Our son is on a small dose of sublingual ketamin. He is 19. He had been doing fine with it but the last two times he has taken it he has become aggressive, angry, and so hopeless. Has anyone experienced this? If so I what helped come out of it?
Previously on a daily protocol, now prescribed 15 x 400mg troches for once-weekly sessions. First time doing weekly instead of daily. What’s helped you get the most out of a session — dosing tips, environment, timing, integration practices? Also any advice for restarting after a long break — does tolerance/sensitivity reset, and would you approach the first session back any differently?
Looking for help w depression, anxiety and panic attacks. I immediately felt calmer and more emotionally balanced after my 15 mg troche which I’m very happy about ! Does this also help w motivation and anhedonia? I’ve been struggling w AUD so my dopamine system is all warped . I would like to get back to the person I was before I impaled my brain with alcohol. It also has made me feel very lethargic though. I’ve just been laying in bed not even tired enough to sleep. Just don’t feel like doing anything. Is this normal? I don’t see how I could ever do this in the am ….. it would kill me energy wise for the day. Does this change over time ?
Hi all! I’ve been doing both IV and at home ketamine treatments for chronic pain for ~8 months now. Over the summer, I wasn’t living near my regular clinic and took 400mg troches. These typically felt very mild in comparison to IV. I recently moved back and got my first IV treatment since April, which was 90mg (1.63 mg/kg or 1.95mg/kg/hr). I normally get 80mg but was given more today to apparently account for the effects of at home ketamine treatments. I also got 1mg of Versed which is typical for me.
I had an alarming and frankly terrifying experience that was very unlike what normally happens. I usually get these very bright, colorful, and pleasant hallucinations/physical sensations but this time everything was dark and black. I had trouble breathing the whole time and felt like I was constantly gasping for air. I also felt as if my identity got completely ripped away from me. I didn’t know where I was, what was real, and I couldn’t access my memories or think of the people in my life as real people. I was just enveloped in complete darkness, getting sensations like my body was being contorted and compressed in all sorts of weird, uncomfortable positions. It felt like that was my entire lived reality and it would go on forever like that; there was no memory or perception of my life before or after. I was also freezing cold and had an intense sense of complete confusion the whole time. Overall, it felt like I was in this hellish limbo and I genuinely thought I was going to die for a bit.
I ended up pressing the emergency help button somehow and my nurse stopped the ketamine 7 min early. I wasn’t really able to speak and don’t have much memory of this. They ended up giving me some extra Versed and that was that.
Has this happened to anyone else? I know my dose increased but not by that much and my experiences normally aren’t anything like that. It was terrifying and scary and I can’t get it out of my mind.
Hi y’all, I’m really not sure what to does
I sought out ketamine therapy for treatment-resistant severe depression, anxiety, and ocd. No medications have ever helped me feel better.
I have used psychedelic drugs before and expected the experience to be similar but it wasn’t, although ketamine isn’t really in that class.
The first 30 mins or so were fine, I had John Hopkins music on and I was heavily disassociating.
However, they eventually changed and I started feeling really horrible with severe nausea and I threw up while they were taking my blood pressure. Vitals were normal.
I felt so horrible for that second hour that I really don’t want to go back, especially when the next dose will be 1.5x more.
I feel really horrible about not doing it because I should be grateful to have access to this medication for free (insurance pays for 100%) when many people can’t afford it or get it covered
Also during the session I had this bad fear I was gonna die, I couldn’t feel my body while I was super nauseated and thought I was gonna throw up and aspirate. There was no button or anything to ask the doctor to come in, I was in a pitch black room out of 6 rooms that were full.
Upped my dosage for my 4th infusion, and wow I wasn’t sure if I knew what a khole was but I definitely do now. Total loss of understanding of body and self. At most times it was extreme anxiety but there were a few glimpses of peace where I talked to my true self and got my true unfiltered opinions on my substance abuse.
I kept telling myself that I would never do this again, and that I will do lower doses moving forward. But now removed from it I keep finding myself thinking that intensity was meant for me to face. That to truly get past my walls I need to break down everything.
I’ve got my next infusion tomorrow, not sure if I will do that dosage again or if stepping it back is the right call. I know that no one has the correct answer for me, but it would be nice to know I’m not alone in this internal struggle.
Today was my first day trying trouchies. I started with a 1/4 to just get over the scary hump. First, they taste awful. While I was doing my treatment, well first I did a little prayer, and saged myself, listened to some meditative music. Then I journaled and wrote down things that came to mind. Then just layed down and rested for awhile after that. Ive felt nauseous a bit afterward and then ended up eating lunch and feeling spacey? Also I feel like i can feel my brain. Just kinda out of it. That was only on .25! So, I kinda worry going up. But anyways, I probably should have done like a healthy habit or something but I just felt so dang tired afterward and feeling lethargic all day. I also felt anxious about an hour after but then that went away. Any advice? Do you all also feel all tired? How do you return to your day and do stuff? Any advice appreciated. Been dealing with depression and anxiety since I was a teenager, and i suffer from ptsd. Been on all sorts of anti anxiety and depression meds. Talk therapy. EMDR. Its been a long battle. I am hoping ketamine helps me. Thanks in advance!
I just had my 10th session and even though I wasn’t feeling any anxiety leading up to my session, I got really panicked during it. I was feeling super paranoid and couldn’t relax with my eye mask on so the whole session just felt like a fight. Wondering what people do to reduce anxiety during sessions? I try to avoid negative social media and keep my thoughts/conversations positive and light before my session and sometimes I can remember to do breathing exercises during if I get stressed, but what else can I do? tysm
Curious if anyone has had other providers pull their controlled substances list and question or refuse to continue care due to an at-home ketamine treatment.
I've dealth with TRD for as long as I can remember. I've watched several of my family members lose the battle over the years. Thankfully my mom is still alive, but some of my earliest memories are of finding her in the throws of suicide attempts at a very young age. My own personal coping skill has been to try to outrun depression itself. I thought that if I was successful enough, the feelings of not being good enough would go away. That if I just succeeded enough I could convnice myself that I'm not a failure. Over the years, when things would get unmanageable, I would try different anti-depressants, but none worked. I'm now 46 and "outrunning" depression doesn't feel like a viable option anymore. My therapist recomended ketamine therapy. Last night was the first session using troches. I have to admit, I feel hopeful. It was just the starting microdose so I can't say that I felt any life altering effects, but I did feel small waves of a calming feeling, and for some short moments, peace. It gave me hope and I haven't felt hopeful in a long time. Again, I don't want to oversell the experience, but I can definitely see this working. I'm assuming when the wave of peace came through, it was when the Ketamine was peeking. I can't tell you whether it was for 1 minute or 10 minutes, but I didn't want it to go away. What pulled me out was feeling a tear drop land on my cheek. I'm not a crier and I wasn't sad. It was just a much needed break. So anyways, that's how it felt for me. I'm cautiously optomistic to see how tonight goes.
After 2 years of considering IV ketamine, I’m finally convinced and now I’m eager to start. The thing is, I have a family reunion vacation coming up for labor day weekend.
My provider said the initial 6 sessions are doable if I start this Wednesday, or Friday the latest. So I’m looking at Wed and Fri this week, Mon Wed Fri of next and the following Monday for the 6th session (or that Wednesday… I leave on Thursday 9/3).
This sounds intense, but I’ve read this is pretty normal. I’m worried though about side effects and mood going into this trip.
Have you all noticed that after the 6 initial sessions, things have at least settled? I know there’s no way to really tell, but what’s the worst case scenario? I definitely don’t want that trip ruined, but I wonder what is the likelihood of a positive outcome (or at least neutral) after 6 sessions at this pace.
I’d appreciate any personal anecdotes and/or advice.
Is this happening to anyone else? I take my.troche 300 mg. Swish for 15 minutes and then swallow my trip starts and then in about 20 minutes my mind feels completely sober, I’m still having visuals and motor impairment, but I’m not in a trip anymore. I can think totally clear but my body is still messed up. Does this happen to anyone else?
28, in remission from stage 4 colon cancer. Treatment at 25 went badly. I was septic more than once, threw clots, had several surgeries, and kept getting C. diff. I was told I might not make it on at least two occasions. Medically I'm mostly fine now. Neurologically I never came out of it. My nervous system still behaves like the threat is live, all day, most days.
Formal diagnoses are GAD, health anxiety, and ADHD-PI, with a PTSD history predating the cancer. Most first-line medications have been tried without much benefit.
Spravato is one of the options on the table. What I'd like to hear is whether it did anything for arousal and startle specifically, or whether the benefit was mostly mood, since nearly everything written about it is framed around treatment-resistant depression.
I'd also like to know how people carrying a lot of medical trauma handled the treatment setting itself. A clinical room with monitoring equipment and a two hour observation period is uncomfortably close to the thing my body is still reacting to, and I'd rather know in advance if that's a problem people have run into.
Practical answers are welcome too. What insurance approval actually required in your case, and how many sessions in you knew whether it was doing anything.
One detail I'm unsure matters. I was on antipsychotics for four years in my early twenties for a diagnosis that turned out to be wrong. If anyone has been told that prior antipsychotic exposure affects esketamine eligibility or response, I'd like to hear it.
I have done 4 sessions so far (two a week, three/four days apart, my 5th session is tomorrow) and I have yet to see any results. I’m still holding out hope because I’ve seen on here that some have results after the 5th or 6th session, but I have to admit I’m getting worried that this isn’t going to work for me.
I started at 38mg for the first two sessions, then we upped to 45mg for the third, and then 50mg (.65ml) for the fourth. My provider told me this is the highest I can go (although I’ve seen others go higher in this subreddit so I’m not sure why she says that). This clinic is the only IV clinic in my area, there’s one other clinic but they only do Esketamine. This clinic also just opened, so she may just be uncomfortable going higher, I’m not sure.
I’ve already paid for all 6 sessions, so I’m obviously going to see it through, but if I don’t see results in these first 6 I’m not planning on continuing with IV. I may switch to Esketemine with the other clinic, but honestly I don’t even know if it’ll be worth it.
My doctor thinks I just am on so many medications that my “synapses are fried” and that’s why I’m not feeling it yet. A friend who did IV ketamine (in an unorthodox fashion, long story but his doctor ended up going to jail for basically drugging her clients with too much ketamine) thinks I just have WAY too low of a dose.
My body reacts very weirdly with drugs, many drugs (prescription and recreational) have no effect on me or require a very high dose to have an effect. This is why my friend thinks my dose is too low. I personally just think, like with the antidepressants, I’m treatment resistant to this as well. I feel the effects of the ketamine during the administration, but as soon as it’s over I go back to normal.
I’m actually worse off now than before I started the treatments due to it not working and causing me to feel more depressed and hopeless. I just wanted to get some feedback i suppose from those who have gone through the process, to give me hope or give me a reality check, I don’t know honestly. Truthfully, it feels like everyone wants to blame everything BUT the ketamine for these results. Like.. Occam’s razor y’know? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck..
I’ve canceled my appointment like twuce now because im scared of trying it… but my phych says it could be very beneficial for me?
For context i have bi-polar, c-ptsd, depression, anxiety, and ADHD
My fifth IV ketamine infusion is tomorrow. I’ve struggled with anxiety and elevated heart rate and blood pressure at the clinic, and they’ve needed to give me labetalol. I’ve also asked for Versed near the end when the anxiety became too much, but I worry that it blunts the experience.
I use cannabis regularly. Today I used some and also had coffee, yet my Apple Health resting heart rate was 68, which is considerably lower than it has been lately. I’m tempted to use a small amount before tomorrow’s infusion so I arrive calmer.
My clinic instructed me to avoid cannabis for 24 hours before and after, so I know I need to ask them and disclose it instead of simply arriving high. I’m mainly looking for firsthand experiences from regular cannabis users.
Has anyone used cannabis before an IV ketamine infusion? Did it change your anxiety, blood pressure, heart rate, dissociation, nausea, dose, or recovery? Did your clinic still proceed or make you reschedule? Especially interested in experiences from people whose vitals run high from appointment anxiety.
For some background, my mom is 66 years old and has been dealing with bipolar depression for the last 3 years. She went off her meds in 2023 and became hypomanic - spent a lot of money at casinos, lavish trips, bought a fancy car etc. She developed bipolar depression several months later which landed her in IP for suicidal ideation and severe anxiety. Did a partial inpatient after that and was seeing a NP for continued management but never really got better.
She had a major suicide attempt in March 2025. She developed some hypomanic signs shortly after that when they switched up her meds, then fell back into depression. She moved in with me and we’ve been seeing a psychiatrist that I am paying for out of pocket because I was largely unhappy with the previous care she had received.
Since then, we’ve tried a whole host of meds: lamotrigine, seroquel, abilify, Latuda, Caplyta, Klonopin, concurrently with fluoxetine. Nothing is helping.
My mom is very risk averse when she is in her depression. We had to convince her to try ketamine because those are our last options at this point. Ketamine, TMS, or ECT.
We had to abort the last treatment of ketamine because her blood pressure was too high from anxiety. She saw her PCP and they prescribed her losartan. We are trying again tomorrow but she is so nervous. I feel so bad for her. Is there anything I can do to help her feel safe? To encourage her that this is trying to help her? Any advice is welcome.
I just want my mom back. I want her to be able to live her life again. I feel so sad for her and to see her constantly suffering.
Thank you in advance for your advice.
EDIT: just for clarification, we were on the path to trialing lithium and her kidney values were at the high end of normal and she had slightly decreased GFR so her doctor was worried about trialing that. She outright will not do ECT and I will support whatever decisions she makes in this regard. We are not “forcing” her to do ketamine. She did agree to it but I did coax her a bit because of her anxiety. My mom has not so much has tried marijuana so this is a lot for her.
Starting Spravato in ~6 weeks and hoping for encouraging stories around Ketamine/Spravato! Especially hoping for positive stories around getting rid of rumination, self loathing, negative self talk, fear, and maybe even healing insecure attachment styles/being more confident with dating/relationships? Or just less insecure in general? Like I just want to feel like I am…enough. Or okay.
EDIT: would also love any stories about like being in acceptance around your past, being able to grieve the past you wish you’d had (I just turned 30 and it feels like my life is over, like I missed out on all the good parts and I’ll never get to be in love in my 20s - which is objectively true. I’ll never have that. I just wish I could move past it/feel like my life is still worth living)
EDIT #2: I’m in therapy! Was in CBT therapy between ages 7-14, ages 18-22. EMDR age 22/23. ACT therapy starting when I turned 29 (I turned 30 relatively recently) and 12 step work starting at age 26.5.
So currently doing ACT therapy and 12 step work.
Hello everyone,
6 days ago, I settled in for what I thought would be a typical session with my typical dose. I use 300mg troches at home, and have been undergoing once-weekly treatment for about 2.5 months.
However, the experience ended up being a lot stronger than any I have had prior. I dissociated more heavily, and it scared me a lot. I have a lot of difficulty letting go, which is part of what I hoped the ketamine would help.
I did not see anything scary, but at one point I felt like I was looking at ocean waves, while simultaneously being aware that I was the waves I was looking at. For whatever reason, this really freaked me out.
That night and the day after, I felt pretty typical as far as post-ketamine goes. However, since then I have had intense and constant anxiety, which is causing me to dissociate during the day. I know that anxiety and dissociative visual distortions feed on attention, but it’s been very difficult for me to just sit with them and let them pass, especially as I’m approaching a week past that experience now.
Has anyone been in a similar situation? I don’t know if I should try again for my usual weekly session with a lower dose, or just hold off indefinitely until I can get back to baseline. I am struggling a lot with the “forever” feeling, even though logically I know this will pass if I let it.