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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

#171

Post by laythea »

jtmcmc wrote: post #155
marsrover wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for a little anecdotal evidence: I ate some psychedelic mushrooms multiple times about 8 years and and haven't been depressed since. I was previously diagnosed with clinical depression and took a moderate amount of Seroquel for it. I haven't taken anything since and I've been great.

counter anecdote i know massive amounts of people who have taken psychedelics that are depressed. similarly for ketamine.

Without specifying the relative proportion of those who went up, in your experience, along with the massive amount of people who went down, your counter anecdote is weakly armed.

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

#172

Post by sibeliuss »

rincebrain wrote: post #148
nylonstrung wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ketamine and its analogs are known to have a rapidly developing and profoundly durable (some even say permanent) tolerance, and I find this is often glossed over, especially when studies don't evaluate it over a long enough time period I think Ketamine itself isn't a real solution but hopefully some of the isolated metabolites will be

Yeah, I would hope that we find more durable solutions. I know some people have been on it for an extended interval without any sort of tolerance problem, which is how I initially heard about it firsthand, so it's one more of those strange biochemistry things that's inconsistent, because of course it is. The interesting thing, to me, would be figuring out what the method of action is for the effect, in order to repli…

I'm curious about whether you've tried to push the dosages into more psychedelic ranges and whether that had an effect? Many researchers seem to think that at sub-dissociative levels the effectiveness is less, as the _experience_ of that state is what alleviates the depression, not the chemical (so to speak).

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

#173

Post by atomical »

DanBC wrote: post #76
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?

The difference is that ketamine shows positive results in clinical trials (even for severe depression) while exercise doesn't, unless you include poor quality trials and you limit results to mild depression.

The results are limited for Ketamine too.

http://www.cochrane.org/CD011612/DEPRESSN_ketamine-and-other...

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

#174

Post by rincebrain »

sibeliuss wrote: post #172
rincebrain wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I would hope that we find more durable solutions. I know some people have been on it for an extended interval without any sort of tolerance problem, which is how I initially heard about it firsthand, so it's one more of those strange biochemistry things that's inconsistent, because of course it is. The interesting thing, to me, would be figuring out what the method of action is for the effect, in order to repli…

I'm curious about whether you've tried to push the dosages into more psychedelic ranges and whether that had an effect? Many researchers seem to think that at sub-dissociative levels the effectiveness is less, as the _experience_ of that state is what alleviates the depression, not the chemical (so to speak).

Most sub-dissociative levels were probably with nasal sprays; I can assure you, this was definitely dissociative levels every time, via IV.

We tried increasing the dosage, which made the dissociation more potent, but had no improved psychiatric benefits for me.

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

#175

Post by atomical »

psyc wrote: post #88
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.

Ketamine isn't a pain reliever. It's a dissociative hallucinogen. It works by disconnecting you from sensory input and putting you in something like a lucid dream.

This isn't true. Ketamine infusions are also administered to patients with chronic pain.

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

#176

Post by mabbo »

rincebrain wrote: post #140

I've posted this in other ketamine news stories before, but I'm offering it as a firsthand testimonial here. Ketamine was both the best and most depressing depression treatment option I've ever tried. Within a couple of weeks after having had the initial round of six treatments in two weeks, I was the most functional and productive human being I've _ever_ been - things that used to be impossible or utterly agonizing…

Your story reminds me of "Flowers for Algernon" (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003WJQ74E). If you haven't read it, you might enjoy it for the parallels.

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

#177

Post by GordonS »

anythingnonidin wrote: post #4

Main upsides of Ketamine for depression vs typical antidepressants (SSRIs, etc) - Ketamine seems to have a much larger effect size (-~0.99 [1] vs -~0.35 for typical antidepressants [2]) [If anyone spots an error, please let me know] For context, an SMD of 0.2 is small, >0.5 is medium, and >0.8 is large.[3] To me this seems to be by far the most important/interesting thing: Ketamine seems to have a much stronger antid…

Anyone know why it always seems to be given as an infusion, and not any other route?

If it was just about bioavailability, I guess they'd just give large oral doses.

I recall reading of people self treating with ketamine off the darknet, and I imagine they are not giving themselves an infusion?

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

#178

Post by OnMyPhone »

antihero wrote: post #103
tmsh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. I’m in a similar boat. Some other tidbits of information: - only thing that seemed to work even after TMS and other treatments. - New pathways (SF and San Mateo locations) is really good. - more and more treatment places opening up in different cities etc. - uber assist or drive the patient home (full lucidity afterwards but you don’t want to drive). - long-term benefits aren’t apparent after the first t…

How easy would it be to do this at home by snorting half a gram but over the course of an hour?

Half gram would knock you out cold.

A better "close to k-hole" dose would be 100mg. At least based on our experiences 100mg would get some people in the hole, while it took some others 50mg - 100mg more.

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

#180

Post by OnMyPhone »

sneak wrote: post #46
mathieuh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a chemist either but as someone who as partaken and knows other people who have also partaken, the dosages you have to take in order for this to become an issue are way beyond what would seem reasonable for someone who's not heavily dependent and tolerant. You would have to be taking grams and grams of the stuff on the regular; infrequent or one-off dosages won't cause bladder damage. Edit: even in the articl…

My guess is that 0.5-1g/day, if ingested every day, is sufficient to cause bladder damage. However, for use as an antidepressant, 100-200mg (0.1-0.2g) twice a month is sufficient, so it shouldn’t be an issue.

"However, for use as an antidepressant, 100-200mg (0.1-0.2g) twice a month is sufficient, so it shouldn’t be an issue. "

I will second that. A friend would use around that much and it would last almost 2 full weeks without feeling the need to take another 100mg. Once the 2 weeks hit though, he could feel his depression / anxiety coming back slowly.

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