6 ms·

Inside London's first Ketamine therapy clinic

58 points by pmoriarty 5y ago

alliao 5y ago
asking the really thorny question here; are addicts actually self medicating as best as they can given the circumstances they have? if so, these clinics are doing gods work by de-stigmatising.... I once read cigarettes are how many patients suffering from schizophrenia get through their life and felt a little worse about all the anti smoking campaigns...
- TapWaterBandit 5y ago
  How do cigarettes help with schizophrenia?
  - alliao 5y ago
    I think nicotine somehow desensitise the receptors so they end up having much less audio hallucinations was the gist. Quick random googling find this paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2613326/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2613326/
cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
With telehealth the US is way ahead of the curve with this one. It's easy enough to find a clinic that will prescribe the dissolvable troches for at home use, so you can use them during your own meditation/integration sessions in the comfort of your home. There is a lot of fuss about IV being more bioavailable and all that but it really is so much easier and at the end of the day you can have the same effect cheaper, safely, and no fuss when taking the troches at home. Check out the TherapeuticKetamine subreddit for recommendations.
Terry_Roll 5y ago
Its interesting that things that could improve cognition are also getting under the microscope, which I think is a reflection of the society we live in today compared to say 50years ago, the point being more mentally taxing less physically taxing work. Of course, from a military perspective, knowledge is power so I'm not surprised countries are getting into this line of study. Humans are inherently lazy which is why we build labour saving devices, but Govt's also need to keep the population busy to avoid trouble which will take many guises. So whilst the focus is on depression treatment, spin off knowledge will almost certainly be obtained and used in less obvious ways. A simple point, I've always found the cannabis culture in Uni's to be highly tolerated, but considering weed puts the brain in a state almost identical to a schizophrenic episode, what new insights will be solicited. A history lesson, Crick, took LSD to help visualise or gain an insight into the double helix. Drugs make you think!
d13 5y ago
"Psychedelics, like ketamine, also have the ability to produce neuroplasticity“ What’s the evidence for this?
- timbit42 5y ago
  They can see it in brain scans.
ggm 5y ago
Large exclusion list at the bottom, which is understandable but the likelihood of people who seek this treatment having co-morbidities is high. -It's part of the problem really. Hopefully that will shrink. And, this needs to move into the NHS. (this is a fully private clinic service only at this stage) Wait lists for anxiety & depression amongst the young are pretty high. (I'm not in the UK, this is what I am told)
- jimnotgym 5y ago
  Waiting lists in my area for 'non-urgent' cases of mental health are over 1 year.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    When people promote universal single payer healthcare in the US, this is the kind of thing I want them to know about. There are downsides.
    - enneff 5y ago
      Well the alternative you’re working with there is only the wealthy are able to afford that healthcare. Poor people just can’t. How is that better?
    - ggm 5y ago
      Nothing is perfect. That said, overall the cost to the system in healthcare provision in the US is approximately DOUBLE that of the NHS per capita. If you took half of that difference and applied it judicously, waiting lists would drop quite a bit.
      - colechristensen 5y ago
        Do the people on waiting lists care what it costs the government or what could be but isn’t?
        5y ago
standardUser 5y ago
"Psychedelics, like ketamine, also have the ability to produce neuroplasticity – encouraging the brain to grow synapses and nerve connections which then opens up the potential to lay down new patterns of behaviour" This is the key takeaway from the steady stream of good news we've been getting about psychoactive drugs and how they can help with issues like addiction and depression. I can see how a skeptic might look at these reports and think "how convenient, all the fun drugs make people happier for a little while". But I think we're discovering that it isn't this or that drug that has the potential to help people, but rather the approach that is enabled by an entire class of drugs. Determining which drugs can be most useful and how to apply them will be a big ongoing project (now that we're finally able to finally do the research). The drugs we use down the line may be nothing like the drugs we're looking at today.
- hemloc_io 5y ago
  My personal (unprofessional) opinion is recreational drugs are great for research b/c they're unlikely to kill people, people wouldn't take drugs for that will kill them, and they haven't been able to be researched before, meaning there's almost certainly a discovery there. Once we discover the method of action of the drug then maybe we can end up in a targeted drug without the fun side effects that the rec drugs have (like you said). Figuring it out from the top down by designing a substance, and then testing it on people, sounds dangerous + difficult.
  - k0k0r0 5y ago
    Honest question: Why should we kill the fun? I mean addiction is a problem, but having a great time definitely isn't, right? Or do I miss something?
    - hemloc_io 5y ago
      oh no reason, recreational drugs are fine for recreation imo. But when looking at therapies I don’t know if my grandpa with PTSD is looking to blast off on ketamine for therapy every week. (Although to each their own haha)
radicaldreamer 5y ago
This is available in California as well (albeit from mostly private providers and not covered by most (or any?) health insurance)
- ggm 5y ago
  Given the future cost of addiction and related problems, you would think health insurance had a strong motivation to pay this cost, rather than wear the long tail costs of the alternatives when problems get bigger.
sen 5y ago
I get ketamine treatment for acute persistent pain (under our public health system) and it’s been pretty much life changing for me. It doesn’t remove the pain, but a week of treatment can give me 1-2 months of “relief” per year, and when you’re basically in pain 24/7/365 that break is absolutely everything. During the actual treatment itself it removed ~90% of my daily pain, and then it persists after I leave and slowly ramps back up over the following couple months. Psychedelics in general have such a vast amount of ways they can improve peoples lives if we gave them a chance (and the appropriate study/experimentation).
- dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
  Are you only allowed one treatment per year? If so, why?
  - sen 5y ago
    Not sure what’s “allowed” but for me the once a year thing is more about fitting around other treatments, surgeries, etc.
disillusioned 5y ago
I now directly know of 3 different people firsthand who have had an amazing experience with ketamine therapy where it brought them back from them brink and put them in a place where they felt they could really start working on resolving their issues. It's not a panacea instant fix, but it helps lift that crushing weight and cloud and makes it so you can start to make real progress. It's fascinating to see the progress we're observing with psychiatric therapies through things like psylocibin, MDMA, and ketamine. Hopefully we'll get more progress on the legislative side to open those therapies up to more users, because the evidence is starting to pile up that they can have a real substantive impact.
- enneff 5y ago
  I have a couple of friends who have made incredible progress dealing with severe trauma through MDMA therapy. Mental health research and treatment needs more funding across the board. There is so much potential for healing that is being squandered right now.
  - hndamien 5y ago
    I can personally attest that LSD/ Ketamine/ MDMA and Therapy was a million times better than SSRI's, SNRI's and therapy. Shorter time to cured, more effective, less side effects.

58 points by pmoriarty 5y ago

asking the really thorny question here; are addicts actually self medicating as best as they can given the circumstances they have? if so, these clinics are doing gods work by de-stigmatising.... I once read cigarettes are how many patients suffering from schizophrenia get through their life and felt a little worse about all the anti smoking campaigns...

TapWaterBandit 5y ago
How do cigarettes help with schizophrenia?
- alliao 5y ago
  I think nicotine somehow desensitise the receptors so they end up having much less audio hallucinations was the gist. Quick random googling find this paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2613326/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2613326/

cupcake-unicorn 5y ago

With telehealth the US is way ahead of the curve with this one. It's easy enough to find a clinic that will prescribe the dissolvable troches for at home use, so you can use them during your own meditation/integration sessions in the comfort of your home. There is a lot of fuss about IV being more bioavailable and all that but it really is so much easier and at the end of the day you can have the same effect cheaper, safely, and no fuss when taking the troches at home. Check out the TherapeuticKetamine subreddit for recommendations.

Terry_Roll 5y ago

Its interesting that things that could improve cognition are also getting under the microscope, which I think is a reflection of the society we live in today compared to say 50years ago, the point being more mentally taxing less physically taxing work. Of course, from a military perspective, knowledge is power so I'm not surprised countries are getting into this line of study. Humans are inherently lazy which is why we build labour saving devices, but Govt's also need to keep the population busy to avoid trouble which will take many guises. So whilst the focus is on depression treatment, spin off knowledge will almost certainly be obtained and used in less obvious ways. A simple point, I've always found the cannabis culture in Uni's to be highly tolerated, but considering weed puts the brain in a state almost identical to a schizophrenic episode, what new insights will be solicited. A history lesson, Crick, took LSD to help visualise or gain an insight into the double helix. Drugs make you think!

d13 5y ago

"Psychedelics, like ketamine, also have the ability to produce neuroplasticity“ What’s the evidence for this?

timbit42 5y ago
They can see it in brain scans.

ggm 5y ago

Large exclusion list at the bottom, which is understandable but the likelihood of people who seek this treatment having co-morbidities is high. -It's part of the problem really. Hopefully that will shrink. And, this needs to move into the NHS. (this is a fully private clinic service only at this stage) Wait lists for anxiety & depression amongst the young are pretty high. (I'm not in the UK, this is what I am told)

jimnotgym 5y ago
Waiting lists in my area for 'non-urgent' cases of mental health are over 1 year.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  When people promote universal single payer healthcare in the US, this is the kind of thing I want them to know about. There are downsides.
  - enneff 5y ago
    Well the alternative you’re working with there is only the wealthy are able to afford that healthcare. Poor people just can’t. How is that better?
  - ggm 5y ago
    Nothing is perfect. That said, overall the cost to the system in healthcare provision in the US is approximately DOUBLE that of the NHS per capita. If you took half of that difference and applied it judicously, waiting lists would drop quite a bit.
    - colechristensen 5y ago
      Do the people on waiting lists care what it costs the government or what could be but isn’t?
      - 5y ago

standardUser 5y ago

"Psychedelics, like ketamine, also have the ability to produce neuroplasticity – encouraging the brain to grow synapses and nerve connections which then opens up the potential to lay down new patterns of behaviour" This is the key takeaway from the steady stream of good news we've been getting about psychoactive drugs and how they can help with issues like addiction and depression. I can see how a skeptic might look at these reports and think "how convenient, all the fun drugs make people happier for a little while". But I think we're discovering that it isn't this or that drug that has the potential to help people, but rather the approach that is enabled by an entire class of drugs. Determining which drugs can be most useful and how to apply them will be a big ongoing project (now that we're finally able to finally do the research). The drugs we use down the line may be nothing like the drugs we're looking at today.

hemloc_io 5y ago
My personal (unprofessional) opinion is recreational drugs are great for research b/c they're unlikely to kill people, people wouldn't take drugs for that will kill them, and they haven't been able to be researched before, meaning there's almost certainly a discovery there. Once we discover the method of action of the drug then maybe we can end up in a targeted drug without the fun side effects that the rec drugs have (like you said). Figuring it out from the top down by designing a substance, and then testing it on people, sounds dangerous + difficult.
- k0k0r0 5y ago
  Honest question: Why should we kill the fun? I mean addiction is a problem, but having a great time definitely isn't, right? Or do I miss something?
  - hemloc_io 5y ago
    oh no reason, recreational drugs are fine for recreation imo. But when looking at therapies I don’t know if my grandpa with PTSD is looking to blast off on ketamine for therapy every week. (Although to each their own haha)

radicaldreamer 5y ago

This is available in California as well (albeit from mostly private providers and not covered by most (or any?) health insurance)

ggm 5y ago
Given the future cost of addiction and related problems, you would think health insurance had a strong motivation to pay this cost, rather than wear the long tail costs of the alternatives when problems get bigger.

sen 5y ago

I get ketamine treatment for acute persistent pain (under our public health system) and it’s been pretty much life changing for me. It doesn’t remove the pain, but a week of treatment can give me 1-2 months of “relief” per year, and when you’re basically in pain 24/7/365 that break is absolutely everything. During the actual treatment itself it removed ~90% of my daily pain, and then it persists after I leave and slowly ramps back up over the following couple months. Psychedelics in general have such a vast amount of ways they can improve peoples lives if we gave them a chance (and the appropriate study/experimentation).

dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
Are you only allowed one treatment per year? If so, why?
- sen 5y ago
  Not sure what’s “allowed” but for me the once a year thing is more about fitting around other treatments, surgeries, etc.

disillusioned 5y ago

I now directly know of 3 different people firsthand who have had an amazing experience with ketamine therapy where it brought them back from them brink and put them in a place where they felt they could really start working on resolving their issues. It's not a panacea instant fix, but it helps lift that crushing weight and cloud and makes it so you can start to make real progress. It's fascinating to see the progress we're observing with psychiatric therapies through things like psylocibin, MDMA, and ketamine. Hopefully we'll get more progress on the legislative side to open those therapies up to more users, because the evidence is starting to pile up that they can have a real substantive impact.

enneff 5y ago
I have a couple of friends who have made incredible progress dealing with severe trauma through MDMA therapy. Mental health research and treatment needs more funding across the board. There is so much potential for healing that is being squandered right now.
- hndamien 5y ago
  I can personally attest that LSD/ Ketamine/ MDMA and Therapy was a million times better than SSRI's, SNRI's and therapy. Shorter time to cured, more effective, less side effects.