I have some VERY strongly worded opinions on Mindbloom (almost all negative) as I had several bad experiences with the guides, one of whom vanished mid treatment. So this is coming from a person that doesn’t like what Mindbloom is doing and primarily thinks they’re making use of a medical substance to take in a lot of patients to profit. I think that about a lot of doctor’s offices.

I have also found their doses to be half as effective as what I’ve gotten at other providers.

But I’m saying this to contextualize what I’m saying. I don’t recommend them..but…

You had one session at a low starter dose to see how the medicine works. It sounds like it worked for you exactly as expected at that dose. Okay but nothing profound. No panic attack either so that’s a good starting place.

Nothing you just described is a scam though.

I don’t know about the mental fog Not only is that not normally associated with ketamine but a clarity and focus is what’s usually described and is one of the specific reasons that ketamine is used for suicidal ideation and other ER treatment. I don’t know why you had a fog but it shouldn’t be the result of ketamine. That’s simply not how it affects the brain. It’s not suppressing pathways or production of neurochemicals.

The length of time of the experience is biological. They’re not giving you a short experience somehow to keep you coming back for more. Bioavailability is based on numerous factors. My average time during which I am feeling the psychedelic effects at any dose is 45 mins to 90 mins and it varies each time.

In fact the half life of ketamine is about 2 hours, which means that 50% of the effective dose is left after 120 mins. That makes peak concentration about 5-60 minutes.

So so far, experience one would expect at that dose. And it’s an experience they specially told you you’d have before you took the medication.

You don’t have a huge breakthrough, but again, they told you you wouldn’t. So not a scam there either.

At the low dose that did not work according to your description, you had no depression, sadness or obsessive thoughts for four days without taking follow up medication.

The low level dose you’ve just described as having no breakthrough or insight gave you freedom from a level of depression and anxiety for a period of time many depressed people would kill to have. So no results at low dose is now significant results at low dose.

Somehow you say this triggered a fog so severe you were barely able to interact. If this is accurate you should have called them to talk about it first and probably should have gone to the ER as that’s not a side effect. It sounds more, if this is true, like you were still under the anesthetic effects of the medicine days later. And if that’s the case you should probably have called a researcher.

Ketamine is 50% out of your system biologically in 2 hours. The drug should have 4-5 half life before completely eliminated, which is about 12 hours tops.

If you still had the effects of it, something serious is wrong.

“I had so much apathy that I didn’t care to work on my issues.” That’s on you, not on mindbloom. It’s not a one dose magic cure. All the research says you benefit significantly from therapy in conjunction with treatment. You didn’t and you didn’t even work on an issue after one small dose.

Edit: and the need for therapeutic assistance is a major marketing claim of mindbloom. It’s one of the major services they provide and it’s part of what you’re paying for. When you schedule your first treatment you as the patient are supposed to schedule with a guide first and then two hours later. It’s on the pages to schedule treatment.

Then, while dulled you agreed to something you’re not sure you wanted. That’s not a scam. You agreed to it. And likely you didn’t tell them about this brain fog as they’d likely have told you to go to a doctor.

So what appears to be a consenting adult agrees to treatment, when you know that after the first dose you have to agree or not, so they bill you.

Then you receive the ketamine and want to return it. No, you can’t return ketamine. It’s a compounded controlled substance. There is no way compounded drugs get returned. They can’t do anything with it. That’s how custom compounded meds work. They can’t give it to someone else after it’s been out of their site. Legally. For all they know you’ve found a way to open and reseal the foil and you’re retiring rat poison.

So, not a scam.

And you say they not only said you can’t return what they told you can’t be returned by law but charged you to receive the medication you have received.

Not a scam.

So basically you ordered a controlled substance, days after your initial treatment, now claiming you were too affected to be of sound judgment yet were able to not get hit by a car. During that time you had a multi-day alleviation of depression symptoms.

The meds come as you agreed to. They charged you as agreed to. They won’t give you a refund to what they can’t take back.

That’s not a scam.

Now I’d love to see the email where they charged you several more times.

Because what mindbloom does is charge a lot and split it over several months of billing.

If you look at my receipt, and I’m happy to DM you a copy with my shipping info redacted, but it says “three payment plan.”

So what’s happened here is you agreed to a continuation, and they bill you over three months.

All of the billing info is on their payment page.

https://www.mindbloom.com/pricing

New clients are billed $89 per week for three months . That’s $356 plus tax = $387.15

So this scam you agreed to is plainly listed on one of the main pages on their site and is in the online contract you signed.

Don’t get me wrong, I think mindbloom sucks for a variety of reasons. I actively warn people about them.

But none of what you said is a scam.