RE: Are Dissociative Drugs the Future of Antidepressants?
I would love to try a psychedelic for my depression.
Sadly the option has never been legally open to me.
As for ketamine I think the risk of bladder damage in particular would be a major concern although I think it is only a matter of time before we get safer analogues.
The big problem getting access many of these drugs is the decades long prohibition which means that medical access is only available in very restricted areas - usually cutting edge research facilities that aren't scared off by the extreme restrictions placed by most Western governments.
The sad result of the hysterical war on drugs is that sensible scientific research has been stifled and it may well be that we have lost out on treatments which may be more effective because of that.
There are suggestions that psychedelics may even be curative in certain cases. No conventional treatment has been known to have such an effect.
I wonder how many people have died because they were not able to access potentially curative therapies because overreaching governments decided they should have domain over people's abilities to modify their consciousness.
Further moving outside of depression, drugs like Ibogaine have been used very effectively to treat opioid and other addictions.
Psilocybin and LSD have been shown to have been of benefit in terminally ill patients and as I have mentioned before MDMA can bring about significant symptomatic improvement in certain cases of Parkinson's Disease.
You shouldn't worry about bladder damage. Usually you will have to do a ton of Ketamine in order to do damage like that.
MXE was created to be an answer somewhat to the bladder problem since it was more potent much less needs to be taken.
A lot of people just focus on the serotonin/dopamine aspect of depression while the gaba/glutamate connections have been barely talked upon. (One of Ketamine's benefits is that it promotes the release of Glutamate) .
Sooner or later I believe that psychedelics will change the world of medicine and how we view mental problems, we just need to get rid of these archaic laws and outdated propaganda .
There have been cases of damage after minimal use. Might be rare but it could happen - I suspect there may be a particular high susceptibility in some individuals but too little is understood about the mechanism. It appears ketamine is directly toxic to the urothelium - the cells which line the inside of the bladder. I don't think it is worth taking the risk until a safer alternative is available.
Actually both models may be incorrect - they are attempts at understanding things which we probably don't have the mechanisms or tools to fully understand yet. The monoamine hypothesis is definitely wrong. I suspect glutamate/NMDA receptor hypothesis will be the same.
I hope so but I think it isn't going to happen any time soon. The people that are in power have extremely irrational beliefs and tend to ignore the science. Hope I'm wrong though.
I forgot to mention that yes there is always the possibility of it doing damage in that rare event, but for most treatments you wouldn't be doing anything more than 5 treatments. And if you were going to go on a long term nasal solution it would probably be best to always get checked out. There are things you can take to hopefully reduce the damage but I'm not 100% sure that they actually work.
One thing that really bothers me and I wonder what your take on this is as well, is that so many people think its a chemical imbalance when it comes to depression. Yes,that may be the cause, but I think alot of depression has to do with culture & life rather than a chemical imbalance. I really believe this to be the case with people that suffer from no drugs/medicine working on them.
I know in my case psychedelics "cured" me of my depression for a long time..however due to my newfound happiness I found it incredibly hard to integrate back into society due to a number of conflicting reasons. Now I'm at the point where nothing helps anymore.
I think the monoamine hypothesis is wrong overall..which is sad since besides my original doctor every other doctor I've went to see says SSRIs or anti-psychotics are the only cure. One of them was so gungho that SSRI's were 100% to be the cure for depression,but if that was the case then everyone would be cured by going on SSRI's if it was just serotonin related. Not one doctor even looked into the possibility that maybe I might have too much serotonin..
Great points. I think with ketamine it has mostly been restricted to treatment resistant depression and I think that is an exceptional case where you need long term treatment but as you point out for most people that won't be necessary.
The problem is even a small risk of bladder damage is going to scare off most people and doctors from using it because when it does occur the consequences can be life changing and make a person's quality of life much worse.
The 2 things I've found that help most (but they are not a perfect solution) are exercise and meditation. The problem is when you get down you tend to lose the motivation and ability to do them.
Is the bladder damage also there for IM or IV use? Or is that only for nasal and oral usage? Alot of doctors still use Ketamine for operations since its pretty safe overall. And its not like other medications , especially SSRI's don't have their own horrible side effects.
What would be interesting to see is what % actually gets bladder damage from medical use (not recreational).
Your right, when I was on psychedelics they told me that if I wanted to get over my depression meditation and exercise was key and to treat my body like a temple. For a few years I was excellent. I didn't drink any more alcohol, worked out alot, meditated almost everyday and was doing great all around.
I can't believe how much meditation changed me and how it just completely blew away my anxiety. Best of all I actually learned to love myself, something that I never was able to do.
I've been in that mode of being down for a while now and have zero motivation now to meditate or exercise. I wish there were safer meds out there to bring out that stimulation to give you a jump start. Its that weird stage of I don't want to die,but I do nothing being alive.
It's for any type of use as I understand it due to the way it is eliminated.
I think you hit the nail on the head there. You need meds to give a jump start and get people out of the "pit" of depression. There is another alternative that may work TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) but it is hard to find places that do it. I was looking for ages but it needs to be administered on a weekly basis for best effect which means you need to live nearby.
I was looking at TMS as well! I'm actually a bit surprised that you would want to to do TMS over Ketamine. I don't know much about TMS so I'm still a bit ignorant on this subject but it would seem to me that TMS might have some long term dangers that we may not know of yet and that Ketamine might be safer? But I could be wrong.
Funny thing you mention TMS cause I was looking to do it as well, I found a few places in Connecticut and New York but none of them were under my insurance. I am desperate enough to try anything to hopefully push my depression & anhedonia away even if its just a tiny bit. There was a singer that live streamed his TMS session and went on about how he loved what it did for him but his name keeps slipping my mind.I think he did an AMA about it as well.
Have you looked into nootropics as well? If you know what might be causing your depression there might be a few of them that can help.
Also sorry I haven't been replying in the correct format, I just got on Steemit so I have to learn how to use it correctly.
Depends on what you mean by nootropics. I've looked into pretty much everything - a lot of things have very little or very poor evidence to support them.
Indeed. We are left with half-ass/horrible solutions such as SSRI's, mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, many of which require a person to stay on them the rest of their lives.
I took an SSRI to treat depression a few years back. I felt a bit flat-lined. It lessened my sadness, but in the process reduced my range of emotion to a degree that made me feel less human.
I used to be incredibly opposed to anyone using these anti-depressants, as I feel they suppress emotions which can be helpful to a person's growth. I'm no longer as vehemently opposed to a person using them, as they may be a better solution than remaining horribly depressed.
Yet, I can't help but wonder what would happen if the doors were opened to substances such as Ketamine, MDMA, LSD, Psilopsybin, and many others. It's a shame that we've restricted the options to treating this debilatating illness.
That's the thing and the current drugs do work but they don't offer long term solutions. The other sad part of the equation is that psychotherapy has pretty much been replaced by medication. I had to be on a waiting list for years to get it and could only get it for a year before the psychotherapist retired - we just don't have enough!
I agree with you, @colinhoward. SSRIs and other antidepressants work for some, but not all. I hope we'll see more effective options in the future, possibly even including psychedelics (or non-psychoactive analogues). It seems that psychotherapy used in conjunction with novel pharmacological agents will probably yield the most promising outcomes.
Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful comment, @thecryptofiend. I share your disappointment that anti-drug hysteria has led to an incalculable loss of life and has curtailed scientific research.
As you know, it's especially difficult to legally use psychedelics in the UK under the Psychoactive Substances Act compared to in the US. Unfortunately the only alternative is risking ordering psychedelics from the dark or clear net, which of course deters many people from seeking out these legitimate treatment options if they have to break the law to do so.
The Imperial College has published some exciting LSD- and psyilocybin-related research in recent years and will soon begin MDMA trials, so at least that's somewhat encouraging, but the overall picture is still pretty bleak. I hope these preliminary studies will open the doors to future research with fewer regulatory restrictions, but that will likely take decades.
One bright spot of news is that MDMA is on track to becoming a prescription medicine in the US by 2021 thanks to MAPS' research.
Good point about Ibogaine! I've read some miraculous reports of opiate addiction recovery from medically-supervised facilities in Mexico and Canada.
(As an aside, it's unclear to me why your comment was flagged. My SP didn't bump up your post, unfortunately.)
Thanks. Did not know about the news regarding MDMA in the USA.
Don't worry about the flag it is just an idiot called vato. He flagged one of my posts and several other people earlier because he doesn't like people talking about Waves and I gave him some flags in return. Needless to say like the cowardly child he is instead of learning his lesson he decided to flag me back. I am happy to flag him into oblivion if that is what he wants.
Oh my gosh, that's so ridiculous, God forbid you mention Waves. 🙄
Lol :) Legalise WAVES!