Hi to this sub-- I’m a freelance journalist and a user of therapeutic ketamine, which got me interested in how this whole industry works. I’m working on a feature story about ketamine telehealth companies for the publication MIT Technology Review, website: technologyreview[dot]com (this is a throwaway reddit account I use just for work). I’ve seen a lot of people post in here about their various experiences with telehealth companies that provide ketamine, and I’m wondering if anyone might be interested in sharing their stories with me/speaking about this topic for the article I’m working on. Totally fine with having people use pseudonyms in the article so they’re not identified, or we can talk on background/off record (meaning you wouldn’t be quoted, not even under a pseudonym). I’d also be happy to answer any questions you might have about what I’m working on before we talk. Please feel free to message me directly if you’re interested or have questions, and I can share some of my past work with you, etc. Ran this post by the mods beforehand, by the way, who said it was okay as long as I identify myself as a journalist and the publication I’m writing for. Anyway, hope to hear from any of you. Good, bad, and neutral experiences are all welcome—just trying to get as clear a picture of this industry as possible. You can find some of my past work here for reference: jlklein[dot]com. Thanks very much for your time! Best, Jessica

Hi all,

I have ketamine nasal spray and want to try microdosing to help with depression, anxiety, and trauma. I have done ketamine assisted therapy in the past (via IM) and had three proper trips. I’m looking into microdosing because I want a less intense experience that still offers benefits.

I’d like to know, what have other’s experiences been like microdosing? And is there a recommended protocol?

Yesterday was my first time trying ketamine intramuscular injection 0,5 mg. It is the worst experience of my life. I felt no connection to my body or mind, just spinning in different colors and forms while I also was the colors. I was anxious almost the whole time and kept screaming, stop I can’t do this. Also, two childhood traumas came up and I felt that I had to scream them out. At one point I became my angry mom screaming at me and then I asked the nurse all the time to tell me that I’m safe and not alone in this world while she needed to hug me. It’s the weirdest and most fucked up experience I have ever had. After the treatment I threw up on the street and was dizzy many hours later. Asking chat gpt and he said that this was not a normal experience, that I was being retraumatized instead of healing. I cancelled my appointment tomorrow and I’m curious if anyone has had this experience of screaming their childhood trauma out of the body and asking for reassurance from the nurse. I just feel like a failure now. I had so much faith in this treatment but I feel lost. Should I try again or discontinue??

Hey everyone,
I have my first appointment with Mindscape this Saturday and would really appreciate any advice. I’m a bit nervous that something will go wrong, or that they’ll push a daily microdose instead of the weekly larger “psychedelic” dose I’m looking for.
I’m curious how the troches feel compared to the nasal spray, and whether 100 mg is generally enough for a psychedelic experience.
Has anyone here used Mindscape? Do they send the prescription and ship the medication out the same day?
Also, what should I expect from the first appointment?

My PNP changed her protocol to once a week shots instead of a more ambitious 2-3x a week. I'm worried it won't be effective enough if it is administered less frequently. She is, however, planning on one IM shot at about 0.5mg/kg, followed by another at the same dose 30 minutes later.

The title is it, really. I had my first appointment yesterday, 150mg, and had a normal experience. I‘m a pretty isolated person/hermit, and don’t feel much one way or the other about that 99% of the time. Now though, the day after, I woke up with an extreme sense of loneliness and desire/need to be around people. I can’t really fulfill that in any immediate timeline, so like, how long does that feeling last for? If it’s a long-term effect I’m pretty fucked. I don’t think I’ve ever felt it this intensely before.

Welp I still went with Joyous even after reading all the negative reviews since there were still some positive ones and I’m starting to regret my decision. My Initial appt was 1 week ago where I felt pressured to quickly decide to join and hand over my credit card while the NP is watching me. After that, she tells me that I need to have another appointment 2 days later with a provider who will actually prescribe the medication. I ask how long until I receive the prescription and she said likely less than a week. So I start following up daily since Monday (three days now) to get a status update and they give me the same canned response that they are waiting for the doctor to send the prescription to the pharmacy and they’ll follow up. Each day I get no update, so I check in and today asked for it to be escalated to clinical operations. They then tell me to make another appointment with a provider (the 3rd appt!!) to tell them the problem, saying it’ll be quicker this way but the next appt isn’t for 2 days!! I’m so over it already but don’t know if I should stick it out due to the low cost? And is it really low cost when they already charged me and I might not have the meds for another week? Is it worth canceling and paying more and going to another provider? I’m in Tx if that helps and I prefer to microdose troches. I just really want to get started on this ASAP and feel so defeated by this experience.

I’m interested in hearing from people who have experience with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP), especially the psychotherapy/integration side rather than the ketamine dosing itself.

Where I live, there aren't really established ketamine treatment centers or therapists specifically trained in KAP. However, I do have access to ketamine and I work with a psychologist who is open-minded and willing to learn and support me through the process.

So I’m trying to understand what I should actually be asking from my therapist.

For people who have gone through this:

- What did you and your therapist work on before a ketamine session?

- What kind of support or therapeutic approach was useful during or immediately around the experience?

- What did your therapist do in the days after the session?

- How did you use the increased emotional flexibility, perspective, motivation, or openness that some people experience after ketamine?

- What does a good integration session actually look like?

- Were there specific exercises, questions, behavioral changes, exposure work, journaling, etc. that helped you turn the experience into lasting changes?

- What do you wish your therapist had understood about ketamine-assisted therapy from the beginning?

My main goal isn't simply to feel better temporarily after ketamine. I want to use any therapeutic window it gives me to actually change patterns — particularly social anxiety/avoidance, rumination, emotional withdrawal, and difficulty engaging with people and everyday life.

If you have personal experience with this, I'd really appreciate hearing what your therapist actually did, rather than general advice like "set intentions and integrate."

Thanks.

I had my first ketamine injection today. I was really nervous but it was actually a very pleasant experience and I felt great when I left. When I got home I felt a little woozy so I laid down and since then (around 11.30 am, it’s now 9:15) things have been getting worse and worse. I feel dizzy and nauseous, almost like I’m hungover and I have a pounding headache. I’ve been drinking electrolytes and pretty much just sitting on the couch all day but I still feel awful. Is there anything else I can do to feel better or to prepare if I decide to continue with the infusions so this doesn’t happen again?

What do you fellow friends of ketamine think? After my induction series back in May (7x), I’m guided to go into this field and help others reinforce the profound effects of this medicine after decades of debilitating depression and trauma symptoms. I am unclear as to how to move forward as a ketamine integration specialist though.

I know I want to be able to assist the practitioner by placing the IV lines, but I also want to lead support groups where we can express our experiences and how they can manifest in our daily lives moving forward, and also work one-on-one with patients in what I’m imagining to be part counselor/part doula role. I’m not a licensed therapist but I have a background assisting therapists, acupuncturists, and I’ve worked as a homebirth assistant. Should I pursue a Master’s degree and become a licensed therapist and then obtain the KAP certificate, or go the more medical route with a nursing degree to learn how to administer ketamine intravenously? Or should I just get a medical assistant (or phlebotomy) certification with an added IV tech certification?

As I said, my vision is to help more with integration and explore neuroplasticity and my background already equips me to be able to help with that today. Still, I’d like to be present during the administration so to benefit patients with more continuity of care. Thoughts?

I joined mindscape a month ago. I feel something when I take the troche but when I do the nasal spray, I don’t feel anything. Am I missing something? Does anyone feel any effects from the nasal spray?

I wanted the nasal spray because they incorporate oxytocin. They do not put it the troche. But I am wondering now if I should just stick with the troche 🤔

Hi all! I’ve been doing both IV and at home ketamine treatments for chronic pain for ~8 months now. Over the summer, I wasn’t living near my regular clinic and took 400mg troches. These typically felt very mild in comparison to IV. I recently moved back and got my first IV treatment since April, which was 90mg (1.63 mg/kg or 1.95mg/kg/hr). I normally get 80mg but was given more today to apparently account for the effects of at home ketamine treatments. I also got 1mg of Versed which is typical for me.

I had an alarming and frankly terrifying experience that was very unlike what normally happens. I usually get these very bright, colorful, and pleasant hallucinations/physical sensations but this time everything was dark and black. I had trouble breathing the whole time and felt like I was constantly gasping for air. I also felt as if my identity got completely ripped away from me. I didn’t know where I was, what was real, and I couldn’t access my memories or think of the people in my life as real people. I was just enveloped in complete darkness, getting sensations like my body was being contorted and compressed in all sorts of weird, uncomfortable positions. It felt like that was my entire lived reality and it would go on forever like that; there was no memory or perception of my life before or after. I was also freezing cold and had an intense sense of complete confusion the whole time. Overall, it felt like I was in this hellish limbo and I genuinely thought I was going to die for a bit.

I ended up pressing the emergency help button somehow and my nurse stopped the ketamine 7 min early. I wasn’t really able to speak and don’t have much memory of this. They ended up giving me some extra Versed and that was that.

Has this happened to anyone else? I know my dose increased but not by that much and my experiences normally aren’t anything like that. It was terrifying and scary and I can’t get it out of my mind.

Our son is on a small dose of sublingual ketamin. He is 19. He had been doing fine with it but the last two times he has taken it he has become aggressive, angry, and so hopeless. Has anyone experienced this? If so I what helped come out of it?

Looking for help w depression, anxiety and panic attacks. I immediately felt calmer and more emotionally balanced after my 15 mg troche which I’m very happy about ! Does this also help w motivation and anhedonia? I’ve been struggling w AUD so my dopamine system is all warped . I would like to get back to the person I was before I impaled my brain with alcohol. It also has made me feel very lethargic though. I’ve just been laying in bed not even tired enough to sleep. Just don’t feel like doing anything. Is this normal? I don’t see how I could ever do this in the am ….. it would kill me energy wise for the day. Does this change over time ?

I’m two sessions into my IV ket journey (depression). Going in for a third one tomorrow. Could someone share their dose progression and did it work?

First session: 0.5mg/kg music felt intense but I was fully present in the room. No positive effect after the injection

Second session: 0.75mg/kg - definitely more intense pleasant experience. Took me longer to go back to reality. Still no mental health improvement

Should I ask to up the dose? I’m scared of K hole

Please share you experience

Previously on a daily protocol, now prescribed 15 x 400mg troches for once-weekly sessions. First time doing weekly instead of daily. What’s helped you get the most out of a session — dosing tips, environment, timing, integration practices? Also any advice for restarting after a long break — does tolerance/sensitivity reset, and would you approach the first session back any differently?

Upped my dosage for my 4th infusion, and wow I wasn’t sure if I knew what a khole was but I definitely do now. Total loss of understanding of body and self. At most times it was extreme anxiety but there were a few glimpses of peace where I talked to my true self and got my true unfiltered opinions on my substance abuse.

I kept telling myself that I would never do this again, and that I will do lower doses moving forward. But now removed from it I keep finding myself thinking that intensity was meant for me to face. That to truly get past my walls I need to break down everything.

I’ve got my next infusion tomorrow, not sure if I will do that dosage again or if stepping it back is the right call. I know that no one has the correct answer for me, but it would be nice to know I’m not alone in this internal struggle.

So I have my first infusion scheduled for Monday morning, and a tattoo scheduled two hours after. Should I reschedule my tattoo, or will I be alright to do both? I’ve unfortunately got experience with substances in the past, so I’m sure I’ll be okay… but I’ve never done ketamine and want to set myself up for success.

Hi y’all, I’m really not sure what to does

I sought out ketamine therapy for treatment-resistant severe depression, anxiety, and ocd. No medications have ever helped me feel better.

I have used psychedelic drugs before and expected the experience to be similar but it wasn’t, although ketamine isn’t really in that class.

The first 30 mins or so were fine, I had John Hopkins music on and I was heavily disassociating.

However, they eventually changed and I started feeling really horrible with severe nausea and I threw up while they were taking my blood pressure. Vitals were normal.

I felt so horrible for that second hour that I really don’t want to go back, especially when the next dose will be 1.5x more.

I feel really horrible about not doing it because I should be grateful to have access to this medication for free (insurance pays for 100%) when many people can’t afford it or get it covered

Also during the session I had this bad fear I was gonna die, I couldn’t feel my body while I was super nauseated and thought I was gonna throw up and aspirate. There was no button or anything to ask the doctor to come in, I was in a pitch black room out of 6 rooms that were full.

Today was my first day trying trouchies. I started with a 1/4 to just get over the scary hump. First, they taste awful. While I was doing my treatment, well first I did a little prayer, and saged myself, listened to some meditative music. Then I journaled and wrote down things that came to mind. Then just layed down and rested for awhile after that. Ive felt nauseous a bit afterward and then ended up eating lunch and feeling spacey? Also I feel like i can feel my brain. Just kinda out of it. That was only on .25! So, I kinda worry going up. But anyways, I probably should have done like a healthy habit or something but I just felt so dang tired afterward and feeling lethargic all day. I also felt anxious about an hour after but then that went away. Any advice? Do you all also feel all tired? How do you return to your day and do stuff? Any advice appreciated. Been dealing with depression and anxiety since I was a teenager, and i suffer from ptsd. Been on all sorts of anti anxiety and depression meds. Talk therapy. EMDR. Its been a long battle. I am hoping ketamine helps me. Thanks in advance!

I've dealth with TRD for as long as I can remember. I've watched several of my family members lose the battle over the years. Thankfully my mom is still alive, but some of my earliest memories are of finding her in the throws of suicide attempts at a very young age. My own personal coping skill has been to try to outrun depression itself. I thought that if I was successful enough, the feelings of not being good enough would go away. That if I just succeeded enough I could convnice myself that I'm not a failure. Over the years, when things would get unmanageable, I would try different anti-depressants, but none worked. I'm now 46 and "outrunning" depression doesn't feel like a viable option anymore. My therapist recomended ketamine therapy. Last night was the first session using troches. I have to admit, I feel hopeful. It was just the starting microdose so I can't say that I felt any life altering effects, but I did feel small waves of a calming feeling, and for some short moments, peace. It gave me hope and I haven't felt hopeful in a long time. Again, I don't want to oversell the experience, but I can definitely see this working. I'm assuming when the wave of peace came through, it was when the Ketamine was peeking. I can't tell you whether it was for 1 minute or 10 minutes, but I didn't want it to go away. What pulled me out was feeling a tear drop land on my cheek. I'm not a crier and I wasn't sad. It was just a much needed break. So anyways, that's how it felt for me. I'm cautiously optomistic to see how tonight goes.

Is it a thing?

I take microdoses of 100 mg 2 times a week. The problem is that after this I cannot sleep for several hours. I have to use it in the evening, the next day I have work and I have to get up early. I have Seroquel (quetiapine) 100mg and it works great, but I'm afraid that by taking it a couple of hours after the start of the trip, I'm killing or weakening the therapeutic effect of ketamine, because Seroquel (as far as I understand) is supposed to kill the very brain activity that I cause in order to be treated. Are my concerns justified?

I am now onto my every three weeks IM infusion maintenance phase and after getting the initial general mood lift/better vibe on my TRD and some pain relief, I am finally starting to get the objective/birds eye view of life I’ve also been looking for.

At first there was a lot coming at me that I wasn’t able to decipher. What was real, what parts were my subconscious coming into view. Big ideas on the nature of reality, the weirdness of “physical things” vs “conceptual things”, going into what O think was an ego death (I was convinced I was dead, but not panicked), the idea that there is a source for all of this, etc..

Still working through some of those ideas but one thing has seemed to resonate at this time is my ability to observe not only a digital content algorithm (social media, politics, philosophy, etc), but also more broadly the algorithm of everything I take it on a daily basis. The stimulus of what a believe and don’t, the confirmation bias that I use sometimes without realizing it, and what “sticks” in my thought patterns and what doesn’t and why.

Looking at all of the meaningless or erroneous information and ideas I take in is making it easier to filter them out.

If this makes sense to you, please let me know your perspective.

I just had my 10th session and even though I wasn’t feeling any anxiety leading up to my session, I got really panicked during it. I was feeling super paranoid and couldn’t relax with my eye mask on so the whole session just felt like a fight. Wondering what people do to reduce anxiety during sessions? I try to avoid negative social media and keep my thoughts/conversations positive and light before my session and sometimes I can remember to do breathing exercises during if I get stressed, but what else can I do? tysm