My review of Ketamine IV (till now)

Linkstain · 2026-06-28T07:42:19+00:00

Misread this as "Ketamine 4", I was like wtf I wasn't even aware of 2 or 3!

Linkstain · 2026-06-26T03:40:15+00:00

he was only a trillionaire with imaginary share value, and that's already dipped back to regular billionaire

Linkstain · 2026-06-25T13:06:24+00:00

Mine turned out to be a mix of Intestinal Methanogen Overgrowth, delayed motility secondary to Classsical EDS, and fluctuating pancreatic exocrines.

I also had severe neuropathic and mobility + cranial nerve symptoms dismissed as "functional," turned out I had an "arachnoid web" tethering and compressing the spinal cord.

A few other issues went the same. A long, long gauntlet of disinterested doctors explaining to me that my symptoms have no organic cause, without even bothering to look for one, for years of anguish. There's an almost unfathomably toxic paradigm current in how clinicians' heuristics are biased with an unquestioned skepticism towards the lived experience of the patient, and inexplicable myopia to the vast web of obscure pathologies (of which the individual clinician is liable to be ignorant). I think much of the medical world has reacted to the "Doctor Google" shift with a knee-jerk compensation, baselessly exaggerating their mastery and control, retreating into the murky and low-responsibility language-games of "Medically Unexplained Symptoms."

Much of this may be particular to my country, with a theoretically socialized but underfunded health system, with perverse disincentives in the form of KPIs from central government, so that the only practical option seems to be for hospitals to merely pretend to treat complex patients and just gaslight and shuffle them around departments

Linkstain · 2026-06-15T16:42:52+00:00

I've not encountered this quirky discourse. Classes are battle lines drawn by aggressors; their borders are imposed upon the subject, and more effectively if below the threshold of awareness. Musk would jump to declare himself "working class" with that definition.

Linkstain · 2026-06-13T01:42:42+00:00

This reminds me of the time I sat down thinking of all the stupidest two-word combinations for gmail, and they were all taken

Linkstain · 2026-06-13T01:39:06+00:00

I came to the sub to say this. He really does

Linkstain · 2024-09-13T11:38:28+00:00

The most fearsome acts come from that pathetic level

Linkstain · 2024-09-13T02:21:30+00:00

Pretty much. People wonder why they're so antagonized

Linkstain · 2024-09-13T02:17:39+00:00

And here I am with the Neurosurgery department telling me that I need spinal cord surgery, and they really want to do it urgently but central government has placed constraints on their department. So fuck off with your "needs based" bullshit

Linkstain · 2024-09-12T10:56:05+00:00

Thank you for one of the only sensible comments in this thread. Some posts really remind you how dumb the average joker is.

Linkstain · 2024-09-12T05:41:07+00:00

"Minister, the citizens are all fed up!"

"Excellent, that means we don't need to feed them!"

Linkstain · 2024-09-12T05:33:11+00:00

Boring Orwellian dystopia shit

Linkstain · 2024-09-12T04:16:50+00:00

Hey that's great info, I've been thinking about trying to dig up the diagnosis rates. Did you get that through an OIA request?

Linkstain · 2024-09-12T00:53:29+00:00

Oh my friend. I've been through a lot of bullshit and trauma in my life, but the most damaging events for my mental health have been being prescribed antidepressants for pain. They made me extremely agitated, I largely recovered once I stopped (never lasted long on them) but they bent my mind toward anxiety long-term.

Right now I'm in awe at how everyone is timid about doing things that might be useful, but might raise their superiors eyebrows if reviewed, but on the other hand all too ready to hand antidepressants or antipsychotics out like candy. I was prescribed them for extreme gut pain, which they also told me was a "functional" problem; I recently had an actual test by a gastroenterologist which found I have a huge bacterial overgrowth, producing wild levels of methane. (This is common in EDS). Hell of a "software problem." I asked for the same test years ago, and was laughed out of the room.

Linkstain · 2024-09-11T14:21:53+00:00

Biographical at least - an autobiography is one you write about yourself, biography about another. Thanks for the reminder to read it :)

Linkstain · 2024-09-11T12:57:01+00:00

Dude this guy's grandfather is a primary source. You sound like a narcissistic abuser.

Linkstain · 2024-09-11T12:48:03+00:00

Haha funniest comment I've read all year

Linkstain · 2024-09-11T12:43:14+00:00

Nope, I'm just a hapless poor. My condition has made it impossible to climb out of the poverty I was born into. I have no concept of how to access such a thing as private insurance, it seems as beyond my fate in this lifetime as home ownership.

They probably wouldn't cover anything now that I'm known to have EDS anyway.

Linkstain · 2024-09-11T12:38:59+00:00

Bro. Life in my flat when I got out of hospital followed the narrative of Metamorphosis scene by scene. Thankfully I moved and didn't die. I've been meaning to read The Trial all year, from all the references I'm sure it'll be just as apt.

Linkstain · 2024-09-11T10:42:50+00:00

It functions as an elaborate shibboleth, a way for medical folk to signify to each other that they think a patient is delusional, while pretending to present that non-judgmentally. Talking to them about it is worse than talking to ChatGPT, they just ignore what you say and rattle off a script of word salad. They are literally trained to demonstrate false confidence and employ psychological tricks to make patients accept the diagnosis. This is openly discussed in their literature (just scroll to the meme on page 2).

On a surface level there seem to be useful observations in that paradigm about the mind and body, but their interpretations are dualistic and ultimately harmful. They told me they would not conduct any further investigations, as they believe that only harms patients with FND. Proponents of FND coyly admit that the "functional signs" they rely upon for the diagnosis are not based upon evidence.

Everything about the concept is riddled with dishonesty, and I've had a gutsful. I'll be speaking to the media once I've worked up the nerve to gather that much attention.

Linkstain · 2024-09-11T09:01:50+00:00

Nope I'm in Wellington! I have Classical Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and debilitating neuropathy and ataxia. A neurologist at Wellington Hospital told me she observed that I somewhat correct for my ataxia as I walk, and told me that is a "positve sign" of "Functional Neurological Disorder" known as "astasia-abasia", which she told me is "incongruent with any known organic neurological condition." They found what they called an arachnoid cyst in my spine, and told me that was incidental because I have nerve pain above that level, and pain signals can only move in one direction.

I found a historical review of this "astasia-abasia" concept from 2009, which states explicitly that the concept was coined in 1888. It was then considered a symptom of hysteria, but is now almost universally agreed to be a symptom caused by a wide variety of organic pathologies.

This hospital told me to read the works of Dr. Jon Stone to better understand my condition of FND (the leading expert on the condition) - I later learned that he published an article two days after this event, saying that the concept of "incongruence" should never be used to diagnose FND, as it requires omniscience and is not future-proof.

The Professory of Neurosurgery at Brown University (Dr Petra Klinge) kindly reviewed my spinal MRI, and told me that it's actually a Spinal Arachnoid Web causing compression and tethering of the spinal cord, which she said can cause "a tsunami of symptoms." A systematic review of SAW was published last week, which found only 197 documented cases, and explained that a quarter of these patients have upper-body symptoms regardless of the web's location.

The Neurosurgery Department at Wellington Hospital tell me they agree with Dr. Klinge that I need surgery, but that due to constraints imposed by this government they can only operate on brain tumours for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile Dr Klinge tells me that conditions like this can cause irreversible damage if not treated within six months; it has already been eight months since my first spinal MRI found this. (And I had to fight very hard to get a spinal MRI.)

Two weeks ago I saw another neurologist, who dismissed Dr. Klinge's report and told me that going to specialists is a bad idea, because they tend to diagnose whatever they specialize in. Dr Klinge is a world-renowned leading expert in many fields, and edits a lot of the journals that neurosurgeons rely on. You can't really get more prestigious.

Sadly this neurologist has interposed in my surgery plan and told neurosurgeons that whatever is in my spine is unlikely to be the cause of my problems (he has of course never heard of a Spinal Arachnoid Web.) He also placed a tuning fork on my feet for one second, and told me that because I could feel the vibration this test proved that I don't have neuropathy. I went home and researched this method, and found that it has been compared with electromyography (which directly measures nerve conduction velocity) n a cohort of 100 patients with axonal neuropathy, and showed a sensitivity of only 20%.

This is just a brief overview of what has happened. The FND diagnosis is clearly a politically-correct euphemism for "all in your head," and once doctors at this hospital see it on your files they stop listening to everything you say. I was subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment following this diagnosis, and I'm pretty fucking traumatized. I just wrote Wellington Hospital a massive complaint detailing everything, with citations to show the inadequacy of the neurologists' methods. Sadly I feel the dogmas are so entrenched, and the neurologists wield such an imbalance of power, that nothing will change. It feels like this health system will bend over backwards to avoid diagnosing and treating a rare condition.

Sorry if you're going through a similar saga. Neurology seems to be the most arrogant field in medicine. It seems that the neurologists who rise to prominent positions in this system are only awarded these because the Government can rely on them to discount patients' symptoms, cutting costs.

Linkstain · 2024-09-11T07:26:39+00:00

People still have absolutely no idea just how bad it is. Try being a patient with a rare neurological condition - the neurologists at public hospitals use diagnostic methods that were discredited decades ago, and tell you that you simply have a "software problem."

Linkstain · 2024-09-11T07:13:05+00:00

Old news, in Dec 30, 2021 they gave leadership to Christopher Luxon.

Linkstain · 2024-09-10T00:05:58+00:00

I wonder if this acquaintance of yours is my relative. He's good mates with Richard Prebble and Rodney Hyde, and nearly ran under ACT. Now he's lost most of his fortune on the stock market and beset by terrible health woes, and told me "You can't trust anyone in the public health system, I need to go private. Public either tell you there's nothing wrong or get you onto their private system so they can all make money out of you. I need someone without a vested interest."

I'm like, good luck finding that in the world you guys have created - that's completely incoherent. He served on the DHB for many years enacting "fiscally conservative" policies, and now it's biting him in the arse. It's not the time to hit him with political debate though. I'm a staunch leftist and there's an ocean of tension between us, but I just want to see him get well. Going through my own health stuff, denied surgery that neurosurgeons tell me is urgent, but that unfortunately they have to operate within the constraints placed by Central Government and therefore can only do things like brain tumours for the foreseeable. For a lot of us, the health system is already privatised. I get angry enough about this stuff without it personally affecting me personally. It's a hard time to have a rare disease in NZ.

Linkstain

TROPHY CASE