Ketamine #2 - the day after

I’m increasingly fearful of doing the Ketamine again. I did not enjoy the end of that experience and the anxiety that has been going on in my mind ever since has been heightened instead of decreased.

I DO NOT think I am smarter than the majority of other people, so let me preface what I am saying by saying that, but I wish I wasn’t as intellectual as I am. I wish I could just live and not think so much and not care and be relaxed. That’s all I want. I don’t want my mind to consider alternate realities and alternate universes because it causes extreme fearfulness. I am fine to just be here on our little planet. I’m better to focus on the here and now and not the what if’s but my brain isn’t letting me just relax and be and it is exhausting. 

I don’t care! Turn it off, turn it down! It’s all too loud and too scary and too dark out there. I just want to BE. 

I noticed after my first non-sedated infusion that I felt my pain was increased but I had stopped taking my every-other-day “regimen?” of Norco. After talking to Nick, he recommended I not change any medications under we get things at a good new normal. Mostly I want to not take the Xanax to keep from messing up my short-term memory any more and I want to keep from taking the Norco both to see where my pain really is without it, and to have restful sleep and no more insomnia from it. 

For now I am only taking the Xanax on nights I absolutely can’t sleep and no other time. (Still never overlapping with Norco or within 6 hours or more of Ketamine. I think Nick said 4 but I don’t want to chance it.) I am only taking the Norco as a last resort after trying a new non-thc cbd rub, or a sublingual 1:1 cbd dropper again nothing overlapping as I don’t want weird side effects. 

Today I note this because my elbow Arthritis (both elbows) is REALLY painful. That’s the worst of the pain today and I would rate them equally at 7. Taking a bath earlier, just my elbows rubbing against the side of the tub was so tender. I did an epsom salt soak to see if the muscles in my neck would loosen which is the only other pain above a 5 and that seemed to help. I’m also trying to make sure my water intake is good as I know my neck muscles and occipitals tend to swell and contract if I am not drinking enough water. Just something I have learned over the last 7-ish years of dealing with daily pain. 

I guess maybe I’ve been trying so hard to figure it out and fix it for myself maybe that’s why my brain won’t stop. I want someone else to just take over and do the work. I feel like I’ve done all my own depression and health research at least since 2011 after the shock therapy didn’t provide relief. When I asked for genetic testing in 2014 and went to Cleveland Clinic and when I went to May Clinic in 2015, I still had to research to get to those places and then I didn’t even get that much from going, I had to come back home and continue my own research with their ideas as my own doctors haven’t been on top of being adjunct support in my health. 

Well that’s enough of an update for now. We decided I am doing infusion #3 tomorrow (Saturday) instead of Tuesday, and then if needed we will do Thursday but not if we don’t. I am scared to do it again, and this is the first time I’ve been scared to do it. I’m also, while still doing better depression-wise, I think definitely fighting much more anxiety after that treatment, and my mind keeps trying to figure it out. I keep trying to be mindful and let it just be what is. I don’t like fighting with my brain. It isn’t voices in my head - just making that clear - it is just trying to keep my thoughts focused where I want them. Or unfocused and relaxed I don’t know, just not anxious.

Afternoon update:
Lisa (awesome receptionist to Nick at my K clinic) called in a compounded ketamine nasal spray for at home use for me. I guess I miscommunicated and they both thought that I already had this for between infusions at home. I’m realizing I’m not communicating well. I’ve tried to explain the therapy protocol to at least 4 people and haven’t explained it well enough that it was understood. Also I didn’t even understand when Nick explained it to me and I guess I asked him how long an infusion took. He told me and he was surprised I asked because he said we would be lengthening them and I thought he meant lengthening time between them but he meant lengthening the duration. So tomorrow my infusion will be back lower (between the 140 and 200 or maybe back down to 140, we will see) and we will infuse over 90 min. I feel better about this after talking with him this afternoon. the dose Monday wasn’t scary and that was 140 or 150 (I’ll find out and update the posts) and then infusing slower will be less anxiety to my system.

It is frustrating that I am having conflicting feelings of this short-term memory loss still, some renewed brain function, if you want to call it that, but yet I still feel like something is “off” in my brain memory/communication-wise. Since Ketamine binds to the NMDA-receptors it increases the glutamate neurotransmitter increasing the spaces between neurons. It then activates the connections in the AMPA receptor. These two things help neurons communicate along new pathways in the brain, which is called synaptogenesis (beginning, or new, synapses.)

Only a few people are reading this blog, including Nick, my mom, my therapist, and a couple of close friends for now. I just thought since I have a few people asking, and I tend be be quite long-winded 😉 it is easier to write it once and post it but not on my Facebook page or anything. Thanks to those who read this for having my back, being my support, and never giving up on me. I appreciate you.