Thank you for this info, I have heard of ketamine but I haven't talked to anyone who tried it. What was the price range for it? And how often did you need to do it? I hope that you can find another treatment that can last.
Thank you for the kind hope. Sorry for the late response, I've had to pull together the info to give to you. I went more in-depth than you asked, but answered your questions first. If that's all you need you can stop reading after I answered those two questions. Added the rest for you/anyone else who wants to know.
So I've done two types of ketamine. Infusion, which was done in a fancy treatment place and through IV, and at-home treatment with troches (later switched to suppositories because troches taste godawful. Just thinking about the taste makes me nauseous). I would definitely recommend it if you can swing the price.
Cost-wise, the infusion was $650 for one session and I did six sessions, so total $3900. Crazy money. Probably costs more now. I'd assume in the ballpark of $4000-4500, depending on location I had to get a ride to the treatment center too because you obviously can't drive while tripping balls. Time-wise, I did it either once weekly or twice weekly until I'd done the six? As for the at-home, the ketamine was super cheap. $30-40 bucks for a month's worth. The expensive part was the required psych evaluation, which was $250 a month, where a toad-faced fool would rattle off a list of depression questions at me for 10-15 minutes and I'd get my prescription fulfilled at the end of it. They started me at every 3 days, but it wasn't really working, so they went to the max dose they could prescribe- 400 mg every other day. My depression is apparently not like the other depressions, haha.
I don't think any of it was covered by insurance, but that was over a year ago, so it might have changed. I know insurance didn't cover it because it was experimental. So you might be able to get insurance to cover some now. Probably not, but it's worth a shot.
The ketamine thread previously posted is an interesting one, especially because it's nothing like my own experience. I never felt overly emotional after doing ketamine, just normal. The way a normal person feels. It was like my depression switch had been turned off, and I could feel other feelings than hopelessness, boredom, and shame. It was really really nice. I'd recommend trying it just for that, if it works for you. It had been so long since I felt normal I'd completely forgotten how awesome it was. Reminded me why some people actually like living if nothing else.
Sometimes I tried to set intentions for my sessions. I wasn't that good at it, and quickly devolved into "me like how drug feel," so I'm sure I didn't get the maximum benefit out of it. Take note that troches are horrid, but they are predictable. With suppositories the effect could have me hallucinating out of my mind for 1+ hour or give me a mildly pleasant buzz with no hallucination. Apparently this is due to how far you push it in? It'll absorb differently depending on where it "sits." The main effect of hallucination never lasted more than two hours. Also, the strength of the reaction will weaken over time if you use it heavily and consistently like I did.
Some tips if you or anyone else reading this decides to do it:
Don't do two doses at the same time. As tempting as it is. As suicidal as you may be. And absolutely do not do two doses on a work morning. Especially if it's the second week at a new job. You will end up covered in vomit and regret, having lost the entire half of the day, with vague memory flashes of what happened (mostly lying on the floor) and a lot of excuses to make.
DRINK LOTS OF WATER BEFORE AND AFTER. Or some other hydrating thing (sports drink, drink tablets) if you don't like water. I learned quickly that if I didn't, the ketamine hangover would give me awful dehydration headaches.
I generally liked doing the at-home ketamine in the morning. If I did it in the morning, I'd feel a little hungover all day, but if I did it at night/evening, I'd wake up feeling hungover and that'd carry over throughout the next day. Your milage may vary, though, so do some testing for the best time.
If it gives you nausea, get anti-nausea tablets with the ketamine and follow the instructions before doing it. Big help.
Go somewhere you won't be interrupted, and where you'll have peace and quiet for 3+ hours. Having people try to get your attention really messes with the experience. Which is also why I did it very early in the morning. If you live alone this won't be a problem.
Start playing music as soon as you take it, and don't do anything else (except maybe reading, and stick to some sort of philosophy book that gets you into the "right" headspace, whatever that means to you). Sounds obvious, but when I started at home my instructions were "do something that makes you feel happy" so I'd watch some of my favorite comedy show or play a video game and then be like "wow, this felt really ineffective compared to the IV, wonder why that is?" Realized I was probably doing it wrong when I had a trip that started with me playing Plants Vs Zombies as I was waiting for it to kick in, and the entire trip ended up being a hallucination of playing more Plants Vs Zombies. Like I was floating above a giant Plants Vs Zombies board and my mind was controlling the moves. It was interesting and pretty fun, but not helpful-I'm not the sharpest crayon sometimes. There are nice ketamine playlists available on YouTube I like. Calm drum beats are good too.
I'm sure I missed something so if you have more questions ask away.
