![]() ![]() ![]() (About 70 to 85 percent of patients with severe depression who try ketamine treatment say it’s effective, compared with 58 to 70 percent of ECT patients.) I told my doctor I wanted to try it. But I was getting desperate for a serious intervention.Īfter some research, I concluded that ketamine was not only more affordable but just as effective as sending electrical pulses through my brain. My therapists had recommended extreme treatments like electroshock therapy, a procedure that frightened me due to reports of memory loss from those who had undergone it, but had never mentioned this. I couldn’t stop imagining killing myself in increasingly vivid daydreams.Īs a journalist who covers health and medicine, I had read about the success of experimental trials that used ketamine to treat depression. ![]() I’ve been in therapy on and off for more than 30 years, since I was 5, and on depression medication for more than a decade. I am here because I cannot stop thinking about suicide. But no: I’ve just completed my first infusion of ketamine, a veterinary anesthetic (often used on cats and horses) sometimes used illegally as a club drug called Special K. I’m in the midst of a real-life version of the hallucinogenic ride in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, all in my own mind.Ī monitor emits a steady beep, and for a second, I think I’m flatlining. My eyes are closed, but I can still see skulls outlined with white against a black background. I am going to die in this dentist’s chair. ![]()
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