this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023

70 points (97.3% liked)

Mental Health

4140 readers

24 users here now

Welcome!

This is a safe place to discuss, vent, support, and share information about mental health, illness, and wellness.

Thank you for being here. We appreciate who you are today. Please show respect and empathy when making or replying to posts.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules

1-Posts promoting paid products and services of any kind are not allowed here.

2-All posts and comments must be helpful and supportive. Do not put vulnerable people at risk.

3-Do not DM or ask to speak privately to any of our members unless they specifically request it.

If a person from this community disturbs you in a comment, please report the comment. If you receive a DM you did not request, send a screenshot of the DM in a message to a moderator. This is a bannable offense.

4-Suicide, Self-Harm, Death-- Extended discussions are STRONGLY DISCOURAGED here. First, mods and community members are caring people, but not experts in crisis situations. Second, we want to avoid Lemmy becoming like many commercial social media platforms, where comments can snowball into counterproductive talk.

If you or someone you know needs more help than can be found here, please refer to the pinned resources.

If BRIEF mention of these topics is an important part of your post, please flag your post as NSFW and include a (trigger warning: suicide, self-harm, death, etc.)in the title so that other readers who may feel triggered can avoid it. Please also include a trigger warning on all comments mentioning these topics in a post that was not already tagged as such.

Partner Communities

- Therapy

Neurodegenerative Disease Support

Avoidant Personality Disorder

Friends and Family of People with Addiction

To partner with our community and be included here, you are free to message the current moderators or comment on our pinned post.

Community Moderation

Some moderators are mental health professionals and some are not. All are carefully selected by the moderation team and will be actively monitoring posts and comments. If you are interested in joining the team, you can send a message to ZenGrammy for more information.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

VubDapple@lemmy.world

talanorchous@lemmy.world

ZenGrammy@lemmy.world

CantSt0pPoppin@lemmy.world

108beads@lemm.ee

jelloeater85@lemmy.world

A single dose of IV ketamine reduces suicidal thoughts within one day and for up to one week (ajp.psychiatryonline.org)

submitted 10 months ago by ickplant@lemmy.world to c/mentalhealth@lemmy.world

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8180477

Why this is significant: There is no currently known treatment to stop suicidal thoughts when they happen. Antidepressants take 4-6 weeks to start working, and they don't work for everyone. Therapy also takes time. Our best option for acutely suicidal people is to lock them up in a psychiatric facility until they are no longer a threat to themselves.

Intravenous ketamine offers a glimpse of hope. A single dose appears able to alleviate suicidal ideation immediately after administration and for up to a week afterwards.

top 13 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] sky@codesink.io 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My therapist recommended this for me, or esketamine which my insurance may cover, but my doctor thought trying a regular antidepressant first was best, despite having tried many before.

I am doing better than I was, for sure, but I do wonder if I could be even better. I'm also honestly lucky to have made it through the dark period before the meds kicked in.

[–] ickplant@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm glad you made it through that dark period. Is your doctor no longer willing to consider esketamine since the antidepressant is sort of working? That's too bad, if so. I know insurance can be picky with what they cover, too. I have a lot of hope that all of this will improve as psychedelic treatment for depression becomes more and more commonplace. For now, give us a follow at Psychedelic Therapy, and see if your doctor changes their mind!

[–] CommunityLinkFixer@lemmings.world 2 points 10 months ago

Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !psychedelic_therapy@lemmy.world

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee -3 points 10 months ago (3 children)

A single dose of IV ketamine is generally quite expensive.

If the effects last a week, might not be worth it

[–] ickplant@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

Note that this is simply because this study looked at differences for up to a week. Other studies suggest there is a more sustained effect, although it's not permanent. Antidepressants aren't permanent either. The argument is to get insurance to cover ketamine since it is a promising treatment for suicidal ideation (and some are starting to cover it).

[–] crystal@feddit.de 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You mean it's more reasonable to just die?

[–] Chozo@kbin.social 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Unfortunately, those are the options most Americans have. Either pay more than you can afford to fix it or let it kill you.

[–] mojo@lemm.ee -5 points 10 months ago

Uh there are a lot of anti depressants out there. I pay $15/mo for mine. This is just misinfo and xenophobia.

[–] Ghostwurm@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What's "expensive"?

[–] Tolstoshev@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

About $300 per session. The ketamine itself is cheap, the doctor’s time is what you’re paying for.

[–] Obi@sopuli.xyz 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Was gonna say, I don't remember ket being that expensive through the, err, unregular channels. Then again I'm not in America this would just be free here.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Do people do ketamine infusions where you are?

[–] Obi@sopuli.xyz 1 points 10 months ago

Not sure what you mean with infusion, I assumed IV meant intra-venous, which, yeah some folks do that unfortunately, though now that I think about it I think it would mostly be done intra-muscular (in a muscle rather than a vein).