…

And also the power of music, dance, community. The archaic revival.
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