Ketamine offers lifeline for people with severe depression, suicidal thoughts
A few months ago, Alan Ferguson decided he was ready to die -- for the third time. In 2014, he attempted suicide twice, and the persistent thoughts of "I need to be dead" were echoing in his brain once again. Now 54 years old, Ferguson was diagnosed with clinical depression when he was 18. Since then, he estimates, he's been prescribed more than a dozen medications -- SSRIs, SNRIs, tricyclic antidepressants -- all to little or no avail. "I never got to the point that I thought, 'OK, I'm feeling good,' " he said. "It was always, 'OK, this is tolerable.' But yet those thoughts [of wanting to die] were still there." In early May, Ferguson abruptly stopped taking all of his medications, quit his job and gave away his dog, Zeke. That evening, he called his sister, Linda. "It was a very good conversation," he said. "Linda and I disagree on a lot of stuff, and that night I avoided the hot-button topics because I did
