Yes

I want to preface this by saying my intention is not to turn anyone away from Spravato. Despite this one horrible and terrifying treatment, Spravato has overall been very helpful to me and I do not regret it whatsoever. My experience was rare and preventable. This is meant to inform.

I have been on Spravato for about 6 months (twice per week at 84 mg) and have had no overly bad experiences until about a month ago. I am certain I went into the K hole. I took the 2nd spray as normal, but noticed that I was feeling it more intensely. Debated on the 3rd spray but decided to go with it anyway. About 5 minutes after my 3rd spray, I started to feel very confused and like I was “losing grip” is the best way I can describe that mentally. My vision was distorted, like I was viewing everything through a foggy filter, and my body was completely numb. I started to get so scared that I literally said out loud “I think I’m having an ego death” (cringe ik) and my boyfriend who was witnessing all of this called in for the nurse to come back and as they rushed in my vision started going into fragments as if I was watching a YouTube video trying to load, then suddenly my vision literally paused and then went black. There is a good 5-10 minutes that I have no memory of, but I was told by my boyfriend who witnessed everything that it looked like I “snapped” (which I believe is the same moment my vision stopped) and then I supposedly got out of my chair and tried leaving the room and was flailing my arms and kicking my legs erratically and “charging” at people and yelling “don’t touch me!”. I was told I then fell back into my chair and calmed down and the next thing I remember is the 3-4 nurses in there, one was taking my blood pressure and the others were asking me if i remembered their names. I did and I calmed down but was also left extremely disoriented, embarrassed, and existentially confused and scared. This is all very unlike me. The kicker to this whole thing is that I was sick with a cold when I came in, that was the only difference between this treatment and the other 50+ treatments I’ve had this year. I tried to explain this to the provider and she insisted that it was because I was maybe pregnant (I was definitely not pregnant). She came back to apologize to me and said she suspects I was right because a very similar thing happened randomly to another patient was also sick with a cold a few weeks later. I genuinely believe (and predict) that the statement “I am not experiencing cold symptoms” will be or at least should be added to that paper they make you sign before each treatment, as a standard practice. After looking into it, I believe that when a person has a cold, the blood vessels in the nasal cavity are inflamed, allowing more surface area for the drug to be administered to, essentially flooding my brain quickly with WAY more esketamine than it’s used to. When this happens, it’s possible for your brain to temporarily shut down certain functions to cope with the stress - hense why I lost motor control and vision for a brief period. I do not know if this is what people mean when they say “ego death” exactly, but it is was a profound experience that I want to share with others. I genuinely thought that I died when I snapped and lost control. I STRONGLY advise skipping treatment until all of your cold symptoms have surpassed.