The reason I ask is because I’m autistic, but I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 18 so I never received any kind of assistance growing up. And every time I’ve used an NMDA antagonist drug, I’ve experienced amazing relief from all of my sensory issues.
I’ve never tried Ketamine, but I have used DXM and Nitrous Oxide, both of which are also NMDA antagonists. It’s like they partially sever the connection between the mind and the body. Nitrous Oxide isn’t very useful for this because it only lasts a couple minutes before you need to redose, but even on lowish doses of DXM I feel totally unencumbered.
My sensory issues tend to take up a lot of cognitive load when I’m out in public and interacting with strangers, resulting in social anxiety. My whole life I’ve been too focused on the feeling of wanting to crawl out of my own skin too much to put any effort into being social, making friends, or having fun.
But on NMDA antagonists that all just goes away and I finally feel free and clear headed in a way I had never imagined possible. They literally just make me feel free to be me. Has anyone else here experienced something similar? Is there any existing research on this?
Will have to get back to this question when I’ve got the capacity.
Previously I’ve been on topiramate, currently I take amantadine (chronically overlooked as a psychiatric medication, particularly useful for most mental illnesses going off preliminary studies as well as being about as good as methylphenidate/Ritalin for ADHD except without the potential for abuse/addiction and quite likely a safer alternative for children [and also this holds a lot of promise for auDHD/potential auDHDers] while also being without the nor epinephrinergic effects which makes it ideal for people sensitive to that in classic stimulants, although preliminary studies found that amantadine wasn’t useful for autism), am angling for ketamine therapy.
NMDA antagonists seem to hold a lot of promise for treating autistic burnout/autistic catatonia, especially as a long-term preventative.
You might find that a psychiatrist is interested in prescribing you with Auvelity/bupropion+DXM (if Auvelity is not available where you are or if it’s too expensive) as this increases the availability and the half-life of DXM and you’ll get a safe dose for longer term treatment.