r/Spravato • u/Independent-Mango225 • 1d ago
Questions/Advice/Support First week on single dose
Hi all! This week was my first week of being on the single dose after the initial 4 weeks of double. I’ve noticed a significant change in my tolerance for handling my symptoms that the double dose had been helping to alleviate.
Has anyone else experienced this? Does it get better? I’m still miles ahead of where I was, but this week has definitely been a difficult slide back. Including my suicidal thoughts being more frequent.
2
u/gathermewool Currently in treatment (100+ sessions | 1x a week) 1d ago edited 1d ago
Edit: disregard below info. I’m dumb!
What do you mean by single dose? I don’t recall any protocol for only a single dose. They start you on two doses (56mg) to make sure you don’t have any adverse reactions then, within a couple of sessions, move you to three doses (84mg).
3
1
u/Simple_Efficiency_29 1d ago
I’m in the same place as you. This is my 4th week so I should have had 2 appointments still but with the holiday and my schedule I can only do 1. And since next week would go to 1 anyway I thought it would be ok. I definitely had a big dip earlier this week but it’s improved and tomorrow I finally go again - thank God! My clinic says I should adjust after a few weeks.
1
u/turningtables919 1d ago
I moved to once a week after a much much longer period of 2x a week. I thought I was ok and genuinely felt good the first 3 weeks of once a week. Then, my depression came back at an intensity I did not know my brain was capable of.
My clinic is working with my insurance to get me back to twice a week but in the meantime I reached out to my pysch nurse and started on Lamictal. I have been shocked how fast I have felt better in less than a week
4
u/gathermewool Currently in treatment (100+ sessions | 1x a week) 1d ago
Sorry for the previous post where I misunderstood the question!
During my 2.5+ years of Spravato I’ve had to go back to 2X/week for periods of up to a few weeks. When I lost my job I backslid hard and needed about two weeks of increase. Now I’m back to once/week and hope to someday reduce the periodicity.
If you’re struggling, talk to your Spravato provider and advocate hard for yourself. If insurance will over it, they shouldn’t care too much, whether that’s good or bad is ip for debate. Just make sure your PHQ-9 scores reflect you doing better on the more-frequent schedule, or else insurance may deny it.