Anyone take head meds?

Not me, but I do take stuff for high blood pressure and cholesterol issues.

Now, my stepdaughter is on some serious head meds after being diagnosed as Schizoaffective and takes several meds a day to keep her on as even a keel as possible. Even then she still has episodes that try our patience from time to time.

Mental health issues are no joke and are as hard on the caregivers as the patient at times-----especially as we age.

You ever try the functional medicine stuff? Some people say they get fixed with it because conventional medicine did not diagnose the source of the problem correctly.

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Still take some others that I don’t want to admit.

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Why not?

We just want it to be bearable.

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This is the new big frontier and I hope some good comes of it

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I'm pretty immersed in it (including on the business side) so I'm in a position to provide you some references/support/etc.

Please feel free to ask me here (or in private if you prefer).

I truly feel for your wife and your family. I believe there is hope if she/you are willing to explore some "new frontiers" as you said. Good people - like your wife - have been left to wander the wilderness for too long, and it is shameful. But there are some answers.

Good luck, my friend. Always here if you need something. BST

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What do you think of ketamine?

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Ketamine has the benefit of at least being legal in the US. You should be able to find a reputable clinic within 100 miles of almost anywhere you might be living. It is a dissociative and is potentially a good place for her to start in a comfortable place. However, she might find the effects aren't very long lasting and/or are not powerful enough. TL;DR - it might pay to try this, but in almost no instances will it be as powerful as some of the other substances.

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As far as the rest, what is out there?

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For what you are describing, the most obvious modality would be psilocybin (magic mushrooms). And not the micro-dosing you hear so much about - I'm talking about high-dose, masked (i.e. behind blackout eyeshades and good earplugs) sessions.

This is the best place in Jamaica, where it is basically completely legal. This is a retreat shared with other guests - I also believe that this community element is far more powerful than just being with a shrink in an office park. You get 3 doses in one week.

You and your wife should peruse the Trip Advisor reviews - there's a lot of recent ones and they are mindblowing. I know several of the people that wrote the ones from the past year or so:

Trip Advisor review of MycoMeditations

This is the place in the Netherlands that is most prominent. Unfortunately, only truffles are legal in Ned, so it's hard to get an appropriately high dose. I believe you also only get 2 doses here. Still, it is a popular destination.


Those are really the only 2 countries where psilocybin is basically legal in a worry-free way. Why don't you digest all that before I keep going?

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Thanks. I'll read up on it

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Great. You should really make sure she gets a chance to read those guest reviews. I don't want to minimize her suffering, but from what you described, she is right down the middle of the fairway for the types of problems they see with guests. It is fairly common for someone with those issues to have a life-changing trip (or two) during the retreat week...with a good chance of it being durable upon return to "real life". Now, there's no panacea - she would likely have to continue with her therapist (or maybe find a new one) so that the work at home can continue, but I know many people who have brought their depression and anxiety quite well to heel with this modality.

ETA: she would also have to work with any retreat to taper SSRIs and other meds in advance of going. (And any retreat you find that doesn't get into it this far is to stay away from.)

This might not be may place but I want to offer help. She is not the first person in the world to go through this.

This 100% treatable. I know this personally.

I would suggest finding a really good psychiatrist. This is crucial.

She defiantly needs a mood stabilizer. A antidepressant can actually make things worse.

Xanax is no good. It's a short term med. It can fog your brain, cause weight game and be late everywhere.

I really have no clue about her. She could be bipolar or MDD. The anxiety will work its way out when getting stabilized.

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I have this. It's the worse one by far.

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Hopefully your meds are working to help you get through your daily life.

What I've found with my stepdaughter is she'll have long phases where her life is running very close to what was normal before her diagnosis and she can be productive---even taking on-line courses in the work field she's interested in.

Then, seemingly overnight, her anxiety levels can amp up and paranoia sets in and she can become very edgy and start with the pacing, hearing voices, etc. and when that happens she's turns defeatist and wants to give up.

She was diagnosed 8 years ago now and has been in and out of psych units 5 times in that span. Hopefully they have her on the right meds now, but our experience is they tend to not work as well as time passes and the Drs. are prescribing new meds to try to help.

One of the pills she's on now has her needing weekly blood work to make sure her metabolic panel is staying within healthy limits.