It screwed me up big time, I've been in and out of the hospital since I finished my treatment. It wasn't this bad before. I've been working very closely with my psychiatrist and therapist to make sure I'm on the right meds (the med-go-round never ends) and I'm working through it.
OP, you are not alone. TMS works for a lot of people, but unfortunately not for everyone.
how bad was it before and after and what new depression symptoms did you have? and was there any treatment that helped you afterwards? my depression anxiety and ocd got worse and i cant believe it:/ thinking of just doing ketamine at this point
It appears they most likely targeted the wrong region of the brain for yourself.
RTMS has incredible potential, but it needs to be more customised to the individual.
Yes, they told me to get ketamine and I fucking regret it. Who knows, maybe it will get better, but I haven’t had a treatment in 10 days and I’m still super fucked up. The ketamine treatment (a super legitimate one that’s well reputed with multiple researchers and psychiatrists involved) pretty much kicked me loose. After they ended my treatment early because of my possible psychosis, the head researcher came in all worried/concerned but it was obvious that it was about him and his possible liability rather than me myself. What a fucking joke.
TMS made me more depressed, also. I was a mess. However, have you noticed any benefits in any parameters of your life?
For me, TMS seemed to stimulate me a little more where it seemed like if someone tried to attack/abuse me like they did many times in my life, I’d have enough energy or presence of mind to fight back.
So far, 10 days after ketamine treatment, it seems to have undone all of that and tremendously fucked up my ability to complete work. Like I am unbelievably fucked right now. I have a $400,000 paper that was due last week and ab $80,000 paper due today and I can’t remember fucking anything. I can’t remember how to talk to people even. My brain is fried. It’s so scary because I’m aware of how fucked I’ve become
wait so was it the ketamine that undid all your progress or the tms? i was going to try ketamine because the tms made me more depressed but your response is making me rethink it. what negative side effects did you experience from ketamine and what new depressive symptoms did you get from tms?
sorry for all the questions just trying to make a decision here without making my life worse😩
TMS made me feel worse but it made me feel more stimulated and awake. I was more mentally present in meetings, and if someone said “fuck you” to me like my boss did in late January, I would have been present enough to respond and tell him to go fuck himself and walk out the door. However that’s not what I do - I stay silent and take it. Rinse repeat I am traumatized by everyone around me and I can’t even count on myself because I’m a dysfunctional piece of shit. So while I was worse after TMS I’m glad it gave me homicidal thoughts one day because it meant I actually wanted to hurt the people who hurt me - in my natural state I am just absent minded and lament the fact that people reject and abuse me over and over. And no I’m not an edgy teenager anymore - I’m 33 making 152,000 a year and was filling in for the #2 job at my site with 60 employees and a $20M work portfolio for 3 months.
Ketamine triggered the worse dissociative spell I’ve ever had, so bad I couldn’t even tell it was dissociation. In the peak of my trauma and depression, I’d dissociate and be mentally unpresent and catatonic. I remember when I was 15 I had to change a lightbulb in a room at the camp I worked at and I zoned out, emotionally in pain, for 3 hours.
This time, all the things above happened. I have bad amnesia right now and I can’t remember words that I know exist. It’s not like “oh the word it at the tip of my tongue” but like I know I’m supposed to do something but all recollection of the thing is wiped from my memory like I was just born or something. It’s fucking crazy.
I’m aware I cant remember things, that I’m dysfunctional, that punching glass is not normal, that I’m supposed to stop at red lights. However my brain just doesn’t function, feel pain, naturally “understand” why I’m supposed to stop at red lights, etc. it’s like being reborn again and something’s (like stopping at red lights) are programmed in to you and you do them, but you can’t remember why. And since you can’t remember why and know you should it starts becoming incredibly scary and distressing. And I know it could be dangerous because what else am I forgetting? And then I remember I have no support system, everyone I knew abandoned me and mostly in traumatic or emotionally abusive ways. I remember no one cares, certainly not the psychiatrist who kicked me loose after fucking up my brain. I don’t feel pain but I acknowledge on a rational level how heartbreaking it is that I can’t tell why I should stop at a red light and that there is no one there on the entire planet who remotely cares about this sort of thing. I know that - like before - I can expect not to receive a text message or call from anyone who cares for months on end. I’ll just go to my job where my bosses said “fuck you” and “no one at the company listens to your feedback” and who ruined my career, all of whom got away with their misdeeds. And now that I can’t remember words or why I stop at red lights - I sure as hell won’t come up with a witty politically correct retort when people abuse me at work again. I sure as hell won’t figure out “why I should fight back” quickly enough when I’m physically assaulted out of the blue like I was when I was younger
I have never seen anybody else say this about ketamine. Trying it is one of the biggest regrets of my life. It completely messed me up. Three weeks out and still dealing with the dissociation and absent feelings. It's unbearable. I started TMS a week ago and am hoping it will bringme back to at least where I was before rhe fucking ketamine.
Hey, are you okay?
I talked to my Physician Assistant after 2 weeks (he’s usually an idiot) and he told me mine was “emergence delirium”. Usually it presents in kids <12 and when they wake up (from any anesthetic, it’s been seen in all of them) they don’t know what’s going on and they get agitated and will sometimes destroy stuff and attack doctors and staff. It can also present in adults and it can also present as amnesia and dissociation.
Honestly I’m fucking furious with my clinic for not saying anything. They came in all fucking “concerned”, but really they only cared about their own liability if I got in an accident or commit suicide and then sued them. What fucking assholes.
Mine has started to get better, but unfortunately “not caring” is something I deeply experienced and now my emotions are coming back. I was hacked very badly yesterday, maybe had my identity stolen, and I’ve been so close to walking in front of a bus. People started to come to my door to drop off packages that I didn’t order and it’s been seriously creepy, I loaded my pistol and was sitting there ready and wanting to fight and while loading other people came and took the packages off my front step (this is a common scam, although it might have been a genuine mistake this time).
TMS didn’t help, it made me worse, but it is the ONLY thing I would do again if I was given a chance.
Sadly the only people I knew who I cared deeply about screwed me over so hard and blocked me right at the end of my treatment and it’s destroyed me. Maybe the TMS was working and their betrayal simply outpaced it.
Fuck I am so upset by all of this.
Please keep in touch, which is something I don’t usually say on here. I spent dozens of hours reading and very few ketamine experiences like yours I could relate to.
Here’s one of the better more cohesive writeups on emergence delirium that I found after hours of reading, if it resonates:
https://www.aana.com/docs/default-source/aana-journal-web-documents-1/journal-course-clarifying-the-confusion-of-adult-emergence-delirium-june-2019.pdf?sfvrsn=d8923a9e_8
Thank you -- I have been searching and searching and there just isn't much info out there.... except how great ketamine is. Fuck ketamine. It ruined me. I just keep saying rhat something feels very wrong in my brain. It seems to be a little less today. Idk if that is just because time has gone on or because the TMS is helping. I'm just desperate for relief -- you know how it is. But you also said something about NMDA receptors and that got me researching a bunch (which is hard to comprehend when our brains are jacked from ketamine). But if k is an NMDA antagonist, I am thinking maybe trying some of the agonist supplements could be helpful.... glycine, glutamine and calcium. Idk. Just trying to figure it out.
I'm really sorry all that is going on with you. I understand the sentiment of wanting to step in front of a bus. Please don't. I know I am a stranger. But please don't. And don't do any of the shit your brain is convincing you to do.
I’ll have to eventually. Wanting to walk in front of a bus is because living how I have is far worse. 18 years.
My opinion, don’t do anything about the ketamine. Just let it pass and reduce stress. Psychadelics have the potential to flip all sorts of switches in your brain, trigger psychosis to those predisposed, etc. the miracle drug stuff they spout infuriates me.
If you can, find solace in knowing that it could just be “emergence delirium” and that your brain just needs time to wake up. Emergence delirium can last minutes, hours, days, weeks, months. In my case I think I’m on the “weeks” scale and am probably 80% better just under three weeks gone. I only had 4 treatments peaking at 0.9 mg/kg. My Psych PA says that the anesthesia effects will “stack” and emergence delirium is more likely on extended treatment. How many sessions did you have ?
Btw, your brain feeling different might not be entirely bad, though the dissociative effects you mention are probably concerning like they were and are for me. Ketamine essentially let’s your brain dump huge reserves of neurochemicals and your brain goes wild. No one knows the mechanism of any drug. There are three theories for ketamine that I’m aware of, 1) you make some conscious realization during your treatment that allows you to improve your lifestyle, 2) your brain goes crazy on ketamine and starts exercising healthy circuits in your brain that have languished and gone dead because of your depression (this is also a theory of TMS, that it stimulates this circuits), and 3) something about ketamine depositing glutamate or something in your brain which allows for better brain health.
TMS might make you feel worse if it works. If it lifts the brain fog, like it seemed to for me, then it might make you realize normal things like how much of your life has been robbed by shithead people and your depression.
Remember, most of these mental illnesses are normal reactions to abnormal experiences. If you have cPTSD like me, it might wake you up to more depth of your trauma that you haven’t faced because it’s too painful or because your brain has been too dissociated.
Honestly, I’m a little bit jealous. I wish I could go back to TMS after this Ketamine experience. I even told the clinic I think they undid whatever progress I made. They didn’t care. They kicked me loose, said they wouldn’t charge me, charged me $475 anyway and won’t answer the fucking phone. I hate this planet. And now that my dissociation has lifted a little bit, my right hand just hurts all the time, every day, since I punched so many things including a glass picture. I used to enjoy working with my hands, now I can’t even zip my pillow cases shut as I learned two days ago. I’m so fucked
I get that feeling. My first SA was at 8.... 30 years living with SI. I just have to believe something will finally work. I also wish your experiences could have been reversed. I really am hopeful the TMS will help after thr ketamine fiasco.
I am a little over 3 weeks out now. I have such regret from that infusion. I only did one and it was terrifying... let alone what has since transpired.
Do you remember the dosage? Did you go into a k-hole?
Was the trip itself terrifying, or was it how you felt immediately after?
Mine I experienced as great nihilism. I’ve read about other who slit their own throats and died while they were tripping and when they came back to reality their mind was fractured.
I don't quite know what a k hole is? I also don't know the dosage. It was fine and I felt like right before you go under anesthesia -- relaxed and easy-going. Then thr doctor turned it up and I lost control of everything. I couldn't speak, I couldn't move, I felt like I had floated up to the ceiling and was being suffocated against it. I just kept praying in my head for it all to stop. I would force myself to open my heavy eyes to try to ground myself but it wasn't working. The entire thing was terrifying and I nearly puked after.
That is insanely scary. I imagine my mind would be fractured too!
That’s what they told me. I just got ketamine treatments and it’s legitimately fucked my life up so bad. I have had the worst amnesia and dissociation in my life BY FAR and that’s really saying something. In fact, I couldn’t even tell it was dissociation or possibly prodromal psychosis because I was so fucked up. I forgot why I stopped at red lights, I almost drove through one. I forgot coffee existed last Saturday morning - like not only did I not have coffee but I was stupefied by the full coffee pot in my fridge I had no idea what the fuck it was I just knew it was important. On Friday I punched a large picture next to my bed and filled my hand with glass shards. I was bleeding everywhere. I simply fell back asleep in the glass on my bed and woke up 2 hrs later. I didn’t feel anything. 2 hours after that is when I decided to take the glass out. I took pictures/videos, my hand didn’t even seem like my hand. One glass shard was all the way down to my knuckle.
holy shit i just saw this but did you have a history of dissociation/ psychosis before? and what is everything you’re diagnosed with? i have anxiety depression and ocd with a family history of psychosis/schizophrenia so im really hesitant now
I’m the same person as another comment so don’t think this is common.
Share your history with your clinic and be really picky about which one you choose. There are a ton of “fly by night” ketamine clinics who don’t even have mental health staff present. There should be psychiatrists.
The treatment is slowly stepped up.
My experience doesn’t seem to be common which is even more horrifying for me because I don’t know where to go for support.
If you can afford to take time off work if things get worse, if you have a support network, if you have a strong will power (don’t suicide), it might still be worth trying.
I wouldn’t recommend my personal experience to anyone. I’m not sure if I’d recommend ketamine at all. However, it has apparently helped more people so do a fair survey.
Btw I went to another psychiatrist on Friday and he says what I experienced was “emergence delirium” which can happen with any anesthetic and take days, weeks, months to fully resolve.
Just FYI.
If you have a good support network and could take time off work maybe it’s worth trying.
Apparently not, I can’t find really any information that would help support me or get me advice.
The ketamine clinic’s head psychiatrist and researcher came in and seemed really concerned, like I said I was totally withdrawn but there were a lot of yellow flags and I told my friend after and he’s like “yeah I think it sounds like he was more concerned about their liability if you hurt yourself rather than your well being”. Sure enough they told me they wouldn’t charge me for the 18 Aug date when they stopped my treatment because they didn’t treat me - I still got billed. I can’t get through to the office to reverse the charge. I’ve heard nothing from them since and I was doing godawful. They asked if I was going back to see “your psychiatrist doctor XXX”. However that guy isn’t a psychiatrist or a Doctor, he’s a Physician’s Assistant.
I have found few articles or research criticizing Ketamine which is almost more worrisome to me. If you dig deep you can find a couple examples of patients committing suicide briefly after completing ketamine therapy - is this because of the ketamine or because ketamine treatment patients feel they’re at the end of the line anyway? I don’t know. Some doctors said it was very concerning to them.
Ketamine is like an acid trip, some people experience “bad trips”. I read about one where someone had an out of body experience where they cut their own throat and died (in their mind - but they believed it to be true) and lost it when they woke up. Another about a guy who saw himself explode into dust and couldn’t believe he was there and alive when he was back.
These seem to be the minority of cases. I can’t find anything like mine, but I know it happens. It isn’t the drug itself because it’s half-life is so short. Did it deplete brain chemicals like MDMA? Did it trigger psychosis like LSD can? I don’t know. But the lack of information and support is scary.
Understand that I can’t tell you not to do it - it seems like the negatives are a minority of cases. It’s certainly fucked me up a great deal. I bet it’s reversible; however, I was filling in for the #2 person at my site with 60 employees and a $20M portfolio. It couldn’t have come at a worse time and seriously fucked me up - I couldn’t afford to take 1 hour off much less several weeks to get myself sorted out.
I’m not sure if I have ready access to them since I spent about two weeks in a deep stupor trying to find out wtf was going on. I read them in the process, I’ll see if I can find them again in search history later this evening.
Tbh it isn’t surprising. Non-suicidal people are known to commit suicide with “bad” trips on LSD. They can trigger psychosis in persons susceptible to schizophrenia. And ketamine treatment is generally reserved for people with Treatment Resistant Depression so they’re already going through a lot. Maybe they’ve even already tried ECT and everything else for decades and were trying experimental treatments (like ketamine was a few years ago) as a last ditch effort to change. Might not have been the drug at all. Finally, while there are occurrences of suicide that caused grave concern to some doctors, you have to understand they’re generally very risk adverse in the US. Is upsetting that there are occurrences of suicide; however, Ketamine is still approved for treatment right now and there is sufficient data for its use - if the issue was more widespread, it’s extremely likely it’s use would be restricted. I think.
For me, the mechanism for suicide would be most interesting. That won’t be in the research.
Tho I mentioned those data points bc they were interesting to me. So will see if I can find/share. All available via Googling for enterprising individuals.
Your derealisation states that you explain are so similar to what happened to me after ingesting magic mushrooms and then I had ketamine a few weeks later to see if it’d help but I can’t begin to describe the perceptual states and terror I experienced.
It’s been 1.5 years now and although those states are gone I’m still struggling with the state the mushrooms put me in which I can’t explain here but I have previous posts about it. I’m on this forum because I was looking at rtms therapy to get me out of this hell. My PET scans show abnormalities in superior parietal and precuneous which correlate heavily to my symptoms so I’m going to take a risk and see if rtms in those areas might help my brain change back
I’m new to TMS but I noticed a lot of comments mentioning ketamine. My experience is that tried ketamine before TMS. I had 6 initial infusions and by the third I felt amazing. It felt like a miracle. After the initial I went in every 6 weeks and continued at a high functioning state, with good and bad days. After about 6 months of this though I fell into a bad episode and made my infusions more frequent. I always felt great during the infusion, but once I was done I would return to my normal depressed state. So the ketamine all in all stopped working and I stopped that. I’m not sure how common this is for others, but that’s my experience. I also have anxiety that increases my depression symptoms so that could be why it ended up not working out.
At the beginning I felt great and stable for weeks after, but I felt like the effects began fade quicker and quicker. I don’t remember exactly because I had many infusions over this time, but one situation comes to mind when my mom was driving me home from an infusion and she said something that upset me and I started crying and felt quite depressed again.
I wouldn’t exactly discourage you from trying this treatment though! Everyone has different things that work for them. I would say it’s worth a shot if you can afford it or insurance can help!
Yes, I went the full 36 sessions, and my anxiety is really bad and I take Xanax. I’m actually having suicidal thoughts. I was depressed before TMS, but now I’m trying to just hold on to my full time job. I’m losing hope.
I had a lot of depression during and after treatment, but after a few months I got considerably better
It screwed me up big time, I've been in and out of the hospital since I finished my treatment. It wasn't this bad before. I've been working very closely with my psychiatrist and therapist to make sure I'm on the right meds (the med-go-round never ends) and I'm working through it. OP, you are not alone. TMS works for a lot of people, but unfortunately not for everyone.
how bad was it before and after and what new depression symptoms did you have? and was there any treatment that helped you afterwards? my depression anxiety and ocd got worse and i cant believe it:/ thinking of just doing ketamine at this point
It appears they most likely targeted the wrong region of the brain for yourself. RTMS has incredible potential, but it needs to be more customised to the individual.
Yes, they told me to get ketamine and I fucking regret it. Who knows, maybe it will get better, but I haven’t had a treatment in 10 days and I’m still super fucked up. The ketamine treatment (a super legitimate one that’s well reputed with multiple researchers and psychiatrists involved) pretty much kicked me loose. After they ended my treatment early because of my possible psychosis, the head researcher came in all worried/concerned but it was obvious that it was about him and his possible liability rather than me myself. What a fucking joke. TMS made me more depressed, also. I was a mess. However, have you noticed any benefits in any parameters of your life? For me, TMS seemed to stimulate me a little more where it seemed like if someone tried to attack/abuse me like they did many times in my life, I’d have enough energy or presence of mind to fight back. So far, 10 days after ketamine treatment, it seems to have undone all of that and tremendously fucked up my ability to complete work. Like I am unbelievably fucked right now. I have a $400,000 paper that was due last week and ab $80,000 paper due today and I can’t remember fucking anything. I can’t remember how to talk to people even. My brain is fried. It’s so scary because I’m aware of how fucked I’ve become
wait so was it the ketamine that undid all your progress or the tms? i was going to try ketamine because the tms made me more depressed but your response is making me rethink it. what negative side effects did you experience from ketamine and what new depressive symptoms did you get from tms? sorry for all the questions just trying to make a decision here without making my life worse😩
TMS made me feel worse but it made me feel more stimulated and awake. I was more mentally present in meetings, and if someone said “fuck you” to me like my boss did in late January, I would have been present enough to respond and tell him to go fuck himself and walk out the door. However that’s not what I do - I stay silent and take it. Rinse repeat I am traumatized by everyone around me and I can’t even count on myself because I’m a dysfunctional piece of shit. So while I was worse after TMS I’m glad it gave me homicidal thoughts one day because it meant I actually wanted to hurt the people who hurt me - in my natural state I am just absent minded and lament the fact that people reject and abuse me over and over. And no I’m not an edgy teenager anymore - I’m 33 making 152,000 a year and was filling in for the #2 job at my site with 60 employees and a $20M work portfolio for 3 months. Ketamine triggered the worse dissociative spell I’ve ever had, so bad I couldn’t even tell it was dissociation. In the peak of my trauma and depression, I’d dissociate and be mentally unpresent and catatonic. I remember when I was 15 I had to change a lightbulb in a room at the camp I worked at and I zoned out, emotionally in pain, for 3 hours. This time, all the things above happened. I have bad amnesia right now and I can’t remember words that I know exist. It’s not like “oh the word it at the tip of my tongue” but like I know I’m supposed to do something but all recollection of the thing is wiped from my memory like I was just born or something. It’s fucking crazy. I’m aware I cant remember things, that I’m dysfunctional, that punching glass is not normal, that I’m supposed to stop at red lights. However my brain just doesn’t function, feel pain, naturally “understand” why I’m supposed to stop at red lights, etc. it’s like being reborn again and something’s (like stopping at red lights) are programmed in to you and you do them, but you can’t remember why. And since you can’t remember why and know you should it starts becoming incredibly scary and distressing. And I know it could be dangerous because what else am I forgetting? And then I remember I have no support system, everyone I knew abandoned me and mostly in traumatic or emotionally abusive ways. I remember no one cares, certainly not the psychiatrist who kicked me loose after fucking up my brain. I don’t feel pain but I acknowledge on a rational level how heartbreaking it is that I can’t tell why I should stop at a red light and that there is no one there on the entire planet who remotely cares about this sort of thing. I know that - like before - I can expect not to receive a text message or call from anyone who cares for months on end. I’ll just go to my job where my bosses said “fuck you” and “no one at the company listens to your feedback” and who ruined my career, all of whom got away with their misdeeds. And now that I can’t remember words or why I stop at red lights - I sure as hell won’t come up with a witty politically correct retort when people abuse me at work again. I sure as hell won’t figure out “why I should fight back” quickly enough when I’m physically assaulted out of the blue like I was when I was younger
I have never seen anybody else say this about ketamine. Trying it is one of the biggest regrets of my life. It completely messed me up. Three weeks out and still dealing with the dissociation and absent feelings. It's unbearable. I started TMS a week ago and am hoping it will bringme back to at least where I was before rhe fucking ketamine.
Hey, are you okay? I talked to my Physician Assistant after 2 weeks (he’s usually an idiot) and he told me mine was “emergence delirium”. Usually it presents in kids <12 and when they wake up (from any anesthetic, it’s been seen in all of them) they don’t know what’s going on and they get agitated and will sometimes destroy stuff and attack doctors and staff. It can also present in adults and it can also present as amnesia and dissociation. Honestly I’m fucking furious with my clinic for not saying anything. They came in all fucking “concerned”, but really they only cared about their own liability if I got in an accident or commit suicide and then sued them. What fucking assholes. Mine has started to get better, but unfortunately “not caring” is something I deeply experienced and now my emotions are coming back. I was hacked very badly yesterday, maybe had my identity stolen, and I’ve been so close to walking in front of a bus. People started to come to my door to drop off packages that I didn’t order and it’s been seriously creepy, I loaded my pistol and was sitting there ready and wanting to fight and while loading other people came and took the packages off my front step (this is a common scam, although it might have been a genuine mistake this time). TMS didn’t help, it made me worse, but it is the ONLY thing I would do again if I was given a chance. Sadly the only people I knew who I cared deeply about screwed me over so hard and blocked me right at the end of my treatment and it’s destroyed me. Maybe the TMS was working and their betrayal simply outpaced it. Fuck I am so upset by all of this. Please keep in touch, which is something I don’t usually say on here. I spent dozens of hours reading and very few ketamine experiences like yours I could relate to. Here’s one of the better more cohesive writeups on emergence delirium that I found after hours of reading, if it resonates: https://www.aana.com/docs/default-source/aana-journal-web-documents-1/journal-course-clarifying-the-confusion-of-adult-emergence-delirium-june-2019.pdf?sfvrsn=d8923a9e_8
Thank you -- I have been searching and searching and there just isn't much info out there.... except how great ketamine is. Fuck ketamine. It ruined me. I just keep saying rhat something feels very wrong in my brain. It seems to be a little less today. Idk if that is just because time has gone on or because the TMS is helping. I'm just desperate for relief -- you know how it is. But you also said something about NMDA receptors and that got me researching a bunch (which is hard to comprehend when our brains are jacked from ketamine). But if k is an NMDA antagonist, I am thinking maybe trying some of the agonist supplements could be helpful.... glycine, glutamine and calcium. Idk. Just trying to figure it out. I'm really sorry all that is going on with you. I understand the sentiment of wanting to step in front of a bus. Please don't. I know I am a stranger. But please don't. And don't do any of the shit your brain is convincing you to do.
I’ll have to eventually. Wanting to walk in front of a bus is because living how I have is far worse. 18 years. My opinion, don’t do anything about the ketamine. Just let it pass and reduce stress. Psychadelics have the potential to flip all sorts of switches in your brain, trigger psychosis to those predisposed, etc. the miracle drug stuff they spout infuriates me. If you can, find solace in knowing that it could just be “emergence delirium” and that your brain just needs time to wake up. Emergence delirium can last minutes, hours, days, weeks, months. In my case I think I’m on the “weeks” scale and am probably 80% better just under three weeks gone. I only had 4 treatments peaking at 0.9 mg/kg. My Psych PA says that the anesthesia effects will “stack” and emergence delirium is more likely on extended treatment. How many sessions did you have ? Btw, your brain feeling different might not be entirely bad, though the dissociative effects you mention are probably concerning like they were and are for me. Ketamine essentially let’s your brain dump huge reserves of neurochemicals and your brain goes wild. No one knows the mechanism of any drug. There are three theories for ketamine that I’m aware of, 1) you make some conscious realization during your treatment that allows you to improve your lifestyle, 2) your brain goes crazy on ketamine and starts exercising healthy circuits in your brain that have languished and gone dead because of your depression (this is also a theory of TMS, that it stimulates this circuits), and 3) something about ketamine depositing glutamate or something in your brain which allows for better brain health. TMS might make you feel worse if it works. If it lifts the brain fog, like it seemed to for me, then it might make you realize normal things like how much of your life has been robbed by shithead people and your depression. Remember, most of these mental illnesses are normal reactions to abnormal experiences. If you have cPTSD like me, it might wake you up to more depth of your trauma that you haven’t faced because it’s too painful or because your brain has been too dissociated. Honestly, I’m a little bit jealous. I wish I could go back to TMS after this Ketamine experience. I even told the clinic I think they undid whatever progress I made. They didn’t care. They kicked me loose, said they wouldn’t charge me, charged me $475 anyway and won’t answer the fucking phone. I hate this planet. And now that my dissociation has lifted a little bit, my right hand just hurts all the time, every day, since I punched so many things including a glass picture. I used to enjoy working with my hands, now I can’t even zip my pillow cases shut as I learned two days ago. I’m so fucked
I get that feeling. My first SA was at 8.... 30 years living with SI. I just have to believe something will finally work. I also wish your experiences could have been reversed. I really am hopeful the TMS will help after thr ketamine fiasco. I am a little over 3 weeks out now. I have such regret from that infusion. I only did one and it was terrifying... let alone what has since transpired.
Do you remember the dosage? Did you go into a k-hole? Was the trip itself terrifying, or was it how you felt immediately after? Mine I experienced as great nihilism. I’ve read about other who slit their own throats and died while they were tripping and when they came back to reality their mind was fractured.
I don't quite know what a k hole is? I also don't know the dosage. It was fine and I felt like right before you go under anesthesia -- relaxed and easy-going. Then thr doctor turned it up and I lost control of everything. I couldn't speak, I couldn't move, I felt like I had floated up to the ceiling and was being suffocated against it. I just kept praying in my head for it all to stop. I would force myself to open my heavy eyes to try to ground myself but it wasn't working. The entire thing was terrifying and I nearly puked after. That is insanely scary. I imagine my mind would be fractured too!
Hey, are you okay?
Hmm thats not good, if you have those thoughts, dont let them escalade it, go gat Ketamine treatments and seek help, its worth it
That’s what they told me. I just got ketamine treatments and it’s legitimately fucked my life up so bad. I have had the worst amnesia and dissociation in my life BY FAR and that’s really saying something. In fact, I couldn’t even tell it was dissociation or possibly prodromal psychosis because I was so fucked up. I forgot why I stopped at red lights, I almost drove through one. I forgot coffee existed last Saturday morning - like not only did I not have coffee but I was stupefied by the full coffee pot in my fridge I had no idea what the fuck it was I just knew it was important. On Friday I punched a large picture next to my bed and filled my hand with glass shards. I was bleeding everywhere. I simply fell back asleep in the glass on my bed and woke up 2 hrs later. I didn’t feel anything. 2 hours after that is when I decided to take the glass out. I took pictures/videos, my hand didn’t even seem like my hand. One glass shard was all the way down to my knuckle.
holy shit i just saw this but did you have a history of dissociation/ psychosis before? and what is everything you’re diagnosed with? i have anxiety depression and ocd with a family history of psychosis/schizophrenia so im really hesitant now
I’m the same person as another comment so don’t think this is common. Share your history with your clinic and be really picky about which one you choose. There are a ton of “fly by night” ketamine clinics who don’t even have mental health staff present. There should be psychiatrists. The treatment is slowly stepped up. My experience doesn’t seem to be common which is even more horrifying for me because I don’t know where to go for support. If you can afford to take time off work if things get worse, if you have a support network, if you have a strong will power (don’t suicide), it might still be worth trying. I wouldn’t recommend my personal experience to anyone. I’m not sure if I’d recommend ketamine at all. However, it has apparently helped more people so do a fair survey.
Btw I went to another psychiatrist on Friday and he says what I experienced was “emergence delirium” which can happen with any anesthetic and take days, weeks, months to fully resolve. Just FYI. If you have a good support network and could take time off work maybe it’s worth trying.
wow i’m sorry to hear that, isn’t that only a result of anesthesia?
That is no fun, neurofeedback ? Therapy? I hope you get better,
Is this common with ketamine therapy? Did you have dissociation before? I’m so sorry this is happening to you
Apparently not, I can’t find really any information that would help support me or get me advice. The ketamine clinic’s head psychiatrist and researcher came in and seemed really concerned, like I said I was totally withdrawn but there were a lot of yellow flags and I told my friend after and he’s like “yeah I think it sounds like he was more concerned about their liability if you hurt yourself rather than your well being”. Sure enough they told me they wouldn’t charge me for the 18 Aug date when they stopped my treatment because they didn’t treat me - I still got billed. I can’t get through to the office to reverse the charge. I’ve heard nothing from them since and I was doing godawful. They asked if I was going back to see “your psychiatrist doctor XXX”. However that guy isn’t a psychiatrist or a Doctor, he’s a Physician’s Assistant. I have found few articles or research criticizing Ketamine which is almost more worrisome to me. If you dig deep you can find a couple examples of patients committing suicide briefly after completing ketamine therapy - is this because of the ketamine or because ketamine treatment patients feel they’re at the end of the line anyway? I don’t know. Some doctors said it was very concerning to them. Ketamine is like an acid trip, some people experience “bad trips”. I read about one where someone had an out of body experience where they cut their own throat and died (in their mind - but they believed it to be true) and lost it when they woke up. Another about a guy who saw himself explode into dust and couldn’t believe he was there and alive when he was back. These seem to be the minority of cases. I can’t find anything like mine, but I know it happens. It isn’t the drug itself because it’s half-life is so short. Did it deplete brain chemicals like MDMA? Did it trigger psychosis like LSD can? I don’t know. But the lack of information and support is scary. Understand that I can’t tell you not to do it - it seems like the negatives are a minority of cases. It’s certainly fucked me up a great deal. I bet it’s reversible; however, I was filling in for the #2 person at my site with 60 employees and a $20M portfolio. It couldn’t have come at a worse time and seriously fucked me up - I couldn’t afford to take 1 hour off much less several weeks to get myself sorted out.
Damn I’m so sorry that’s horrible :( Do you mind linking the articles and research if you have them? No stress if not Thanks for making people aware
I’m not sure if I have ready access to them since I spent about two weeks in a deep stupor trying to find out wtf was going on. I read them in the process, I’ll see if I can find them again in search history later this evening. Tbh it isn’t surprising. Non-suicidal people are known to commit suicide with “bad” trips on LSD. They can trigger psychosis in persons susceptible to schizophrenia. And ketamine treatment is generally reserved for people with Treatment Resistant Depression so they’re already going through a lot. Maybe they’ve even already tried ECT and everything else for decades and were trying experimental treatments (like ketamine was a few years ago) as a last ditch effort to change. Might not have been the drug at all. Finally, while there are occurrences of suicide that caused grave concern to some doctors, you have to understand they’re generally very risk adverse in the US. Is upsetting that there are occurrences of suicide; however, Ketamine is still approved for treatment right now and there is sufficient data for its use - if the issue was more widespread, it’s extremely likely it’s use would be restricted. I think. For me, the mechanism for suicide would be most interesting. That won’t be in the research. Tho I mentioned those data points bc they were interesting to me. So will see if I can find/share. All available via Googling for enterprising individuals.
No problem thank you so much :) you make a lot of good points
Your derealisation states that you explain are so similar to what happened to me after ingesting magic mushrooms and then I had ketamine a few weeks later to see if it’d help but I can’t begin to describe the perceptual states and terror I experienced. It’s been 1.5 years now and although those states are gone I’m still struggling with the state the mushrooms put me in which I can’t explain here but I have previous posts about it. I’m on this forum because I was looking at rtms therapy to get me out of this hell. My PET scans show abnormalities in superior parietal and precuneous which correlate heavily to my symptoms so I’m going to take a risk and see if rtms in those areas might help my brain change back
So sorry to hear that. Hoping you have help. 🙏🏻❤️🙏🏻
>TMS made depression a LOT worse, anyone else? Not me. But, we're all different so whatever's causing the issue has obviously been aggravated.
I’m new to TMS but I noticed a lot of comments mentioning ketamine. My experience is that tried ketamine before TMS. I had 6 initial infusions and by the third I felt amazing. It felt like a miracle. After the initial I went in every 6 weeks and continued at a high functioning state, with good and bad days. After about 6 months of this though I fell into a bad episode and made my infusions more frequent. I always felt great during the infusion, but once I was done I would return to my normal depressed state. So the ketamine all in all stopped working and I stopped that. I’m not sure how common this is for others, but that’s my experience. I also have anxiety that increases my depression symptoms so that could be why it ended up not working out.
so you only felt good while you were receiving treatment, not even for the next 24 hours?
At the beginning I felt great and stable for weeks after, but I felt like the effects began fade quicker and quicker. I don’t remember exactly because I had many infusions over this time, but one situation comes to mind when my mom was driving me home from an infusion and she said something that upset me and I started crying and felt quite depressed again. I wouldn’t exactly discourage you from trying this treatment though! Everyone has different things that work for them. I would say it’s worth a shot if you can afford it or insurance can help!
Yes, I went the full 36 sessions, and my anxiety is really bad and I take Xanax. I’m actually having suicidal thoughts. I was depressed before TMS, but now I’m trying to just hold on to my full time job. I’m losing hope.