Road Map - Tips to Get the Most out of your Ketamine Treatments

Once you have chosen your clinic and the Ketamine option that works for you, after you have considered your support system and cleared your hurdles for insurance coverage or self payment, you will be preparing yourself for the treatment itself.  These are the tips I have for making the most of those sessions and getting everything you can out of them in the most comfortable way possible.

Discuss anti-nausea options with your provider. I view this as getting on a cruise for the first time.  Even if you aren’t certain if you will get sick or not, I recommend taking the anti-nausea precautions when available.  My clinic easily supplied Zofran and other drugs for nausea preemptively and I should have always made sure I took them.  The times I tried to go without I ended up sick either in the treatment or afterward unnecessarily.  That takes away from the treatment and moves your focus onto being sick instead of healing.  I was doing Spravato which carries the least risk of being sick but I am also someone who suffers from vertigo and does not do well with other treatments so I knew nausea would likely be an issue for me and was.  The pills are very easy to take.  The Zofran goes under your tongue and dissolves and there are several other options which can help with nausea as well including chewable tablets and ones you swallow. 

Use a GOOD eye mask.  Although my clinic provided disposable eye masks, I preferred to use my own. I bought an Alaska Bear sleep mask on Amazon and it was perfect.  Great at blocking all of the light and its padded eye rims allowed me to open my eyes behind the mask easily.  It was also way more comfortable and adjustable.  In addition to getting the sleep mask, use it.  Use it immediately after your first dose and keep it on the entire time.  Do not remove it when the nurse comes to give you the subsequent doses or take your blood pressure.  Do not even peek out from under it. It will keep you from feeling sick from vertigo and will allow you to immerse in the experience without the light distractions.

Lozenges.  For Spravato I found that the taste that would enter my mouth a few minutes after the first dose was extremely unpleasant.  I found Dr. Johns healthy sweets fruit flavored hard candy which are all natural, sugar free and taste great.  I felt that they lasted the perfect amount of time if I popped one in my mouth the minute the bad taste kicked in.  It really helped and the taste is almost unnoticeable with the tasty lozenge in my mouth.  I got mine at WalMart and they were super cheap. 

Fuzzy feet socks.  Although my clinic provided a soft blanket you can feel free to bring your own as well if you prefer the comfort of your own blanket.  I also found that fuzzy feet socks helped for the times I would pull the cover off my feet inadvertently.  I had a bag that I would always take with me that had my eye mask, lozenges and socks in it. 

Comfort Item. It was recommended to me by the talk therapist that I met with prior to my first treatment.  She said that some people prefer to have something to touch or hold that grounds them.  This can be a stuffed animal or a pillow or even a bracelet.  Anything that comforts you.  I chose this big stuffed penguin I have named Nemu and he was my buddy at every treatment.  At first I felt weird showing up as a grown adult with a giant stuffed penguin but holding him during my session gave me a lot of comfort and I equated it to holding the hand of my loved one.  At first, I thought I would just do it for the first few treatments and once I was more comfortable I would stop bringing him but I found it was grounding and centering for me and after a few treatments I made sure to not go to any without him and can’t imagine one without him.  You do whatever brings you a sense of comfort in that room.  This is your time and your money and your experience.  Do not let anyone else influence that. 

Have a check list.  Although I eventually had a routine for when I arrived it is easy to forget something.  Take your time.  Do not allow yourself to feel rushed.  Twice the nurse forgot to give me my anti-nausea meds and I forgot to ask for them because I was out of sorts.  Even a small check list on your phone helps you to make sure you have everything in place for the best possible session.  Socks, eye mask, Nemu, lozenge, anti-nausea meds.

Tell your medical team if you have any issues, needs, or the treatment just doesn’t feel like it’s working.  That is what they are there for.  They can offer you advice and suggestions from their experience which I found invaluable.  I am someone who doesn’t want to bother people or make anyone’s life harder so I tend toward keeping quiet and that resulted in some poor results that are 100% on me for not speaking up.  Don’t like your playlist?  Tell them.  Need a tissue? Ask.  Need to pee but can’t get to the bathroom on your own?  Press that call button.  Have a bad session and just want to cry to someone?  Do that.  You are paying for that service.  Use it.

Prepare your mind before your treatment every time.  Meditating before you leave the house helps to shut out any issues you are having and put you in a place where you are more open to the experience in your session.  Having a lot of issues?  Had a rough time in traffic on the way there? Got in a fight with your driver?  Tell your care team and let them walk you through to a better place before you start.  I also found writing to be extremely helpful.  I am someone who has problems quieting my mind so meditation when I was having stress prior to a treatment was hard for me and I would get frustrated that I was unable to block out the bullshit.  So sit down and journal it.  Write out all that bullshit onto a page and leave it there.  You do not want to take unnecessary anguish into that room with you.  It will stop your ability to get the most out of your treatment if you drag that stress in there so leave it behind on the page.

Analyze your visions.  Although you will not remember a good part of your “trip” you will be able to remember parts of it.  Jot down notes afterward of what you do remember.  Focus heavily on feelings and not what you are seeing.  Allow yourself to analyze your session and try to allow yourself to grow and think about what your brain is telling you. 

If you don’t remember anything or don’t get anything out of a session IT IS OK.  I need this reminder.  I am so bad at this and expected way too much from each session.  But what you need to remember above all is that the healing of the drug is something you can’t see or touch.  The “trip” is the residual of the drug and just an added bonus healing.  It is not the ONLY healing so trust that you are being healed even when you aren’t aware of it and that healing also continues and lasts far beyond the bounds of that session. 

Get a therapist.  Use the one at the clinic or one your insurance covers or one you find on your own.  Whatever works for you.  But adding therapy to this regimen really allows you to get more out of it.  Many clinics even offer therapy after your session (at a cost) if that is something you choose. No matter how you do it, do it.  Talking your way through all of this will enhance the healing and help you sort through the feelings and things that led you to the ketamine treatments in the first place.

And above all do not make the mistake I did.  Do not put pressure on the sessions to be what you think they should be.  Just allow them to be.  I was incapable of this and it wasn’t until session 12’s disaster that I realized how much pressure I was putting on myself and on the drug to heal me quickly.  The psychiatrist told me that I have spent almost 40 years battling depression.  It was not going to be cured in 12 sessions.  Everyone is different and although the protocol is based on the optimum response for most people it is more of an average and you may fall above or below the curve and let’s face it.  None of us really know what that curve is. 

Grace on your journey. This treatment is not simply one moment in time.  It is a path, a journey and it is fraught with ups and downs no matter how much you prepare.  Although I tried to be kind to myself in this process and offer myself grace along the journey I was not very good at it.  This is not an easy path.  It requires a commitment of time and money. But the biggest commitment it requires is the commitment to yourself to allow your own healing and that has been even harder than the rest for me.  The disease of depression controls so much of the mind and how you perceive reality.  It does not want to be cured or diminished.  It is work to do so.  Early on I was told “trust your brain and your body to heal itself”.  I thought about that.  Hell no I don’t trust my body or my mind.  That’s how I got into this mess. Neither my body nor my mind knows what the hell is going on and neither has a clue how to fix themselves.  That is the nudge of this treatment, hopefully.  But I put way too much pressure on the drug to be my salvation.  And I expected it to be a fast one.  As referenced by the rest of this blog, it was not fast nor a miracle for me.  But I hope that giving it my full dedication on the “bonus” treatments will help me to correct some of the errors I made early on and get as much out of this as is humanly possible for my body and mind to receive. 

I hope these tips helps give someone on this path some guidance and helps them to make the most of their treatments.  It is something I did not have.  Having less of a learning curve means more time dedicated to your healing. I am dedicated to my own healing, whatever that takes, however long it takes and whatever means it takes. Good luck my virtual friends. 

Bonus treatments ahead…Stay tuned.