Have you ever tried Ketamine?

No, I have not. I have heard it is doing wonders for people with PSTD under controlled conditions though. Apparently, if you abuse it it will destroy your bladder among other things.

I’ve NEVER tried it & don’t anticipate trying it!!! Anybody discussing it speaks of how powerful it is. One person said it’s used on horses & their friend insisted they didn’t know of what they speak. Any of my research hasn’t mentioned horses, but I’ve not done a deep dive into the subject as I don’t plan on using it. The truth is that you can die from abusing aspirins if you overdo it!!! One of Matty’s rl friends swears that he had NEVER gotten sober, so there’s a good chance he was heavily abusing it.

I have not used any medication or any other type of anesthetic outside of a surgery/dental procedure. I can’t imagine self-medicating with this.
Unsure if this is another case of “If you are rich, you can get drugs that are not-approved or find a Beverly Hills Dr. to prescribe”.
I don’t know his story or his battles and am saddened by any loss like this (similar to Prince).

I however think that it should awaken people that medication is not the easy fix to complications. Especially depression. The FDA recently approved oral zuranolone for Post Partum Depression. Let’s hope this does more good than harm.
Depression is such a tough thing for people to deal with.
R.I.P. Matthew Perry

Gees, ketamine and a hot tub sound like a terrible combination. That’s really very sad.

People don’t take the dangers of hot tub use seriously. A friend of our died in his early 30’s in a hot tub. He did have a small amount of alcohol in him.

The finding does not make me question the use of ketamine, but rather getting out information about hot tub risks and why the recommendation is not more than 15 minutes, not with alcohol or certain medications, not alone, not if you have cardiac risk, etc.

I’ve thought about it. My pain with long covid is sometimes unbearable. I’ve seen it recommended in long covid/chronic fatigue syndrome/lyme disease forums.

I saw a psychiatrist about possibly using it for bipolar disorder and ptsd. During the interview everything was going well and it was seeming like a real possibility; I was extremely hopeful that it would help my depression.

Then he began asking me health questions. He nixed it immediately and would not waver when I said I’d had an aortic aneurysm. He said blood pressure rises during the first 4 hours after ingestion and it was the most significant contraindication; he didn’t want me dying in his office. I was sooo disappointed.

That was a number of years ago. I’m currently on a med that increases dopamine and to a lesser extent, norepinepherine and it seems to be working better than the others I’ve been on which increased serotonin.

Not that I know of. I do remember back in about 1985 I was given something I wasn’t aware of. I went to a party at a friend’s house. I had 1 beer and part of another…nothing else. I went out to my car and remember starting it up and letting it warm up and I remember waking up in the morning in my own bed. Nothing in-between. I remembered nothing of the 5 mile drive in between their house and my barracks, I don’t remember interacting with the guards at the front gate, I don’t remember even where I parked my car or how I got into my bed. Kinda scary actually. As a close to my story I did find my car in the barracks parking lot and there were no dents or scratches on it. But I have no idea what did that too me. Nobody ever fessed up to slipping me anything.

^That’s scary.

@chyna Especially when I only had 1.5 beers. I’ve never been a huge drinker but to put me into a stupor took a whole lot more than that. That’s why I figure someone slipped me something.

When I was 19, my brother’s neighbors were these hippie drug dealers. They dealt with hallucinogens, and psychedelics. Mainly.

It was called “special K,” back then. They gave my brother a bump (it was powder,) for free at a block party. I think the idea was that all of his friends would buy some, after seeing the results.
Well. My brother just laid on the ground most of the time, and wasn’t able to communicate well. He was very “high.” IMO, too high…
The neighbors became belligerent when none of us bought any. I had a…discussion, with them. No more problems.
But I was concerned about my brother for hours.

Fast forward to now, and I feel like he may have been in more danger than we treated the situation, at the time…

He never did it again. I never once tried it. But. For all of the drugs I have been around, I rarely ran across ketamine (as a recreational drug.) Even when I worked with narcotics units early in my former career in law enforcement, it wasn’t a drug that was a focus. Like with fentanyl, now.

It was illegal, but it wasn’t considered a problem like drugs like cocaine, meth, opiods, and benzoyl were.

I don’t really talk to anyone in law enforcement anymore. However. Right when I was leaving (like 5 years ago?) Fentanyl was the biggest issue, as far as we knew it was going to be the new version of older drugs that still exist, that caused so much damage to society. It was widely considered to likely kill, if an officer accidentally touched it. It changed a lot of the way people conduct frisks/pat downs, or searches.

Drugs are a huge reason why I left law enforcement. It’s extremely difficult not to become jade with humanity. We are subject to addiction problems.

MP, was no different from most other “addicts.”
The drugs are the symptoms. Not the disease.

That being said, ketamine is (from my experience,) an acquired taste perhaps. Or something for people who want to be TOO high. Which is what most addicts die of, pursuing a greater high.

Read the lyrics of “Mr. Brownstone,” by GNR.
“I used to do a little,
But a little got mo, n mooo.
I just keep trying to get a little ‘better,’
A little better than befoooo.”...

Chasing the “ultimate high,” is to chase death. MP likely had more proximity to death than any knew. Always dodging one bullet, or another.

Sad, but true…

New FDA scrutiny

The Food and Drug Administration warned in October about the risks of using pharmacy-made ketamine at home, citing the case of one patient whose breathing slowed to a dangerous level after taking a large dose outside of a health-care facility. Then the autopsy of actor Matthew Perry, released Dec. 15, concluded a high dose of ketamine led to his death in October — an event that, while rare, drove home the dark side of the anesthetic that can also be abused recreationally.

^^ Yes, ketamine is supposed to be administered at a medical facility specifically for it and, at least when it first came out, that’s the only place you could purchase it. After administration someone would check on you for at least an hour before releasing you – checking bp, etc. Thanks to the FDA and the pandemic, you can now order it legally online.

From Dec 2022: In the past two years, Scott Smith has become licensed to practice medicine in almost every U.S. state for a singular purpose: treating depressed patients online and prescribing them ketamine. Smith is part of a wave of doctors and telehealth start-ups capitalizing on the pandemic-inspired federal public health emergency declaration, which waived a requirement for health-care providers to see patients in person to prescribe controlled substances.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/30/ketamine-telemedicine-covid-emergency/

Shame on the FDA. At the very least, they should reinstate the original requirements.