💊 Ketamine!
What alternative medicines are available for therapeutic purposes - legally - right now?
Alright, good morning. By now, y’all should be well acquainted with my feelings around alternative medicine. For the uninitiated, they are as follows:
Alternative medicines are, most likely, more effective for profound healing than traditional, pharmaceutical ones.
But, how do I define alternative medicines?
Borrowing from a Jane colleague (who I respect a lot), I’d sum it up as follows:
No pills, no powders. If it grows in the ground, it’s probably okay.
This is how I’ve led my therapeutic life so far.
Cannabis = good
Psilocybin = good
LSD (in my limited, micro-dose experience) = good
Everything else - pharmaceuticals, namely - has been an exercise of necessity (see my journey with Wellbutrin, for example).
So, as I was exploring the world of at-home therapies, and hoping for a psilocybin experience, imagine my surprise as I stumbled across ketamine-based treatments.
What is ketamine?
Well, I don’t know. It’s a party drug, I think, with more traditional, sanctioned purposes. I’ve heard from my friends and family that’s it sort of weird, and sort of neat, but if you do too much you end up in a “k-hole.” That’s the extent of my knowledge.
Here’s what it really is:
Sounds scary, right??
Field Trip Health; Mindbloom; Peak
I found some North American companies hell-bent on providing therapist-assisted treatments for psychedelics. Later, because we’re all lazy, they began offering at-home treatments.
And you can tell, by their marketing and positioning, that they really want to facilitate psilocybin and LSD treatments - the traditional entheogens - but they can’t, because all that shit is still illegal. So they have flocked to the next best thing. And that next best things is ketamine.
Here are some highlights:
Field Trip Health
Who is our treatment for?
Field Trip Health’s treatment protocol has been designed to help those suffering from treatment resistant mental health conditions, including depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and trauma.
OUR TREATMENT
About ketamine-assisted psychotherapy
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy is conducted at lower doses of ketamine than what has been used safely in anaesthesia for decades. These lower doses can promote better mental health by disrupting thought patterns or loops that may be preventing progress.
Mindbloom
THE MEDICINE
Ketamine is a prescription medication that doctors can prescribe off-label to treat depression, anxiety, chronic pain, PTSD, OCD, and other mental health-related conditions. It has safely been used as an FDA-approved anesthetic since 1970.
At lower doses, ketamine can move you beyond the superficial layers of your day-to-day mind, heal unhealthy neural pathways, and help you achieve the clarity you need to live the life you deserve.
Peak
Experience the wonders of psychedelic therapy
Your first experience starts with a single low dose to get the hang of things. Think of it as training session for applying what you learned in the preparation class to help set intentions for the rest of your journey. Once complete, you’ll be asked to share feedback with your clinician about how it felt so they manage your program to ensure optimal healing.
As a psychonaut, I can’t just pre-judge
I do believe in the efficacy of any medicine that has the capability to disrupt your thoughts and create a separation between your mind and your essence - ego-death is the most severe example of this experience, but there are plenty of lesser experiences that are probably beneficial to our minds.
So, I’m going to continue doing my research - and I’m going to dig into one of these companies. I’ll sign up, I’ll go through the experience, and I’ll chronicle all of it for you, here.
Stay tuned.
📚 tl;dr Traditionally, I have lived my therapeutic life by “no pills, no powders - if it comes from the ground, it’s probably okay”
A few companies in the US and Canada have attacked the at-home, psychedlic-assisted therapy space, and all of them use ketamine due to its benefits and legal status
Field Trip Health, Mindbloom, and Peak are all examples of these companies
I’m going to do my research, sign up for one, then chronicle the experience here
It will be interesting if nothing else
It is Thursday