Ketamine Infusions

I know this might sound drastic, but after three months of ups and downs, I'm honestly considering it. I've had the screening done. (They have a clinic in Arizona where they do this but it's farily new).

I'm afraid of the side effects, but I'm giving it another couple of days to be crappy, because of the pms.

I'm seeing a hormonal specialist tomorrow who can hopefully prescribe me natural progesterone cream that may help with all the pms I have that I'm convinced has affected my recovery. I think at 38 I may be going through premenoupause, because I know that I don't ovulate as much as I used to, and then my pms symptoms only last two days before my period, during and a few days after. When I do ovulate i'm up and down two weeks before my period, during and after, which is three weeks and that's unacceptable.

My pdoc told me to stop taking 1mg abilify cold turkey, as it's the smallest dosage and I've only been on it for 7 weeks. So far, no withdrawals, but I know the half life is long, so if I do feel something it won't be for another couple of days.

I felt best on 20 mg of viibryd, but upping to 40 and pms started at the same time, so not sure what made it worse. I felt normal for two weeks. I have a card from my children and husband celebrating my recovery, which is now making me cry, because I didn't recover. I'm still going through this.

I'm just wondering if anyone can provide any insight on ketamine. And your opinion on whether I'm being too drastic and should just let the viibryd work a little longer. I have no plans to discontinue the viibryd, this would be on top of it.

Has anyone taken viibryd with anything else, like a combination therapy.

All your input is truly appreciated. I am beyond frustrated.

Have you talked to your psychiatrist about the ketamine injections? I'd never heard of it until now.

If you felt better at 20mg Vibryyd, did you tell pdoc? Why couldn't you try the lower dosage first?

I stopped the Abilify cold turkey too after 4 weeks per my psych's recommendation. I had 0 side effects from stopping it.

How often are you going to therapy? If you're stopping the Abilify, did your doctor recommend another addon? I think the Lamictal I take helps but like you, I don't consider myelf in remission. I started the Deplin last week. We are giving it a month to see if that helps.

I'm like you and hormones are on my radar too. I'm desperate to know why this year has been so hard to get ahold of my depression and anxiety. My anxiety has been much better and not every day is moody/depressed but it's inconsistent and unpredictable. Today has been rough with the depression and I'm ticked off at it.

My therapist does hypnosis too. I'm considering it. He said it gets a bad wrap bc of TV and and movies but it is not like what we see. No one controls your mind. I'm also considering acupuncture. I'd be more inclined to try those things before you get ketamine injections. I know you're desperate, as am I, but my advice for you and me, is to keep working with meds/doses/addons and considering supplementing with natural things like accupuncture, hypnotherapy etc.

I understand your frustrations 100% and support anything you try. I've said before I'd eat the goose poop in our yard from the lake geese if it'd get me back to normal! (lol).



Supporting you and sending peace your way-
Lisa

A female doctor once told me, sometimes we only have one normal week out of a month. A week with no pms or moodiness. That kind of stinks if you ask me...

I was peri-menopausal for years, it wasn't much fun. But you do learn to expect and prepare for it.

Wishing you both well.

Hugs, Karen...

Hi keaz,
Sorry you are suffering so much. Have you talked to your GYN about the PMS symptoms? Mine put me on birth control so that I wouldn't have to go through that every month. Maybe that would be an option for you?

I had a really bad bout of secondary depression a few years ago & looked into a trial for ketamine infusion. Unfortunately, I was disqualified from the trial because I was unable to have fMRI's at the time, but it definitely sounded promising. It is not a guarantee and some people have horrible terrifying hallucinations during the treatment. From what I've read, responsible programs usually keep you for observation for a few days after the treatment -- meaning you could be in the hospital for up to 7 days total. For me, after talking with my docs, ketamine seemed riskier than most alternatives with the exception of ECT (which was the other thing we were considering). If you are really struggling with a lot of suicidal thoughts/plans, then ketamine therapy does have good research showing that it is fast-acting and can indeed help turn things around enough that you can focus in therapy and work on getting well. If it were me, I would probably get a second opinion about it just to be sure, but it really does help some of the most desperate patients with severe depression and suicidal tendencies.

Good luck with your decision!