Originally Posted by StevenD

I am sorry to report 6 days after having a 5 hour treatment, I am seeing no long lasting benefits from the ketamine and do not plan to continue them. I might have temporarily gained a little less pain and a little less sensitivity to cold, the increase in tingling out weighed any benefit. 6 days later and I think I am back to where I was before I started them.

While the treatments do not appear to help me, I can understand why anyone else may want to try. As we know, different treatments can work for different people. But I would say, don't do this treatment without trying more traditional treatments first. If not emotionally stable or you don't have a trusting person to sit with you during the treatment, I think she should avoid this type of treatment.

As I said, each day's treatment lasted about 5 hours. Very quickly after starting the Ketamine in the IV, I began noticing strange feelings. It is feels like an out of body experience. In some ways you feel more like an observer than a participant. I could still control most things but very slowly. If I wanted to scratch my ear, I would first have to think "which hand will I use"? One was more constrained by the wires and tubes they had me connected to. After deciding on a hand, I would slowly move my hand and scratch the ear. It wasn't that I couldn't do things faster, I just felt that I should do things slower so I don't screw anything up. This is especially true when I wanted to be aided to the bathroom. I felt like Tim Conway's "little old man" on the Carol Burnett Show.

They offered to dim the lights, but I kept my eyes closed most of the time anyway. At times I would open them and look at my wife to bring myself back to earth. A nurse is there at all times checking your vitals or any body reactions that indicated you were in distress. Despite occasional of getting a little disoriented, I always felt that all I would have to say is "Please STOP" and everything would have been unhooked immediately.

I got a little nauseous and they gave me meds for that. I never got so distressed that they gave me a benzo or anything like that. All in all, it was a quite unpleasant experience. It was worth a try, but I will not be going back.