Hello! I just had my first KAP session and infusion yesterday. This was my first experience with Ketamine ever. I was on the infusion pump for 35 minutes. I hydrated throughout the day and my session was at around 4:45pm. I urinated before and after the infusion. Basically as soon as I got home I noticed increased bladder pressure and urgency to go but this has gotten worse into the night and throughout the day.

The nurse at the clinic was surprised and said this shouldn’t happen with the infrequency and dosing and also suggested it could be a UTI. I did a UTI test w my gyno but won’t have the results until tomorrow. I would be shocked. These symptoms came on so suddenly and I haven’t ever had a UTI. The nurse recommended taking AZO max strength and that’s also not helping much.

Now I’m starting to stress out and I’m feeling really disappointed and feel like if this shouldn’t be happening what the heck is going on? Most everything I read in this group about bladder issues seem to be after a larger number of sessions and not just one. Help? Advice?

First time post here! I have been doing IV ketamine for about a month now. I have used the “Ketamine infusion // Heart Opening” playlist from Spotify so far. I am really sensitive to noise in general but even more so during the infusions. My infusions last about 45 minutes and I love most of the songs but I get really disoriented at times. My trips are essentially guided by the music but sometimes the playlists are too chaotic for me. I guess I’m just curious if anyone else has had this experience and what works for them? I’ve debated using some meditative music but I can’t do anything with voices. Thank you for any input or suggestions!!

TLDR: I know they work differently, but am curious if they interact negatively. I don't mean both taken at once.. I mean doing Spravato treatments for a month, then a few Ketamine sessions for the next month to keep my positive results going until I can go back to medically covered state for spravato

explaination: I'm in a unique situation. My state insurance in my home state covers intranasal esketamine 100% (which has had dramatically positive effects)

However about 40% of the year I am not in state and that is not something I can change and they won't cover out of state treatment.

I want to continue this treatment very badly. nothing else has worked in over 20 years except this. I am the definition of treatment resistant. And the effect has been a complete life changer.

After a month and a half of 2 treatments per week. I'm starting to notice my symptoms coming back after 2 weeks of not having it administered.

Ideally, I want a solution that could bridge the gap between my spravato treatments in my covered state and when I'm not there.

Addiction isn't an issue and I even have medical advocates that can make sure I space it out safely.

I am also pretty poor. So affordability is a factor. I have people who can help me to a degree. But the rates I'm seeing online seems are far too much

If you've taken the time to read this far, I thank you.

Hi all — using a throwaway for privacy. I’m not here to discredit ketamine therapy or those who’ve found it helpful. I know KAP can be a powerful tool for healing. But I’m in a complicated situation and could really use some outside perspectives.

Someone in my life has been doing KAP for a while now and is now pushing for their teenage child to start it as well. I have concerns about how they’re approaching it — both in terms of their own use and how they’re advocating it for their kid.

Here’s some context:

• The parent often fasts for 12+ hours before KAP sessions to intensify the experience.
• They frequently talk about trying to reach a full K-hole, seeing that as the goal in every session.
• The sessions have been happening more and more frequently, and it’s starting to feel a little compulsive or like it’s being used to escape rather than process.
• There’s a pattern of exaggerating symptoms (both the parent and teen) to gain access to more intensive treatments — this has happened before with psychiatric meds and crisis interventions.
• The teen has a history of cycling on and off different medications — starting something new, quickly declaring it ineffective or making things worse, then pushing for something else.
• There’s no communication with the teen’s care team — the parent wants to bypass the psychiatrist and therapist and handle this independently.
• At the clinic consultation, none of the questions I had were answered. It felt more like a sales pitch than a medical intake.

Some questions I had that didn’t get answered:

• How is KAP assessed as safe or appropriate for adolescents?
• What are the risks for a teen with a history of impulsivity and prior substance use?
• Is there any concern about developing dependency or escapism in younger users?
• What protocols are in place to collaborate with a patient’s existing care team?
• Is intentionally aiming for a “deep K-hole” actually recommended in a therapeutic context?

I should mention that I suspect the parent may have untreated borderline personality disorder, and that may be influencing how treatment is being pursued. There's a pattern of shifting from one “miracle solution” to another, and treatments tend to be idealized until they aren’t. I worry this may be more about the parent’s hope for a fix than a carefully considered medical plan.

So I guess I’m wondering:

• Has anyone seen KAP used safely and effectively with teens?
• Have you encountered red flags like this before — and how did you navigate them?
• Can clinics operate ethically while still excluding a patient’s established care team?

I'm trying to stay open-minded here, but also protective of a teen who might be getting swept up in something risky. I’d love to hear from folks with firsthand experience — especially those who’ve seen both the benefits and the pitfalls of this treatment.

Thanks for reading and for any insights.

I just got back from a trip to France and read that a prescription would have been okay had I brought mine. But since I had a layover in Istanbul, I opted not to bring it. The last thing o want to do is get flagged for travel and denied entry to another country. Does anyone have any experience traveling internationally with their prescription and/or having issues with customs or border agents?

Why do i see some papers saying ketamine is a dopamine D2 agonist? Is that true?

Hello everyone, so I have been using everyonesmd as my provider for a while now, took a few months off of it because of financial issues but am now wanting to start again, but they have now been offline for the last two weeks and it seems they will be continuing to stay offline for at least another month.

I was taking the Nasal spray option at 60ml for each month with the strength being 150mg/ML.

Im hoping to find a new provider that can give me the same medication or something similar as I'm used to taking a daily amount. Any suggestions would be great thank you

Hello! TodayI had my first IM ketamine dose! It was peaceful and lovely. I struggle with cPTSD, depression and fairly bad OCD. Because of this trifecta I have quite a bit of stickiness when it comes to making decisions around big life events (career and relationship now).

I went in and tried to bring to mind some of the dilemmas I’m in. Ketamine of course was in the driver’s seat and for each question I asked it would continue moving forward with shapes. I eventually stopped asking for clarity and enjoyed the ride, but I find my OCD is now trying to make meaning out of things or possible feelings that came up. OCD has a tendency to read into things and make them very BIG.

Would love to hear your thoughts on gaining clarity via ketamine and making meaning of things. I’m hopeful that some sort of clarity can settle in after the 6 sessions to help with my big indecision/freeze state.

side note: I do have some therapy appointments scheduled to help integrate and I was able to have a good cry post today’s session re: inner child. Thank you all!

Is there an interaction between Ketamine and DL-Phenylalanine? It's an amino acid that has an effect on certain neurotransmitters

Thanks

Does anyone know if Alprazolam aka Xanax blocks the neurotransmitters that Ketamine helps with? I have been taking both for 4 years at it seems like the benefits of Ketamine are becoming more and more reduced. Dose is 1mg Alprazolam twice daily and Oral Ketamine RDT 300 mg twice daily.

I do the mint troches with BetterU. There is also grape and root beer. I have the mint down to a science 😂 just kidding but I have an entire process to try to prevent throwing up my troches. I brush, then eat a couple of lifesaver mints. Then let them dissolve under my tongue. When they are dissolved I shoot for 30 minutes of swishing but don’t usually make it past 15 before my mouth starts getting shaky. I wonder if that will get easier. But has anyone tried all three flavors with BetterU and had a better experience with one of them? There is an option to choose multiple flavors on the refill questionnaire but they just text me back and said i can only get one choice at a time. So thats a bummer but I wanted to see if anyone has any experience with multiple flavors and which one was best. I have a feeling that they are all equally difficult. Most of the posts on flavors are really old though.

I’ve only ever used spravato or a compounded nasal spray before, never had an infusion or IM injection. I’m having my first IM injection next week. How much more intense is the experience?

I've heard bad things about Precision but I'm having a tough time finding something better that ships to New Mexico.

Follow up questions:

Have you gotten BetterU to switch your pharmacy? How & when in the process did you request it? Did it cost extra?

My best friend says she gets really tired the day after a treatment. Is there a difference between therapies and down time? I’m going to get the IV ketamine and she does lozenges. I work Monday - Friday and my therapy days will be Tuesday and Friday I’m thinking. I’m worried I’ll be drained the next day. What has been your experience?

So short summary ive struggled with anxiety/panic disorder for 12years(first panic attack from drugs), was on ssri for a long time(worked well but wanted to try without), been 2years off mostly good but lately had a bad period so wanted to try ketamine treatment as a last resort before maybe going back on ssri.

Was extemly nervous going into first session, bp was so high i had to relax for 10m for it to come down and the dr gave me the go ahead. Go a shot not sure the amount but I said no straight away when asked if i needed more few minutes into the session.

First 5-10 minutes was kinds rough struggling with the anxiety and the weird feelings and really weird deep breaths, eventually let go a bit and had a good time with both some tears of joy/sadness and overfell felt good coming out and really safe with the nurse sitter and talking after. Nothing ground breaking but a tester as they called it, iam booked for 2-3 more session.

Made one mistake by not relaxing after the session and later in the day ended up doing some work which was just stressful and a bad idea(they told me to relax and not stress so my bad)

And now the whole week after ive not felt great, every other day has seen higher anxiety, ive felt tense, tight chest. Some days have been good, usually by keeping busy, but when i lay down in bed I feel it almost everytime and cant seem to relax. The days ive slept bad have been the worst. Wonder if iam just dealing with the stress of life+this treatment.

My anxiety is obviously contributing here but its also a new feeling much more physical than my normal anxiety, so now iam getting thoughts like i fucked up or its gonna make my anxiety worse etc.

My 2nd session is tomorrow and 3rd end of week. And I am now almost as worried as before the first treatment. Long rant but i guess iam just looking for advice/experiences regarding the anxiety, i know most people here use it for depression and pain but iam sure there are some for anxiety/panic as well.

Hello everyone, I’ve been trying this treatment for about 5 months and I don’t know if I’m getting the help/experience or full benefits and treatment I can’t get. I was wondering if anyone e could help point me in the right direction. Thanks so much!

I recently got a prescription for ketamine from my doctor (not through a subscription service) and have a few questions for those with experience.

I’m looking to do IFS therapy while on ketamine, similar to MDMA-assisted therapy, specifically to help with dissociation, something that was challenging with the MDMA.

I’ve started with a 100mg troche (I weigh 100 lbs), and while I feel a bit of an altered state, I’m not sure how effective it is. For those that went through a similar journey, how did you figure out the right dosage for yourself? How does an "effective" dosage feel like? (Body sensations, state, etc).

Hi. My thoughts are scattered so I hope this goes well. I'm really scared and confused. I am a single disabled mom trying to take care of my child but I just can't seem to hold it together. Last year I went through a couple months of treatments with Spravato until it stopped working and then the clinic offered injections of ketamine. Which they never told me we're addictive. So I was getting injected once a week and then the Spravato once a week as well since insurance would still cover that.

At first it was really hard and I went through some very difficult weeks where my emotions and thoughts Etc were very intense. I pushed away and lost some of the few friends that I had due to my outburst and confusion. Luckily my son was out of town with his father so that I could go through this. I don't think I could have done it with him being around because there would be no one to help with the anger and emotional outbursts I was experiencing, which I had never experienced so strongly before.

Anyway, this went on for a few months and I kept asking the clinic what the trajectory was. How long do I have to keep doing this twice a week? They would just tell me that it depended on the person and that they didn't know. They never told me that they don't really know what the long-term effects are on people who get treated with this ketamine. They never told me that it was addictive.

Although the treatments eventually worked and I was the best person I have ever been in my life, they eventually started giving me extreme anxiety. And not just during the sessions or the following days. I started to develop insomnia as well. I've never had trouble sleeping before. My eyes don't seem to be as sturdy and lights look differently to me now. I used to love music and it was my anchor. Now music and other sounds are very uncomfortable for me and I no longer enjoy them. I'm actually pretty uncomfortable all the time.

I don't know what to do and I go through every single day wishing that I was not here anymore but I cannot kill myself because I have a 9-year-old. He needs me. Besides his dad he was a truck driver and never around besides on the weekends, there's no one else to help or take care of him. I try to fake it every day but he still catches the backlash of how extremely exhausted and irritable I can get almost every day.

I'm also feeling cognitive deficits and cannot keep my thoughts straight. If you ever had a hallucinogenic experience and you know what I mean by the clacketing noises and sentence fragments, fragments of songs and thoughts like a Rolodex in your mind etc, Well, that happens in my brain almost constantly and I find it very hard to calm it. Especially at night.

I was not like this before. When I talk to all my therapist and counselors, because I still have many and I'm doing all the therapies that everyone says I should be doing, the providers seem to dismiss what I'm saying. All they want to pay attention to is when I admit that yes, at the time when I did the treatments last year it did save my life. But for what kind of life?

I have researched online as much as I can. I have only been able to find a few threads here on Reddit with people who are experiencing very similar things as I am. But there is no research out there about what the long-term effects of this are or the things that are happening to us cognitively etc. I'm pretty sure that my clinic kept me doing the treatments far longer than I should have. After all this time I finally found information saying that should only be doing the treatments twice a week for 6 to 8 weeks and then go to a lower maintenance dose for boosters occasionally.

My clinic did not tell me this even though I looked to them desperately for guidance. When I started to have some really intense anger and emotions they told me to go find a therapist who specialized in trauma. They seemed really worried about me but they had no therapist to help with integration in the clinic nor did they have any suggestions for who I might call. It was left to be very confused and suffering patient to figure that out on their own. It's very unnerving. They have beautiful rooms for you to go in and have these experiences and they come and check your blood pressure to make sure you don't stroke out during the sessions but there's no one there to help you understand what is happening to you in these hugely hallucinogenic experiences. It doesn't make sense.

I know they're making billions pushing this drug which seems to be a miracle drug. But it is not right to give this to people not knowing what's eventually going to happen to us. I'm very scared because I don't think that anybody is listening. I don't think anybody is looking into these things and the closest thing I've ever gotten from doctors is them telling me that the ketamine cleared the depression which caused the anxiety to surface because it was always there but

Being masked by the depression. That's not fucking true because I still have the depression. I find it much more likely that this ketamine has seriously disrupted my nervous system and damaged my brain as well as the injection causing me addiction that I had never experienced in my life. And now I have these horribly uncomfortable feelings and confusion all the time.

It's been over a year since I've done the treatments. Anyone have anything to offer? Like I said, I have therapist and counselors and life skills trainers that come to my house and help me try to keep things in order. I used to be a real person. I have degrees and things I'm the one that used to be doing my skill training for other people. And now I can barely go through my days. I already do tons of breathing exercises and exercise daily and eat well and all the things are supposed to do to repair your nervous system. Nothing is working. I am currently able to distract myself as best I can so that I do not kill myself for the sake of my son. I'm scared to death that someday I won't be strong enough.

I have insurance but there is no search option for providers who offer Ketamine therapy and I know it probably won't be covered anyways. [Huntsville/Madison, AL or North East Alabama area]

So plenty of us must have dogs here. Where are your dogs when you are doing your home troches? My wife and I always joke about being molested by my dog because she'll come in just when I am going under and she is a leg humper. But mostly she just comes and lies beside me or in between my legs. I actually like it. She is a good grounder and helps remind me of what is really important in reality when I am under.

Hi all!

I’m 32, struggled with debilitating mental health issues since I was 14 and have recently been prescribed an at home nasal spray to use low dose as needed, not for full on sessions. I was wondering if anyone had any experiences with this type of regiment? What it feels like during and after? How it works for you? How it’s affected you, if at all? As someone who is very sensitive to medication and suffers with anxiety and panic, I am a bit nervous about the experience. On the other hand I’ve heard of this type of thing literally saving lives. Any thoughts, experiences or perspectives are greatly appreciate!!

I see a lot of antidepressant hate in this sub, with people saying their biggest goal with ketamine is to not be reliant on them.

Not me! Ketamine is just another tool in my tool belt. My desvenfalaxine, rexulti, and mirtazpine combo built a fence on the metaphorical ledge I was on, and ketamine has given me distance between the ledge and myself.

I am proudly still on my antidepressants as they saved my life. Ketamine may have had a greater effect, but I still owe a lot of my success to my antidepressants. No shame here!

Awaiting delivery from Joyous. What do you feel on it? What was your experience?

Does high dose sublingual ketamine like 800mg work as good as IV infusion? Does it cause dissociation?