The New Depression Treatment Esketamine Helped Me Get My Life Back. But I Don ’t Know If I Can Keep Taking It

On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the U.S.’ first new major depression treatment in years: a fast-acting esketamine nasal spray related to the club drug ketamine, which is itself a promising treatment for depression. The esketamine spray, manufactured by Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals and sold under the brand name Spravato, is intended for adults with treatment-resistant depression. When taken in conjunction with oral antidepressants under medical supervision, Spravato has been shown to ease depression systems in as little as hours, though the psychedelic-derived drug can come with temporary side effects including dissociation, dizziness, sedation and feeling drunk; it also comes with a risk of abuse, the FDA says. Spravato will cost between $4,720 and $6,785 before insurance during the first month of treatment, and between $2,360 and $3,540 in following months. This is the story of Amelia D., a 37-year-old living in Michigan who asked to keep her last name private for privacy reasons. She has been enrolled in an esketamine trial at the Rochester Center for Behavioral Medicine, in Rochester, Mich., since 2017. I started anti-depressants the summer after my first year of college. I was always a depressed person — more of a depressed personality. One of my diagnoses is dysthymia, which is a persistent low-level depression that kind of grinds away at you. I have so many diagnoses, and you get different diagnoses at ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Drugs healthytime onetime Source Type: news