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Originally Posted by genetic
I just checked online for ketamine use in medication-resistant depression. It's much improved over the years and doctors are getting good results.
There is a Ketamine clinic at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Dr. Schwartzman is in charge, and a contact doctor named Dr. Getson may be reached at 586-983-7246. They have in-patient and out-patient treatment scheduling.
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I would add to my statement about Deplin that research indicates 70% of depressed patients are lacking in the ability to convert folic acid into folate because of missing enzymes in patients. Genetic testing is the prescrbed way to go, but it can be used as an adjunct to prescribed meds and is not harmful. In fact, it's called a "med food" (about $20. per month and requires a med prescription).
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Yes ,
I have had 11 ketamine infusions this fall 2012. I had them at a local outpatient surgery center in Havertown PA.My PDOC and the center partnered to do them. I only begged my doc to do this for 3 years.
The surgery center had already been doing them, for awhile, for pain patients who receive a larger dose of Ketamine over a longer time.
It did not take much convincing to do them for depression. The dose of Ketamine for depression is even lower then for pain. The infusion only lasts 40 minutes.
You are set up in a room in the recovery area,with heart monitoring, pulse oximetry, blood pressure and nasal oxygen. The nurse starts an IV. The anesthesologist calculates the ketamine dose and puts it in a pump hooked up to the IV. He leaves and the nurse sits at the end of the bed for the entire infusion, writing down vital signs.
The dose you get is very low, sub anesthetic. I always felt like I was floating down a river, a very pleasant feeling.
My depression lifted very quickly, but the draw back of Ketamine is the results do not last. I had 6 initial treatments, MWF, then 5 maintenance once a week.For me the results only lasted for 5 days. At 400 a treatment I had to stop. For some people the more treatments you get the longer the results. This was not so for me.
The other good thing about Ketamine is, is that it has proven to repair brain damage form many things, including just the repeated episodes of bipolar