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Ketamine ‘cures’ suicidal woman of bipolar and severe depression
http://metro.co.uk/2018/01/23/ketamine-cures-suicidal-woman-bipolar-severe-depression-7251289/?ito=cbshare ^

Posted on 01/23/2018 4:26:12 PM PST by nickcarraway

A woman who was so depressed she wanted to crash her car into a tree and kill herself has been ‘cured’ of the condition with ketamine injections.

Gabrielle Idlet, 47, has suffered bipolar and severe depression since being molested by a family friend as a child, and feels her nervous system was overwhelmed by that trauma.

The condition left her unable to work and saw her lose her home, with desperate Gabrielle trying almost all conventional and homeopathic treatments unsuccessfully.

But she finally began to heal after signing up for eight ketamine shots at Dr Kathleen Wong’s Bridges to Wellbeing clinic near her home in Fayetteville AK, last year – and now she hopes she may be cured.

Gabrielle told Metro.co.uk: ‘I was rapid cycling with bipolar, which means you wound up in high pitched states of anxiety and agitation, sometimes combined with suicidal ideas.

‘If I was driving on a highway, trying to get to some odd job or something, I would have to fight my hands from turning the wheel to pull the car into a tree.

‘Ketamine absolutely saved me from suicide.

‘I was very close, and even into the treatments, it took about four treatments for me to reach a tipping point with it. ‘I was starting to make secret plans for (suicide).

I couldn’t envision being alive through the end of the year. The illness was winning, and I was exhausted, and getting so tired of trying.’ Recalling the $800 course of ketamine shots, which are of a much lower dosage than the amounts taken by partygoers as an illegal high, she said: ‘It was amazing.

‘You get hooked up to this I.V. and it took me about 20 minutes, and then it kicked in.

‘It was great. I have never had a bad experience with the IV treatment with ketamine.

‘Even if you have a less gorgeously pleasant experience than I did, it still feels fine, like things are going to be good. ‘It’s essentially like a hallucinogenic, like acid or mushrooms, but is accompanied with a lift in my spirits. Immediately when it came in I had that kind of positive feeling,

like Valium might feel like. ‘I felt better – just generally happier. The experience itself can be really meaningful, even before it starts working on your brain.’

‘I feel compassion for people that I may be in some sort of disagreement with I’m feeling joy.

‘There just isn’t this war happening in my head anymore.’ Gabrielle and other ketamine patients may require occasional top-ups of the drug, but psychiatrists say it is so powerful that a course may be enough to cure people permanently.

Dr Wong told Metro that she has been astonished with the results of ketamine since trying it for the first time last year, and is even hopeful it may present a cure for mental illnesses like depression. The drug appears to work by helping parts of the brain physically damaged by mental illness to ‘blossom’ once again, so that they resemble those found in a person without mental illness.

It is used as an anesthetic, but has not yet been approved by the FDA for use as an anti-depressant, meaning anyone wishing to try it must pay for it themselves.


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science
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1 posted on 01/23/2018 4:26:12 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

“This one’s used on horses ...”


2 posted on 01/23/2018 4:30:10 PM PST by Blueflag (Res ipsa loquitur: non vehere est inermus)
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To: nickcarraway

they talk of a sedative experience as a “cure”? if you need to get it repeatedly, it’s not a cure, just medicating and likely has negative side effects to come to light somewhere down the road - like what else is it sedating/depressing in the body or because of all the “positive sedating” what things in the body get overworked in trying to fix the effect of sedating?

Can’t put foreign substances into body and expect only good or only wanted effects to come from it because it’s foreign and the body will guard or fight against it.


3 posted on 01/23/2018 4:38:43 PM PST by b4me (God Bless the USA)
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To: Blueflag

Must be what Mr Ed was using.


4 posted on 01/23/2018 4:39:55 PM PST by dforest (Never let a Muslim cut your hair.)
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To: b4me

Like antibiotics?


5 posted on 01/23/2018 4:40:55 PM PST by TigersEye (#ReleaseTheMemo)
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To: b4me

“they talk of a sedative experience as a “cure”?”

Well, it is multiple treatments, but the total number of treatments is around 8 (i.e. it isn’t a recurring event in your life ... you get X number of treatments and you’re cured). Some people need more, others less.

It states that the drug appears to help rebuild parts of the brain that were damaged due to a traumatic event. It doesn’t appear to mask the underlying problem.

I just wish we had more knowledge of the brain to understand the underlying process that’s causing the healing vs. “let’s try this ... it works? NEXT!”. :-)


6 posted on 01/23/2018 5:11:34 PM PST by edh
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To: edh

We DO have ways to see effects of various drugs, traumas to the brain...they are called Brain Scans.

Just because you sedate someone, that may not be good treatment.

We have evidence based ( double blind studies) treatments for bipolar disorder...which is a disease that is not “ cured”.
Any medications that are not evidence based...and are just one, or even, many people’s “stories” of their “ cures”...are usually the placebo effect...which has a 50 % positive “ improvement “ rate.

THIS doc has a great racket going! Ketamine can have great side effects!


7 posted on 01/23/2018 5:36:08 PM PST by Recovering Ex-hippie (WINNING! !!)
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To: b4me

Some foreign substances are pretty helpful...antibiotics, insulin, anti psychotic meds, manufactured vitamins or iron for severe deficiencies.

Ohhhhh, let’s all go back to the middle ages and deal “ naturally” with the bubonic plague!!!


8 posted on 01/23/2018 5:43:31 PM PST by Recovering Ex-hippie (WINNING! !!)
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To: b4me

Maybe it’s more than just a sedative?

Many drugs have multiple, unsuspected uses. MDA and MDMA (”rave drugs”) are used by the Army to treat PTSD in returning soldiers. THC is used to fight nausea in cancer patients. Even aspirin helps prevent heart attacks.

Not really smart to just dismiss this out-of-hand, depression is serious and widespread, and not a lot that has been tried so far has worked.


9 posted on 01/23/2018 5:57:55 PM PST by canuck_conservative
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To: nickcarraway

Massive doses of thoro zine ?


10 posted on 01/23/2018 5:58:19 PM PST by Panhandle.deporable (Future these)
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To: TigersEye
Or Rabies shots?

A number of things have to be done in a series to get results.

Physical therapy what I think of immediately.

To fix my arm I had to go through a surgery and then four months of therapy.

I can now lift my arm over my head.

Because it was a series of steps rather then one should I say that my arm is not healed?

11 posted on 01/23/2018 6:03:25 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (Not a Romantic, not a hero worshiper and stop trying to tug my heartstrings. It tickles! (pink bow))
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To: nickcarraway
near her home in Fayetteville AK

I didn't even know there was a Fayetteville in Alaska. I couldn't find it on Google maps.

12 posted on 01/23/2018 6:09:33 PM PST by PAR35
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To: nickcarraway

One of the CIA’s favorite drugs.


13 posted on 01/23/2018 6:17:58 PM PST by VietVet876
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To: PAR35

I think it’s a typo, and they meant Arkansas.


14 posted on 01/23/2018 6:19:20 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

That’s nothing, the Kanamit’s stopped Famine and War on the entire Planet.


15 posted on 01/23/2018 6:20:19 PM PST by Kickass Conservative (The way Liberals carry on about Deportation, you would think "Mexico" was Spanish for "Shithole".)
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To: b4me

doesn’t quite work that way.

It is found to help overstimulated nerve endings to re-set. Helps with addiction as well.

It is not an on going drug, but instead a treatment.

Still experimental but it has had some success.


16 posted on 01/23/2018 6:23:08 PM PST by Chickensoup (Leftists today are speaking as if they plan to commence to commit genocide against conservatives.)
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To: canuck_conservative

People with severe bipolar don’t often live til 50. Who cares if they get high as a side effect of a successful treatment? Let’s save these people.


17 posted on 01/23/2018 6:30:27 PM PST by Yaelle
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To: nickcarraway

So there’s hope for the democrats.


18 posted on 01/23/2018 6:44:44 PM PST by DannyTN
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To: nickcarraway

I’ve read a number of Medscape articles on promising ketamine-based treatment regimens over the past 2-3 years. The ketamine seems to “shake loose” patients from memories, moods, and habits that prolong their refractory illnesses. Somewhat similar to ECT in that regard.


19 posted on 01/23/2018 6:46:46 PM PST by steve86 (Prophecies of Maelmhaedhoc O'Morgair (Latin form: Malachy))
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To: nickcarraway

They could use it on sick soldiers needing treatment.


20 posted on 01/23/2018 6:53:20 PM PST by Finalapproach29er (luke 6:38)
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