[beauflow]

Has anyone tried ketamine treatment for their bipolar?
It's a newer treatment... *the site I was just in mentioned bipolar along with pain and depression*, but have been wondering if anyone here has tried it.
I didn't see a thread started, apologizes if this a duplicate.

[Scooter9]

I haven't tried it but my pdoc suggested it.

The problem is that it's a trial that combines TMS with ketamine. It requires 3 tms treatments per week during the day for several weeks and I can't take that much time from work.

It seems promising though. I hope someone that has experience with it replies here.

Never tried it, but @Crook32 has tried it. Tagging her here so she can see the thread.

[Crook32]

I tried Ketamine after a lot of urging by my T and pdoc. I was mainly reluctant because of the cost. However I was pleasantly surprised that after my deductible my insurance paid for it out of network. My ketamine dr says I am the only patient of his that insurance has paid for anything.

So it started with a round of 6 infusions. The dr said if I don’t feel better after 2 we would stop. I didn’t like the way I felt during or right after the first 2 infusions so we were going to stop but my T said I looked a lot better and the dr said there was a chance other would notice a change before me. So I decided to keep going with the treatments. I did all 6. I didn’t feel better right away like most people say but I stayed stable longer. Usual booster is 6-8 weeks later and I went 11 weeks. Next booster was only 6 weeks. I haven’t had one since then so almost 9 weeks. My T calls ketamine “the rescue”, she has a few clients doing it.

I did it as a last resort. I was never doing ECT again. TMS was not going to work and you have to go everyday. So even though it took a while to convince me I am glad I did it. It is just 45 minutes and then 15 minutes of recovery. Pretty unsteady walking to your car and you can’t drive for a day.

[bpcyclist]

I tried a very closely related drug, which I will not name here, and the results were immediate and miraculous. Depression was just gone. Completely gone. Basically, a miracle. The problem was the side effects were intolerable, especially issues with balance and memory. I was devastated. Nothing has ever worked like that for me before or since.

From what I've read and having talked to some of the people at the NIMH who did the early studies on this, my concern about the current protocol for ketamine is that the dose will not be high enough for many or most patients. Maybe as they get more data they will figure it out, because this class of compound truly can be miraculous.

[Moose72]

My mom just told me today about two people we know that had ketamine. One broke her arm straight through and they gave her ketamine so they could reset it. She said she was freaked out of her mind because "things were coming after her"- zooming at her while they weresetting her arm. Apparently without the ketamine she wouldnt have been able to withstand the resetting. The other person had their shoulder dislocated and they gave her ketamine too.

[bpcyclist]

Yeah, ketamine has historically been used in the Emergency Department to help get people through somewhat unpleasant procedures. It is technically a dissociative anesthetic, but in reality it has many uses.

[unaluna]

I think yagr just finished a treatment.