I enjoy ketamine recreationally. No thank you to electrocution.
Study: Electroshock therapy more successful for depression than ketamine
111–120 of 176 posts
Re: Study: Electroshock therapy more successful for depression than ketamine
#112“The side effect profiles of the two treatments differed, with ECT more likely to cause headaches, muscle pain and memory loss, while ketamine was more likely to cause dissociative symptoms, vertigo and double vision.” I’ll take milder effects over pain and memory loss, thanks. No mention of longevity of effect, or specific studies and who paid for them.
The headaches and muscle pain are temporary. But the memory loss is severe and while not truly hindering, definitely life altering. Years are just blurred together. Some things and people just aren’t there and it’s really hard for me to remember on my own. It more changes the relationship you have with your memory.
Maybe, maybe, the current psychological state of a person is a result of past happenings, and actually losing memories is what makes the method work?
Re: Study: Electroshock therapy more successful for depression than ketamine
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Severe depression has objective symptoms: severe sleep disturbances, psychotic like symptoms.
In my very unscientific opinion, severe sleep disturbances is usually a cause, not an effect. Watch people get sleep problems, a few days of that, and then the mental health issues kick in. Or cause sleep problems (stimulants or environmental), then see mental health issues produced. The opposite can happen (mental health problem leads to sleeping problems) but in my circles I haven’t seen that as often. Of course th…
I strongly agree.
But if you’re sleeping 18 hours a day, that’s not just a cause of depression, it’s an effect.
Re: Study: Electroshock therapy more successful for depression than ketamine
#114How does it compare to peyote?
Re: Study: Electroshock therapy more successful for depression than ketamine
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
The musician Townes Van Zandt underwent ECT and the loss of his memory haunted him his whole (very tragic) life. It's well-known how deep of an impact that had on him, and not for the better. As if the often pleasant, often interesting, often terrifying yet short term and proven harmless side-effects of Ketamine can even compare to the ECT! I would like to see how _much_ better ECT is, given all the factors. Addition…
According to Wikipedia it was insulin shock therapy, not ECT, that cost Townes Van Zandt his memory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townes_Van_Zandt#Early_life I heard a Radio Lab episode in which a sufferer of chronic depression said that he hyperventilated before ECT to minimize memory effects.
Thank you for the correction!
Re: Study: Electroshock therapy more successful for depression than ketamine
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
ECT, due to the potential side effects and Ketamine due to how recent it is are both near the "last lines of defence". IRRC both of them cannot compare to psychotherapy, which has far higher effectiveness at the cost of far more resources.
In the beginning we only had psychotherapy and it was like 15-30% successful IIRC.. so no, not necessarily.
I think it's a reasonable assumption that psychotherapy has improved since the 1940s/1950s when alternative medicines came out.
Re: Study: Electroshock therapy more successful for depression than ketamine
#117After dealing with depression myself, I dove deeply into this world, and actually ended up founding a ketamine and esketamine treatment startup in the Boston area (lumin.health). We've seen pretty amazing results with patients who have otherwise failed antidepressants and/or ECT and TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation). The reality is that ketamine/esketamine are much more accessible from a patient perspective, an…
One rumination I have had about the medical application of psychedelics is to wonder how lasting the effects of all these initial studies will be over the long term.
The effects of psychedelics are profound to a person who hasn't experienced them, which is the vast majority of people today. I think, when a person goes through a powerful experience they've never had, it makes them a lot more suggestive, which in turn makes therapies more effective. Will this still be the case if psychedelics usage is normalized? When a person knows what to expect out of the drug will they still remain as suggestible to therapy?
My own experience with psychedelics tells me no: once you become familiar with the effects the "high" loses some of it's properties that make it a useful tool for introspection.
I haven't done psychedelics in a purely therapeutic setting so there may be something to my observation that I'm missing completely.
Re: Study: Electroshock therapy more successful for depression than ketamine
#118After dealing with depression myself, I dove deeply into this world, and actually ended up founding a ketamine and esketamine treatment startup in the Boston area (lumin.health). We've seen pretty amazing results with patients who have otherwise failed antidepressants and/or ECT and TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation). The reality is that ketamine/esketamine are much more accessible from a patient perspective, an…
One rumination I have had about the medical application of psychedelics is to wonder how lasting the effects of all these initial studies will be over the long term. The effects of psychedelics are profound to a person who hasn't experienced them, which is the vast majority of people today. I think, when a person goes through a powerful experience they've never had, it makes them a lot more suggestive, which in turn…
Ketamine’s effects on depression are not caused by the hallucinations or psychedelic effects.
I can’t speak to other hallucinogens but I would imagine the situation is the same there. The day after an acid trip isn’t a new neurochemical environment because of the powerful hallucinations the day before, it is something else.
> My own experience with psychedelics tells me no: once you become familiar with the effects the "high" loses some of it's properties that make it a useful tool for introspection.
My own experiences run directly counter to this assertion.
Re: Study: Electroshock therapy more successful for depression than ketamine
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's studies from the 80's & 90's showing direct destruction of neurons in mice and chimpanzees with depression like symptoms. Depression it seems literally eats away at the brain, at least in mammals, likely due to inflammation. What's perplexed me is why this mechanism would occur in evolutionary terms, or if it's really just a byproduct.
Did those studies show a causal direction of depression causing neural destruction? My current notion is that the causality is reversed - chronic oxidative stress and neuroinflammation cause physical damage to the brain, which results in depression-like symptoms (e.g. low mood, poor memory, loss of motivation etc.). If this turns out to be correct, then there is a clear physiological cause of depression which can be…
Omega-6 oils are the foundation of the body's inflammatory response: more Omega-6 -> more inflammation (prostaglandins are made from Omega 6 [0]). My friend was eating an Omega-6 heavy diet. Omega 6 can't be diluted with Omega-3, the only way to fix the problem is to reduce all polyunsaturated oil consumption.
My breakthrough 'intervention' was frying whole wheat donuts in coconut oil. Coconut oil is brain food for alcoholics.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostaglandin#Biosynthesis
Re: Study: Electroshock therapy more successful for depression than ketamine
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most states have provisions for involuntary mental health treatment. Arizona's laws for forced mental health treatment are in ARS Title 36, Chapter 5: https://www.azleg.gov/arsDetail/?title=36 As soon as the doctors got their order for involuntary treatment in November 2015, they cornered my friend and injected her with a time-release version of haloperidol, then released her to her mother's house. A day and a half l…
I'm sorry your friend went through all of that. I've had friends and immediate family in similar situations. It's a genuinely impossible situation to navigate. Sometimes these situations turn out tragically because the patient was involuntarily given drugs, sometimes they turn out tragically because the patient wasn't. I'm surprised they went with a time release injection -- from the sounds of it, when you say "time…
She'd made a deal with the devil: they agreed to release her from their September 2015 pursuit of an order for involuntary treatment if she agreed to take haloperidol voluntarily. We picked up the prescription, but she resumed drinking the day she was released. Her alcohol consumption got progressively worse, but I had no authority to intervene. After a week+ I took her liquor bottle away anyways, even though I did not have legal authority to do this. 10 hours later I witnessed full-on alcohol withdrawal psychosis.
When she got captured again, their thinking was "she's obviously back here because she didn't take her haloperidol". They never asked me about her alcohol consumption.
Whitaker's book points out that the Quakers' asylums fed people 4 meals a day and provided activities. iirc around 80% of the patients recovered to the point where they could leave the asylum. Think that was covered in Mad In America.
The psychotic patients who do the best, long term, are those who are never treated with antipsychotics. Those who do second best are those who are tapered off antipsychotics promptly. Those who do the worst are those who are maintained on antipsychotics in perpetuity.