First off, thank you to my insurance risk pool for paying for me to get high 2x a week 🤗
I am on Spravato 84mg twice a week for treatment resistant depression having failed 8 or 9 SSRIs/SNRIs, hospitalized 4x, attempted twice (once which was almost fatal…in the ICU for awhile). People throw around the terms “abuse” and “trauma” an awful lot but some things I have experienced I've never even told another soul (even my sister). Really glad my psychiatrist is gay bc I feel safe talking about some of the CSA with him. I had a therapist before who I swear got “excited” talking about it.
I had been relatively stable for around 5 years until I faced some work stress in the last 12 months. I guess a lot of my problems came roaring back and I fell into a deep depression. I did inpatient, partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient and it didn't really help that much tbh. I am currently on 2X the max dose of Prozac and it just makes me unable to c*m or cry. It wasn't helping with the anhedonia and my panic attacks were still happening around 1x a week. I was running out of options (hence the $10k service dog….)
Enter ketamine 😍
Spravato is the FDA approved version for depression. You sniff it 3x 5 minutes apart and then they leave u in a room to go on a psychedelic trip.
WELL
This shit is working. I have my fourth session today.
The first two times I k-holed and had out of body experiences (seeing myself from above) and saw life was beautiful again….theres so much life to live. It was a lot like doing shrooms. The effects wore off pretty quickly but I was grateful for any respite from the despair. The third time I didn't have a full trip or anything (was more like being pleasantly drunk) but the effects have stuck around. As I wrote on another post, I am reading for pleasure, I have hopes and plans for the future and I believe all my problems have solutions.
My hot psychiatrist said they don't do it much at Northwestern bc of the tolerance you can develop. That part kind of scares me but hopefully I'll be able to crawl out of this abyss first.
If you have treatment resistant depression, it's worth looking into. I know for the Blues it just required failing one SSRI. There is a copay assistance program so you shouldn't have to pay much if anything to get it as long as you have private commercial insurance.
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You should try Benadryl, apparently Benadryl shadow demon hallucinations are based:
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frick, i love the hatman now
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Assuming youre dealing with flashbacks. I apologize if this is something youve heard before but shrinks can be incompetent so i feel obligated to share resources:
https://psychcentral.com/lib/coping-with-flashbacks
https://www.ptsd.va.gov/appvid/mobile/ptsdcoach_app.asp
Look into EMDR if you havent already
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Thank you, motherlover!
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Based doctors accepting that pharma loses out to street.
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gays love their drugs
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I once met one who thought drugs and s*x shouldn't mix. Spiked his drink with PCP and changed his mind.
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FroCho, you are by far the best poster here.
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Neighbor that's the K talking...
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Simp
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I wish I had a psychiatrist to talk about the Confederate States of America with
!dixie
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maybe a 10th ssri will work? have you tried that?
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I banish you to the K hole!
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Isn't it like $500/session for IV and $250 for the nasal spray?
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IV won't be covered by insurance but esketamine (brand name Spravato) is fricking covered if you meet the fricking medical criteria for your insurance. Looking at my most recent claim it looks like it's $1200 for the fricking drug and $150 for admin. The fricking Spravato with Me copay program will cover your portion for the fricking drug and you can submit for a fricking rebate for the fricking admin charge.
If you need it (ie you have failed SSRIs), find a fricking treatment center on the fricking Spravato website and go in for the fricking consult. They'll submit the fricking paperwork to your insurance.
I do this kind of thing for a fricking living (copay assistance etc) so if you need any help lmk.
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Jokes on u i was secretly playing sissy hypno the whole time in the room so now you will be my slave
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I'm glad it's working
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Edit: Nvm I didn't finish reading before I commented.
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I was fricking in the fricking ICU for 3 days (I have a fricking 2 second
memory 
opening my eyes) then intermediate ICU for a fricking couple 
more, then psych ward. I had cancer 
at the fricking time and took 400 extra strength 
aspirin. I could feel myself 
dying, I can't even describe it. I panicked and called 911, I lived.
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This also happened to me when I was 18, I took like 18,000mg of Seroquel and had to go to the ER, then ICU, then psych ward after. It's one of the worst experiences I've ever had, I had nightmares about it for years and get upset every time I think about it. Anyway I empathize alot with some of what you are going through and I'm happy to hear you've found some relief. It's beyond miserable to be in the situation you're in, I think people often don't understand. I hope the ketamine continues to work for you!
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Thank you so much for your kind comment.
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The human proclivity toward self-sabotage is amazing. It's almost like people who use these methods don't want to kill themselves; they simply want to feel something different.
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The out of body experiences on ketamine are awesome. I often wonder how I saw myself from above. It's a cool trip
Putting the
in
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good for you. hope it works
in my experience, i just do ketamine, things get weird, and then everything is back to normal again and nothing is gained from the experience. Same with mushrooms
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Why are you depressed?
Do you actually believe it's 100% a brain chemistry issue?
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No I was fricking abused
as a fricking child 
my dad was fricking sexually interested 
in me my whole life and now I have difficulties. I'm just trying to heal. The fricking pills 
aren't helping, but the fricking ketamine is. I am also doing weekly psychotherapy with my wonderful psychiatrist 
(he does both). I believe 
I can get better, but I have scars.
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there's only one solution to female sexual assault
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DMT is so much funner and better than ketamine.
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Not paid for by my insurance unfortunately
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It's really cheap and you can even make it yourself with some solvent and bark.
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If your depression is secondary to PTSD getting proper trauma therapy is probably going to be way more important than medications for long-term remission tbh. Prolonged exposure, ACT, EMDR, ART, etc.
Also jesus fricking christ why would you ever tell this website that you're a CSA victim.
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Are you on birth control queen? They put me on it for acne when I was really young and then I had a terrible time with mental health and it turned out that I just can't handle hormonal BC
It's not true for everyone but I know so many women who have gone thru the million SSRIs for treatment resistant depression and then come off BC and been pissed off that it was just that the whole time
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I have a fricking copper
iud, so no hormones :(
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I'm so glad it's helping! It was wild to me how well it helped my depression too, almost an immediate fix.
Tolerance for things like nmda antagonists like ketamine is weird, I've heard that it can be permanent to some degree and cross tolerance is also observed. For example, if you take ketamine recreationally and get tolerant to it, nitrous oxide laughing gas won't work as well. At least that's been my anecdotal experience as well, dentist trips are way less fun now
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You ever tried microdosing mushrooms or LSD or MDMA instead?
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Microdosing doesn't work, it I used to do shrooms a fricking lot for my mental
health. I can't take them while on Prozac. I might go back to trying them.
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That's good.
I've read a little about psychadelics in treatment of depression and there's definitely merit there.
Only familiar with mushroom research, but I imagine it's the same concept for K, and probably Ayahuasca also, which has become popular in recent years.
I'm glad it's working for you.
I think that one of the things it does is increase neuroplasticity and help your brain form new connections
So probably something good to do is couple this treatment with something like CBT to change your thinking patterns and neural pathways and also you should be creating new habits, new routines.
You're doing outpatient and that's good, but look into a support group or ...anything sort of like that where you can have a space where you're able to talk to people who aren't your therapist.
You'll need something like that going forward after outpatient ends. Somewhere you can talk and socialize with people that aren't your therapist.
Support groups similar to your outpatient therapy are probably best, but literally anything is better than nothing, so like a book club or w/e idk.
Basically .. change your shit now while you're in a state that is receptive to change.
This will help you from falling back into the old patterns that lead you to this point.
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Thanks, wise words
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its difficult to do and it'll take some effort and your brain will say you dont wanna and all that stuff
but if you want to change stuff you have to change stuff. you're already trying new things, so frick it might as well
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Ketamine is very fun, glad it's helping
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Really? SSRIs have not done anything for me. I might have to bring this up
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Okay to avoid
paying out the fricking butt, use Spravato bc Johnson 
& Johnson 
will pay your cost share (“Spravato with Me”, it's not needs 
based) where 
with IV ket your insurance is fricking paying nothing and you pay everything out of pocket. There 
are fricking also mail order ketamine for depression 
sites but kinda pricey. The fricking Spravato treatment place 
will take care of the fricking authorization. This is fricking separate from your regular psychiatrist. You have to stay on an SSRI during treatment btw.
The only fricking unpleasant part is fricking having to go in twice a fricking week at first
(they monitor 
you & take your blood 
pressure). On the fricking Spravato website you can find a fricking treatment center near you. You can't drive 
home after. Luckily I'm within walking 
distance. Hopefully you are fricking in a fricking city too or have a fricking ride/uber.
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Noted
It's unfortunate that you can't drive after, I'm assuming it also means I'd have to book work off if it's effect lasts all day
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A fricking lot of the fricking centers are fricking open late and after work hours (mine is).
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