I wish you the best of luck.
Ketamine is an anesthetic (much like the opioids), so the fact that it can be used to treat depression I think would provide some support for the opioid-depression argument. I don’t know if it works on endorphin receptors, but even if it doesn’t, they may have other modes of activity in common.
I knew it was used for the depressive phase of bipolar but wasn’t aware of it’s use in unipolar depression. Thanks.
I seem to remember that Trazodone does have SRI properties, and that most opiates do as well. I also remember a study that used Trazodone to help with OCD (not depression) during the (long) latency period of SSRI treatment, and that patients successfully switched over to Prozac.
I also know that my mom has been taking an opioid pain reliever for intractable* pain for a long while. No one seems to be worried that she is addicted, even if she is now dependent on it.
*That’s what is says on the prescription, although a couple missing vertebrae and some definite neuropathy in her leg seem to be likely causes. I don’t want you to think my mom is an addict feeling false pain.
I thought Ketamine was a dissociative - the pain still exists, but the mind is divorced from its sense of being in the body, so it doesn’t experience the pain “first hand”, so to speak.
Of course, I’ve also heard morphine’s effect as not so much getting rid of the pain but making you not care about it. Not my experience. I got 4 mg of morphine coming out of an adult tonsillectomy, and I remember PAINPAINPAINPAin pain owie mmmmmm snuggle warm comfy. A couple of times, I’ve over-estimated how much Vicodin I’ve needed to kill a migraine or make a severe sprain/mild break stop hurting and went to the happy, glowy, golden place. And, if the migraine or injury happened to occur during a bout of depression, when the black beast is clawing at the inside of my skull, the relief from that grinding mental agony is . . . well, on at least one occasion, it put a stop to some serious suicidal ideation I was having.
Good God, no wonder people get addicted to opiates.
I tried trazadone (tramadol) for OCD without success when it first became available in the US. I did find it to be very addictive in the sense of developing a physical dependence. That was strange since it’s not supposed to have that effect. I had to take some leftover hydrocodone for a few days to get off of it. But from what I’ve heard, that’s not the experience most people have.
Trazodone is not tramadol! Tramadol is essentially an opiate, despite the fact it’s not a Schedule drug. Tramadol is not a safe drug to use in people with a history of/tendency towards opiate addiction/dependency.
Long-term safety and effectiveness of opiates to successfully treat depression has not yet been demonstrated. One drawback is that chronic use of it will cause serious addiction problems in 10 to 15% of the patient population, possibly more than that.
Oh crap. That was a huge mistake. thank you for correcting that. That happens to me periodically and I’m not sure why - get similar sounding names confused. And I’m familiar with both drugs so it’s a really disconcerting mistake. Again, sincerest apologies and thank you. My comments were meant to be about tramadol.
i am a retired and disabled physician and had a research project doing just that which seemed to confirm that hydrocodone worked, esp in depression associated w bipolar disorder. i know an md-jd (doctor and lawyer (psychiatrist)) who was very interested in it. he may have had personal experience, having severe spinal stenosis. i plan to go back into practice after suffering a nervous breakdown due to a divorce, and plan to restart the study using controls and evaluation of depression using questionairres so it will withstand critical analysis.