Ketamine and Depression

The American Spectator ^ | 8/15/2006 | Michael Fumento

[neverdem]

Author William Styron called it "Darkness Visible." Another writer labeled it "The Noonday Demon." Successful and beloved people such as William Holden and Ernest Hemingway were never able to shake off the beast called clinical depression. Depression saps the life from you, so thoroughly destroying hope and happiness that you can't even imagine why somebody else might smile or laugh. It wrecks dreams figuratively and literally in that it's often linked with persistent, severe insomnia. It afflicts almost a tenth the adult population each year, is the leading cause of disability for ages 15-44, and frequently involves suicidal fantasies. Sometimes it doesn't stop at fantasizing. Two weeks ago depression claimed my brother-in-law. The good news is that most depressives can be treated with drugs, talk therapy, electroconvulsive treatment, or a combination thereof. Newer drugs tend to have fewer side affects than earlier-generation ones, but all antidepressants provide agonizingly slow results -- usually requiring at least 4-6 weeks. Further, the first drug prescribed probably won't do the trick and there's no way to know which will be best for each patient. That's why despite the plethora of anti-depressant medicines, none can rightly be called a "me too" drug. This is what's so exciting about a treatment conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). It's an injection, not a pill (no, that's not the exciting part), of a substance called ketamine. Since 1970, ketamine has been used as a general anesthetic for both humans and animals. Given in doses too low to cause anesthesia, it relieved depression in as little as two hours. The study, appearing in the August Archives of General Psychiatry, comprised 17 depressed patients randomly assigned to receive...

[neverdem]

Isn't Ketamine a disassociative drug?

From the ketamine link:

"Ketamine is frequently described as a "unique drug" because it has hypnotic (sleep producing), analgesic (pain relieving) and amnesic (short term memory loss) effects..."

Is it that it really cures depression or is it that you no longer care that you are depressed?

I have no idea, but it appears to relieve symptoms for a while. The author linked the original article. IIRC, it's an open access article.

[FastCoyote]

I would comment, but what's the use?
Indeed. Take it from me friend, save your strength.

I'm so exhausted that I can't even lift two cyanide pills to my mouth, much less a revolver

---

LOL! All right you two, cut it out. This is a serious subject. :)


Sure, if anyone has to energy to be serious what with this blanket of darkness clouding everything.

[cva66snipe]

True but amount of dosages in some medicines means everything. Meaning a theraputic level vs recrational usage level??? There's plenty of horror stories about what could be usefull meds but doctors or recreational user don't understand strength levels and create problems.

[aynrandfreak]

You're absolutely right. I wish more people got that difference.

[hosepipe]

[ It seems pretty clear to me that depression is a spiritual disorder. ]

A spirit carrying a donkey on its "back" must get heavy..
The spirit must ride the donkey not schlep it around like a beast of burden..

The bible says all that but most people miss it..

Maybe shock therapy separates the DonK and spirit for a micro second.. The mental sciences still have not caught on to the Donkey/Spirit duality yet.. Most spirits have not seen that they are not Donkeys at all but spirits.. the DonK is just transportation for a time.. Electro theraphy just shocks the DonK.. Zaps it right off the spirit.. Wonder if reading scripture would do some good at that time.. Maybe not, cause we're dealing with a pretty dumb spirit to be willingly schleping a Donkey around.. Could be that spirit will just be mounted again like before(by the Donkey).. maybe even punished...

[Jaysun]

sorry my response was to Jaysun
I would comment, but what's the use?

I'm confused as hell. I don't know who you're talking to or what you're talking about. But I do know a good remedy for depression.

First, I recommend everyone buy my book - Apple Cider Vinegar, Aluminum Foil, and a Kazoo: how I cured myself of bipolar disorder.

Second, try channeling those feelings (unhappiness, disappointment, guilt, etc) into anger then act upon them. I discovered this remedy on my son's tenth birthday. We'd hired a clown. He started his routine and I thought to myself "ho hum, this idiot isn't funny.....what's the point of living?" But instead of letting life put me to sleep yet again I became enraged at the clown. I calmly went to the garage, got a wooden mallet, and broke both of the clown's collar bones. It was exhilarating. I felt alive again and I would never return to my old docile ways. Assaulting others, screaming obscenities at strangers, weekends in jail.....these are the true spices of life.

[Buck W.]

I'm sorry that you can't absorb sarcasm today.

The reason that I am responding in this tone is that I really dislike the use of the word "ignorance" in the context in which you used it. As you well know, the word carries more meaning the simple "lack of knowledge in a specific area" as the dictionary would define it. Instead, it has a negative connotation when used that is more akin to "lack of intelligence in general".

It's a backhanded slap that always gets my attention, whether it's directed at me or others. Notice how leftist "intellectuals" sprinkle the term in their speech and writings.

[Tokra]

The images inside them were bleak and debasing and degrading. The horrors that life can and does reserve for the unfortunate few were aggregated together for me to gaze upon in seemingly unrelated but disturbing sequences. It was as if I was looking into the recesses of my own black heart and inspecting it’s cadaver and viewing the possible causes of it’s death. As within Mervyn Peake’s Gorhmengast Castle I discovered metaphorical rooms and corridors within me that had been sealed up for years and subsequently forgotten. Entering each one I was witness to degrading occult scenes of pornographic macabre savagery. This nighttime litany of torture and death was preferable to being awake and knowingly alive."

That's exactly the same reaction I get when I watch the NBC Nightly News.

[Tokra]

I have used C.B.T. to some good effect.

What is C.B.T. ?

[wizr]

Am I flesh?
or a tortured soul in a dream?
a nightmare! a hideous nightmare!
with no beginning, no end

Always the same
me, careening through a sea of darkness
groping, for a speck of precious light
hoping, for a dawn that never comes
fleeing, the unseen creature that follows

Unseen, but sensed
unheard, but felt,
drawing closer,

But, is it
behind me?
or, inside me,
looking to escape this tired flesh.

Me

[najida]

Cognitive Behavior Therapy....

Used a great deal with Borderline Personality Disorder etc. and it helps a lot with depression.

[Truth-The Anti Spin]

Special K is essentially a horse tranq. I watched someone do it once and then it took them about 10 minutes to walk across a 25 foot parking lot. From what I hear, it's really easy to off yourself with it.

That's GHB. On K it's pretty easy to pass out and crap yourself, but hard to stop yourself from breathing. The only lasting effect is having your friends make fun of you.

Which would cure the depression... until the bill for the funeral arrives...

The medical dosage here is far less than the recreational dose. The interesting thing is the lasting effect.. the effects of the drug wear off within a couple hours.

[cva66snipe]

It seems pretty clear to me that depression is a spiritual disorder. It ought to be treated as such.

It should first be treated as a physical disorder. That means exhaustive searching for primary physical disorders causing depression. Many times it can point back to that. It can also be a result of traumatic experiences very early in life. I know someone who has clinical depression but then again if I had been through what that person has on this earth I would likely be depressed also.

The spiritual relm does play into it. But then again I knew a Church Secretary who jumped off a bridge. A good spiritual foundation does seem to help many people but it isn't entirely the answer either. Remember even Job became depressed.

[ozzymandus]

Nobody knows what depression feels like unless you have actually experienced it. I have, and believe me it's not just "a bad mood".

[ozzymandus]

Indeed. If you haven't experienced the living hell of depression, you have no authority to comment.

[t_skoz]

At the end of the 1990s I had friends in Southern CA who were into this stuff. One year when I went to visit them we went to Mexico for the day to drink and hang out. When we got back I found out they stopped at the pet store and had bought a bunch of injection vials of Ketamine. They cooked it up in their oven and cut it into a powder, then snorted it like cocaine. I wasn't interested in sniffing any powders but I did watch a whole bunch of people get REALLY wasted off the stuff. About a minute after you snort a good bump you pretty much go into a trance. They called it a "k-hole" and it didn't look too good. Not what I would call a good time. People tweak on it for sure, I think you can get addicted to it quite quickly.

[najida]

Excellent post!

I believe that depression also has genetic components also, as well as physical changes in the brain, such as atrophy of the amygdala.

As for spirituality, well....it was the opposite with me. The more I prayed, the worse it got. Oh well, live and learn.

[Gator113]

Thank you.........