This is it! The Ketamine Post

I did ketamine. At Johns Hopkins. Here's what it was like...

Hello! Welcome, new subscribers, readers and followers! I’m so glad you’re here. And if you’re just taking a look around, you’re in the right place for resources, personal stories, studies and tidbits of inspiration for getting through life’s hard moments, big and small.

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Hello friends! I hope you’re well into summer vibes (vibe = all the late afternoon naps plus all the cook outs as well as some pool time with a side of fresh berries). A big thank you to those who joined our first Subscriber Zoom! We’ll be doing this every month, so if you are curious about it but wasn’t able to join, you will have more opportunities! June’s Zoom will be Tuesday 6/18.

I also wanted to give you a peek behind the curtain to share why I didn’t share a newsletter last Friday, to keep to my every other week publishing schedule. In the spirit of why we’re all here—just stumbling along as humans, trying to get through the trying moments in life—you already know that sometimes it’s really hard to do all the things. Even some of the things. Just a few items on my to-do list every week somehow seems impossible when one part of life goes out of whack. In this case, it was finally beginning to recover from a month-long sickness plus watching my now-very-active toddler while she was out of daycare for a week. OY VEY. My hat’s off to anyone who watches children all day and tries to accomplish, like, anything else. I hate deviating from my publishing schedule, but as I kneel before the altar of Fierce Resilience, I have to admit that sometimes, some days weeks are just really hard. But we do what we must and then we keep on going. One foot in front of the other. Even when it’s hard, even when we’re disappointed that we’re not superhuman. And even when toddlers rule our world.

Thank you for understanding.

Now, back to the topic du jour: ketamine.

Out of all the content I’ve written for this newsletter over the past few months, the question I’ve gotten the most is “what happened with the ketamine at Johns Hopkins??” Answer to come! But first, a little backstory. And if you know me, you know I love some backstory. (If you just can’t wait, scroll down!)

The Early Days of MS

As most of you know from my previous posts, social media or from knowing me IRL, I was diagnosed with MS just over 10 years ago. It was completely unexpected and disorienting. There were months, nay!, years dedicated to finding the right mix of food, nutrition, medication, living circumstances, and other lifestyle levers to pull and adjust so that I might have the best chance to thrive even when confronted with an incurable disease.

It was all experimentation.

Paleo vs vegan vs Keto.
New York vs rural Texas vs Austin.
Yoga vs salt floats vs IV drips. And so on.

While I’m not in full experimentation mode currently, I do still observe and adjust the dials when needed.

These days that can look like using cryotherapy, lymphatic massage, or functional mushrooms and botanical supplements¹ to help me feel more like a normal human because as you’ll read below, MS is known for stealing energy and, like many other chronic diseases, making you feel like crap. I wasn’t expecting ketamine to be part of my health mix, but, hey, I ain’t mad at it.

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

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Fatigue and Exhaustion

When I was first diagnosed—we’re talking the week after getting out of the hospital, the week when I still wasn’t walking because the MS symptoms had screwed up my nerves and caused issues with my ability to walk and see correctly—I was fortunate to have a friend share a powerful bit of insight that helped me chart the course of my entire healing journey.

I still remember the phone call from Meaghan, a long-time friend and well-known yogi who was trying to help me find answers beyond the conventional medical system that had diagnosed me and left me with a prescription for a heavy duty medication and little other support. I was crumpled down in the front passenger side of my mom’s car in the parking lot of yet another doctor (the neurologist? physical therapist? occupational therapist?) and Meaghan told me that she’d spoken with a friend of hers, an Eastern medicine health practitioner whom she’d implored for answers to my sudden, curious and unexpected health affliction. The answer that her friend shared was seemingly simple and yet in all these years since, it’s not something I’ve ever heard anyone else say, yet when I repeat it, everyone knowledgeable of the disease nods their head to agree with his insight: “MS is a disease of exhaustion.”

Meaning, it will take and take. Steal the energy, and maybe the will along with it.

This message that Meaghan relayed from her colleague gave me a starting point to orient myself around what this disease would really mean in my life. It wasn’t just immune cells gone awry, tearing up the nerves in my brain and spinal cord, potentially eroding my ability to walk and think—though yes, that was happening too—but it sounded like it could also steal the drive, will and zing that I’d been known for all my life.

While this Eastern Medicine guru wasn’t pointing to a Western Medicine biology text, I figured that looking at this health condition from an alternate frame of reference (a different metaphorical hemisphere, even) might grant me insight into a more complete way of healing. Maybe.

I decided to assume that it would and realized that if this was indeed a “disease of exhaustion,” then I couldn’t exhaust myself in the pursuit of health. I had to resist the urge to prove just how healthy I could be. (“Look, I’m not just fine, I’m GREAT. See? Seeeee?!,” our heroine pleads to everyone, especially herself.)

No.

For now I needed to put all those raging notions to rest in my hyperactive brain and just recline into the understanding that everything, everything in my world needed a makeover, starting with my will to always be going and moving and doing and producing.

I just had to stop.

And I did.

So much so that I left Manhattan, my beloved adopted home, and moved in with my parents on their 60-acre farm² in Texas.

Understanding that this was a “disease of exhaustion” helped me stop when I needed to. Helped me understand that I couldn’t jump back into a highly demanding job again, at least not any time soon. And it started to show me how I might discover a health homeostasis again.

In short, I needed more rest, less stress.

Which is maybe still my goal and is maybe still super hard to achieve when you have all of Life to contend with (…the bills and the groceries and the kid and the job and the partner and the pets and the obligations and the desires and the debt and, and, and….).

And while I stop-dropped-and-rolled myself out of New York and into pretty good health for the last 10 years—doing everything I could to tend to my body’s needs as much as possible with low stress, more rest, better food and care, I did still notice exhaustion creep in. As the Eastern medicine doctor predicted, I had what the MS authorities note as MS’s most common symptom. Just Google “most common MS symptom” and you’ll find the easy answer from the National MS Society: “For many people living with MS, fatigue is the most prominent symptom.”

It came on a little then a lot. More and more in recent years. Fatigue that, sure, made me feel tired, but also like I was sick. That feeling when you have the flu? Yeah, sorta like that. Almost every day. But I still had use of my legs and really good mobility overall, so I didn’t really think of it as anything too, too bad.

But when I saw that researchers from Johns Hopkins were conducting a study on ketamine for MS fatigue, I was intrigued—more so for the ketamine itself than the absolution of fatigue.

What I know about ketamine from a very, very limited point of view is that it’s a psychedelic that can help us sort through some issues. In a previous post, I mentioned that I’d used a small amount to help me identify and work through trauma from a past miscarriage. In that post I also listed some companies who are offering in-home ketamine paired with psychological counseling as a way to break through to some inner layers and help facilitate more effective talk therapy. And just last week, a friend texted—mostly joking but also asking if I’d had anything to do with a direct mail piece she received from a company called Better that also offers at home psychedelic therapy. No, lol, that wasn’t my doing, but she’s right to know that I’m putting the word out there.

Because even though I’d tried a small amount on my own years ago (WHICH I DO NOT ENCOURAGE! Please know I had guidance from others much more experienced and knowledgeable than I), I was curious what a larger amount, administered by a health professional could do for my mental state. This wasn’t the point of the research study I was a part of, but it could be a positive side effect.

And it was.

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So, how did it feel?

Short answer: I liked it.

Why: because it helped bring some thoughts out from the corners, coaxing them from the deep sub- and near subconscious onto my brain’s center stage.

It was short, just 40 minutes in total. They monitored my blood pressure and when it went up a little, they paused the drip for a few minutes and then continued. I wasn’t completely aware of these details in the moment but my good friend, Leigh (who some of you know from our previous business together) was in the room observing. What she saw looked mostly like this photo of me. And as this photo indicates, a dose of ketamine is good for a little introspection.

To note: The administrators did not know whether or not I got ketamine or placebo, but I can tell you that what came to me doesn’t come up from a placebo. I recognized the insight based on my past experiences with psychedelics immediately. It was like getting settled into a super gentle roller coaster that I was excited for, so I strapped in and let myself be carried away.

Little moments from my conversation with Leigh in the car as we drove to Baltimore (where Johns Hopkins is located) started to come to the forefront. As new moms and former style bloggers, Leigh and I discussed the need to go shopping, but not being quite sure what to buy because as a new mom, my body was still changing and my style overall was changing, but I wasn’t yet sure exactly how. And of course having been laid off the week before, I was just starting to explore what my next act would look like, but with no concrete answers at the moment.

And thanks to the ketamine, those innocuous conversational threads started to speak more clearly: I was in the middle of an identity crisis. Duh, of course I was, but I wouldn’t have gotten to that inner understanding without that gentle nudge.

The big answers
AKA Epiphanies during the ketamine “trip”

The answer to the prompt “Why psychedelics are important” (exclamation point, not question mark) came to me in those moments:

They are important because they remove us from where we are.

They take us out of our hole. The pull us out of our identity. (to show us who we really are)

I saw scenes from the Bagivad Gita, but I can’t recall which ones exactly came to me. Surely something to do with a god-like presence and a human presence intermingling.

I heard the voice reassure: don’t be afraid of yourself. Don’t be afraid to be yourself.

And I saw more about why I’m here, what I have to offer, and what my purpose is.

So, more than the understanding that I was having an identity crisis, I was also guided to some answers.

And just like that, it was over.

I tried to hang on to it as long as possible but soon I was back in the realm of unadulterated reality.

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I’m not including feedback on my experience with fatigue as a result of the study since it’s still ongoing, but if you reach out directly of course I’ll share my feedback one-on-one. Once the study concludes, I can add a follow up to share what physical changes, if at all, I’ve experienced.

If you know anyone who is local to the the DC/Baltimore area with MS who is interested in participating, they can reach out to the researchers through this link. I heartily endorse it!

If you have more questions about psychedelics or ketamine specifically, feel free to email me back or message me. It’s obviously a topic close to my heart. <3

Also, please don’t do ketamine or other psychedelics without guidance and support. If you’re curious about how to find that, message me!

And, as always, have a great week and I look forward to hearing from you — or seeing you on the next Zoom on Tuesday 6/18!

xx M

1. A few products I love: Laird Superfoods Instant Latte with 4 different functional mushrooms and Charlotte’s Web Brain Support with Lion’s Mane and Endurance gummies with Beet Root and Green Tea.

2. To be clear, no actual farming was performed! It was mostly just a lot of land with cows grazing, but not a ranch by any means either. More than anything it was my parents’ retirement property, and now mine, I guess too. At least for a bit.