I just completed about 6 weeks of treatment with Mindbloom, which is one of the companies you can do this with. I started looking into it last year and found there's basically 3 different options for Ketamine. You can go to a clinic and receive it through an IV which costs $1k+ for a single session and not covered by insurance, you can go through a different kind of clinic where you get it administered via nasal spray which can be covered by insurance, or you can take it at home which isn't covered. I chose the third option in that I could do it at home and it wasn't cost prohibitive for the treatment I went through.

I've been suffering from depression for a long time, but anxiety only over the past few years. Here's the breakdown of my full experience. I've never taken any psychadelic drugs in my life just for reference.

I met with a doctor via a zoom session where you discuss how you're feeling and go through your medical history and then they make the decision as to whether or not to proceed. They approved me and sent me the medication. They do have to go through all your current medication to confirm you're not on anything that it can interact with which was mainly benzodiazepines. Before your first session you meet with a counselor to guide you through the process. The medication comes in the form of tablets that melt in your mouth, but you don't swallow it, you let it sit in there for 7:00 and then spit out what's left. Then you put on a face mask and listen to music through their app. The session takes about an hour from start to finish. The first session was really emotional for me, it helped me remember some really important things in my life, some very specific moments with my wife and my daughter and they were very vivid and just kept playing in my head. After the first session you meet with the counselor and doctor again to see about adjusting the medicine which we increased mine a bit.

The second session helped me figure out a big cause of anxiety is that I've associated very specific negative experiences soon after positive experiences. In my head it's like I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop, especially if something good happens. I know that one doesn't cause the other, but in my mind it's happened so many times that negative follows positive. My anxiety really kicked off several years ago when I found out one of my friends died the same day as I got a promotion at work. But going back through my own personal history there's a lot of instances like that happening, it's difficult for me to accept positive experiences for what they are without worrying about the negative.

The third experience was also emotional. It was the most psychadelic experience I've had to date and part of it involved my dog. She died last year and it's been rough on everyone in our house, worst on me. During the trip I was on I could feel her laying next to me on the bed, I could feel her fur, her body along my right side which is where she would lay next to me on the couch. It was like someone you lost came to visit, it was an emotional roller coaster.

The fourth experience helped me to realize I need to get outside more. I've been working from home for a long time at a stressful job and I think it's made me tie my home and work together too much in my mind. I need a separation of those things. I'm changing jobs in about a month where I'll be getting out of the house and doing some travel from time to time which I'm looking forward to.

The last couple of times haven't been very intense but I haven't gone into them with anything specific in mind. Going into your session with an intent does matter in my experience.

I actually have my final consultation today to go over my experience. I haven't decided if I want to continue it or not but I would say it's been a positive experience as it helped me dig through my mind for positive things. I did not have a bad trip on any of them. The main thing on the negative side I realized is I don't have a lot of enjoyable experiences in my life to draw from whether that was childhood, college, or young adult life which reinforced those feelings of depression going back a long way. It wasn't cheap, but I think it was worth the cost. I never found myself feeling like I needed the drug again so it didn't feel addictive to me. You can't drive the rest of the day if you take that medicine but I tried to always take it toward the end of the day. You can't eat for at least 3 hours before so the medicine is the most effective.
I went into this to use the medication as a tool, and that's what it did. I can see how others would abuse this medication but I came in with a purpose and that's what it served.

Sorry if I overshared but I wanted to lay the whole thing out in the event it helps you.