I just completed my 2nd low dose ketamine therapy session and promised to post updates. Feel free to AMA if you have any Qs.

Why I decided to try it?

I 30M wanted to try ketamine therapy to work on my anxiety and a few related issues. Anxiety negatively affects many areas of my life and I often don't feel like I'm thriving and living life to the fullest. Ketamine therapy has been shown to be beneficial for folks suffering from treatment resistant depression which I would say is the primary indication it is used for. That being said, it is also used to treat anxiety and shown to be clinically beneficial.

What does a typical session look like?

I'll create a space for my treatment. Ensure things smell nice and open my windows so I hear the nature outside. I will take 50mg sublingually let it melt for 5-10 mins and then spit out my saliva. I'll wash out my mouth with some chai tea or ginger tea. I usually feel affects around 10-20 mins in. At this point, I'll put on a guided hypnosis or meditation track with an eye mask and let the effects peak while I'm listening. While I'm listening I find that scent helps ground me, so I'll smell some EOs as needed. Once the track is done, I'll get up and go outside while I listen to music and just sort of contemplate my experience. Usually, at this point I'm still feeling the effects so I'll just bask in the experience as long as I can with some tea. Classical music sounds great, so I'll put some of that on while I'm outside. Then as things settle down, I'll try to write a bit about any thoughts that came up during the session.

How does ketamine feel?

To me it felt like parts of psilocybin, MDMA, and cannabis. I felt the deep connection to nature and introspection I often feel on lower dosages of psilocybin. I felt the sensory euphoria (albeit not as intensely) and openness I often feel on MDMA. And I felt the body high sedation and warmth of strong indica cannabis. Very few moments of anxiety. Overall, it felt nice. Like a massage for my brain.

How's it's impacted my anxiety?

I've found that my anxious tendencies have been reduced significantly. In treatment, I feel like I can actually visualize and feel the sensation of rewriting my anxious neural pathways. It's a pretty cool feeling. These effects were amplified the 2nd treatment when I listened to a guided hypnosis track alongside treatment. I would say if my anxiety and worry when I started was a 10, it is now closer to a 5 or 6. I'm hoping that over time with more treatments this further improves.

How it's impacted my fears & phobias?

These seem better, but I need to field test. I'd say my fears related to my own mortality have been reduced. I feel much more able to let go of control in a way that I think has really helped improve my panic threshold.

How it's impacted my obsessive tendencies?

Not much impact sadly. I find that my obsessive tendencies that cause me anxiety (never been formally diagnosed as OCD) are the only anxieties I have that remain unchanged. I'm hoping I can find alternative treatment to focus on reducing these. I'll be experimenting more with MDMA once it's given a green light by the FDA (hopefully later this year).

Takeaways and further tests.

I'm excited to keep experimenting with how to maximize my treatment gains using ketamine therapy. I feel like I have a good handle on how to have a good experience (knock on wood), now I want to figure out how to optimize my post-treatment experience. Currently, I just sort of go back to my normal life. I'm also curious about trying out higher doses, but to do that I'd probably opt for an in-clinic treatment.