First Ketamine infusion experience was rough
Hello I haven’t used this blog for years but I might as well typed out all what happened somewhere.
After a 3 month wait I finally had my first infusion and to put it lightly it didn’t start well. I have a phobia of veins and needles together, that I’ve mostly worked through but I’d never had an IV which I knew was gonna be the hardest part because of my phobia.
And I was exactly correct that part went horrible and they couldn’t get a good vein. My only guess is I didn’t drink enough water the day before because they could not find a vein for the life of me.
Attempt #1 was in my right arm and hurt like hell and failed resulting in me almost passing out. So my doctor looks around more but couldn’t find any so he leaves to get an ultrasound sound
Attempt #2 different doctor comes in to check around while my doctor was getting the ultrasound, the other doctor couldn’t find any good ones so he tries my right hand, which hurt a bunch and didn’t work.
Attempt #3 they do the ultrasound and found a vein right by my armpit tries to do it there, it didn’t hurt but the vein blew out so that didn’t work
Attempt #4 my doctor is looking on the ultrasound in my other arm, and is almost thinking about doing one in my foot (thank god they didn’t) but decided on my left hand the worst shit of my life. The second doctor did it and tbh fuck him he was so mean. It hurt so bad and he kept digging around in my hand with the needle. I was getting extremely dizzy and telling him I need to breathe for a second. It finally works with that attempt and as I go to lay down cause I can tell I’m about to pass out, I do.
Thankfully I was already sitting but I ended up slummed on the wall and hospital bed railing behind me and convulsing until I came to about a minute later. I didn’t know what happened cause I felt like I blinked and next thing I knew my ears were ringing and I was against the wall. Now the staffs freaking out calling my doctor in asking my fiancé if I have a history of seizures. He doesn’t know the answer cause he’s never seen me have them before.
The short answer to that is no I don’t have seizures a lot of times when I pass out I convulse until I come to no longer than a minute or 2 later. which hasn’t happened in a while usually 1 or 2 times a year and it’s only when I pass out. I’ve had it happen a few times over my life when I’ve been super sick or stressed to the point of passing out. My guess is the amount of pain and anxiety going on got to be too much and caused it.
But now they’ve put a hold on my next 2 treatments until they can talk with me so see if the infusion actually gave me any pain relief and why that happened as I couldn’t tell them in the moment cause by the time I put my words in a sentence the infusion had already started and I was asleep again.
The rest of the infusion went pretty smoothly and I don’t remember much cause I was out of it or even much after until I woke up at home. My fiancé stayed with me the whole time and said I was saying weird things and kept asking if the IV was in because I was conscious for about a minute after waking up from passing out before they started the infusion.
With all that it did give me a lot of pain relief which is something I haven’t felt in so long so I want to continue with the treatment and I’m hoping they’ll let me I just really hope I don’t get the same doctor that did the iv because I feel like a lot of the issues could have been avoiding if he hadn’t stepped in.
