I Broke A Golden Rule Of Treatment

I should have known better. I do know better. I got caught up in things working though, and wanted to get better faster, get back to a more normal life faster. I should never have broken the golden rule.

The Golden Rule Of Treating A Mental Illness

When you are treating a mental illness, you should never introduce a bunch of different medications all at once. One of the reasons for this is that you then don't know what's doing what. 

What medication is making things better? What medication is making things worse? What medication is giving what side effects?

It's always best to start with one medication, get it to a therapeutic dose, and then introduce the next medication if there are going to be multiple medications. 

What Was Currently Going On With The Treatments

Back in December of 2021, when the benefits company stopped covering the Spravato Esketamine nasal spray treatment, my psychiatrist went on the hunt for alternative ways to treat using Ketamine.

We knew that the Ketamine was helping. However, other than the Ketamine Infusions, which are only short-term and have to be done at the hospital or clinic that provides it, we didn't know of other methods of using it.

After a bunch of research on her end, during the appeal process with the benefits company, she found out that she could do a prescription for Ketamine Troches. 

They are similar to sublingual medications, which melt under the tongue. There was one pharmacy in town that had its own lab and the recipe to fulfill the prescription.

By the time we had found out about that, the appeal process was successful and I was able to start the Spravato treatment again.

However, after talking with my psychiatrist, I decided that we should try the Troches first to see if they would even be effective while I am covered for the Spravato treatment. 

Since the treatment was only being covered until June of 2022, at which time we had to submit proof the treatment was working, I wanted to know if the Ketamine Troches would be effective. 

That way, if benefits stopped covering the Spravato treatments again, we knew whether the Troches would work or if we would have to figure something else out beforehand.

Each tablet is 100mg of Ketamine. I took the first tablet, waited twenty minutes, and felt nothing. I was still playing on my phone and going outside to have a vape.

So she gave me another 100mg tablet. Again, we waited for about twenty minutes, and still, I felt nothing. At this point, so that the treatment wasn't completely wasted, she gave me 2/3 the dose of the Spravato treatment.

If we were to attempt again, we would be starting at 300mg and possibly be going higher with the Ketamine Troches. This would get very costly if benefits wouldn't cover the Troches.

We didn't want to try having them cover them at this point because they may come back and say, "Why are you receiving two different Ketamine treatments?" and cancel the Spravato, which we knew for sure worked well.

How I Broke The Golden Rule

I had known for a while that there had been research done around the use of Psilocybin (magic mushrooms) with mental illnesses when micro-dosing. There haven't been enough long-term studies done as it is an illegal psychedelic drug to say one way or the other with certainty though. 

Where I live, it is legal for cannabis stores to sell them, it is legal to buy them, but it is illegal to possess them. Figure that one out.

Anyways, while starting back up with the Spravato treatment again, I decided to try micro-dosing with the Psilocybin.

Now, If I had stopped there it wouldn't have been too much of an issue, all I had done was add one difference to my regular medications and treatment.

However, I also talked with my psychiatrist, and we decided to try doing the full Spravato treatment dose, along with 300mg of the Ketamine Troches. The hope was for better results and in a faster time frame.

Lately, I have been having a nap every day, which is unusual for me. I have also noticed that my mood has been dipping lately. Enough so that the suicidal thoughts, death fantasies, and self-harm thoughts are getting pretty strong.

I have also had a rise in my anxiety and had to take anti-anxiety medications on several occasions, which I haven't had to do for quite some time.

I have come to expect, and so have my doctors, the unexpected with me. I seem to either not react, or react in ways that are extremely rare or they haven't encountered before.

So, now I do not know if the napping and the deepening levels of depression are a cause of micro-dosing with the Psilocybin, using the combination of the Spravato, which is an Esketamine along with the Ketamine Troches, or possibly the combination of all three together.

I should have known better. I do know better.

That's ok though. I will be going back to just the Spravato Esketamine nasal spray treatment without using the Ketamine Troches. I will also stop micro-dosing with Psilocybin.

Things should hopefully level back off and get me back on track. At that point, my psychiatrist and I can discuss whether or not we try adding the Troches back in, without me micro-dosing on the Psilocybin.

Or, we may just stay the course with the Spravato and leave the Psilocybin and the Ketamine Troches completely out of the mixture.

Just goes to show how easily you can ignore what you know you shouldn't do, in the quest for faster results, and end up making things worse.

Lesson learned though, and through mistakes, we learn and grow as a person.

The fight continues.