Musk Says His Ketamine Prescription Is in Investors' Best Interests
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
It's had amazing results for treating depression -> https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/ketamine-for-treatment-r...
With that said, yes Ketamine is effective for depression. But it is not designed for "depression-like symptoms". It is designed for acute depressive mood disorders and suicide ideation which cannot be treated by other means, similar to electroshock therapy or TMS. Ketamine is not a "first line" treatment for depression.
Simply based on his own words from this article, this sounds like abuse of Ketamine.
My question would be if he's getting IV treatments or using compound medication. They are wildly different in their usage, effects, and monitoring.
Thanks for telling me what to think.
> But it is not designed for "depression-like symptoms". It is designed for acute depressive mood disorders and suicide ideation which cannot be treated by other means, similar to electroshock therapy or TMS.
That's literally not true. Spend a few mins reading a survey paper on it perhaps? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28249076/
> antidepressant effects in patients with mood and anxiety disorders that were previously resistant to treatment.
_Resistant to treatment_ is the key phrase. That means there were already attempts to treat it, i.e. it isn't a first-line treatment.
Have you ever taken Ketamine? Have you ever talked to a professional about it? No psychiatrist will tell you it is a first-line defense.
Ketamine IVs are significant treatment. Not all insurances cover it. Ketamine IVs require a significant time investment (2-3 times per month, 2-3 hours in treatment and you can't drive yourself -- not an issue for Elon, of course). You're a barely walking meat sack after Ketamine.
Ketamine in compound form is for daily at-home use and is debilitating, typically used prior to bedtime. But that isn't how Elon is describing his usage.
The fact that investors said it was "recreational" should be a warning sign. And his combined use with MJ is very concerning; you don't treat depression with a depressant. If he truly is 'depressed' he should have had professional advice to quit MJ.
Under a doctor's care would surely add a lot to the cost, but he can afford it financially.
What might turn out to be unaffordable no matter how much wealth has been accumulated, is the plain ordinary toxicity. Something toxic doesn't have to nearly be fatal or even give blatant negative effects, in many cases unabated use can allow "minor failures to cure conditions" to progress unchecked, eventually turning out to be major failures.
As an example, a well-recognized cultural icon in his time, Michael Jackson could afford all kinds of toxic things and medical treatments where money was no object, and look how he ended up. If he would have had lesser medical supervision it would have been much worse too.
When you do the math, the risk/benefit ratio between a drug treatment using a product possessing an element of toxicity, even at a recognized safe dose, versus a non-toxic alternative of a different sort, these can be in a completely different ball park. One of the choices has a zero in the equation, and it's not easy to come close to that some other way.
I can’t help but feel this is a superficial defense of Musk as a proxy for defending the drugs.