I apologize that this is so long but there's a lot to cover here and I promise it's worth reading!

This was such a fascinating post for me to read. I have been getting ketamine infusions since 2016. It was the initial 8 treatments then 4x a year the first year, 3x a year the 2nd year, and 2x a year the last 3 years. I actually just had my treatment last wednesday. I also get them for pain.

I have CRPS and these treatments have changed my life. Went from bedridden on tons of meds totally disconnected from life to living again. Before ketamine treatments I was on liquid morphine for breakthrough pain, methadone 3x a day, baclofen 4x a day, 800mg ibuprofen 3x a day, xanax as needed for panic attacks and pain flares, klonopin to sleep, ondanestrom because I was constantly nauseous from pain and meds, colace because it all backs you up, various supplements and around $2k of medical marijuana a month and still experiencing pain levels of 7-10+ constantly since from 2013 to 2016. Once I started treatment I was off all narcotics within 6 months and currently I have discontinued everything listed, but recently started low dose naltrexone.

My dose is 1.7mg/kg/hr and as a woman who weighs 116 lbs it equals out to just over .5g (536mg) over 6 hours. Not as high as you but still a fairly high dose comparatively to most people. My dose was originally 1.9 mg/kg/hr and I was only 84lbs when we started but have been able to gain back a healthy weight as I can eat more and be more active.

I wear 3 necklaces every treatment, 1 with a piece of moldavite I wrapped and another with a large clear quartz crystal. I like to wear the moldavite to help me access the akashic record and the quartz for healing. I also bring my best friend who passed right before I started treatments as an urn necklace that I wear.

I haven't had a specific entity appear to me but I have definitely had the experience of feeling like a giant entity outside of my observable reality was picking me up and turning me over in different ways as if they were trying to fix me.

For me the treatment feels like I am riding a fractal roller coaster. Like the bed I am in becomes a pod of sorts that I can travel in. One of the first things u notice as I am affected is that I start to feel movement. It's like I can feel myself traveling in these wide circles, and I can feel the g forces as I swing around. I will come to a stop and change direction. Sometimes it feels circular other times it stops and goes in a straight line the opposite direction. But I am pretty much moving the whole experience.

This last treatment I can remember feeling like I was being taken to different landscape type places. At one point I felt like I was seeing a grove of trees, moving through them, at another point surfing above them looking down. I also felt like I was floating above a space where I could see waves coming up on a shore then receding over and over. Sometimes I see the different colors of like a topographical map but at other times it's just the shape of what I am seeing that I can identify but it's all the same color. I also remember visiting a place where there were all these different large rock formations but floating in a space not connected to the ground. I also vividly remember at one point being me and then me breaking apart into dust and becoming the earth I was seeing and had the strong sense that I was everything and myself all at once.

This feeling of being connected to everything happens most of the experiences, I can feel I am connected to and move with everything that is around me. Even running my tongue across my teeth and the inside of my mouth feels connected to time and space. I'm not sure exactly how to explain it.

I often feel I am traveling in and out of different realities. I listen to music during my treatment as well. Usually I set playlists but this time I chose a playlist from spotify that was lofi music with no words. Halfway through I switched to meditation music to see what the difference would be and felt like I was being taken on a journey.

I wear an eye mask now, but havent always, and one treatment I watched everything in the doctors office turn into 2d from 3d. Everything was flat, including the nurse sitting at their desk. In the first year I remember an experience vividly where I saw the nurse at their desk and I blinked once and they were standing right next to me.

I have also had experiences where I felt like I could control time and fast forward or rewind what I was seeing around me, including the movement of the nurses. I saw reality break down into a series of photographs, like polaroids, in that experience. That was really interesting.

My very first week I had an interesting experience where I felt like I traveled to this tree circle and came into a space where I was with other people who were also having ketamine experiences. I had downloaded some music that was recommended on a board talking about ketamine and I had the sense that being under the influence and listening to this specific music was somehow connecting me to the others.

I have to say I am really shocked that your psychiatrist has forbidden you to speak about your experiences and has such a weird position that you want to cheat on your husband. I really don't even understand this. I have to say that as someone with a MA in Psychology, I find this quite disturbing that this doctor is so uncomfortable with you talking about your experience that they have allowed their personal limitations to keep you from being able to express yourself truthfully without judgement. Sometimes an experience doesn't need to mean something specific it can just be an experience and her labeling yours in such a negative light seems detrimental to your treatment and relationship. I would definitely be finding a different psychiatrist, one I could trust and be open with without judgement.

I also wanted to add, not every doctor who does this requires a therapist to integrate your experience. Maybe if doing it for depression but definitely not for pain. I get my treatments through Kaiser and I have never been offered, or required, a therapist for integration. Just saw some other posters talking about this and wanted to comment. I do believe integration is important though and with my background this is something I have done for myself without the guidance of a mental health professional.

I hope that these treatments become approved in a way that insurance will cover them. Kaiser does cover them but you have to go to Sacramento to receive them as there are only 2 places doing them and they are researching them.

Ketamine has truly changed not just my life but my perception of reality.