Tackling depression with ketamine

Is Ketamine a Quick Fix for Hard-to-Treat Depression?

Is Ketamine a Quick Fix for Hard-to-Treat Depression?
By John Cloud Monday, Aug. 02, 2010

During the 1990s, the brief popularity of all-night (and in some cases multiday) raves led to a national panic over club drugs. The federal government staged elaborate crackdowns on ecstasy (known colloquially as E and in the lab as MDMA, short for 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) and an anesthetic called ketamine (or K). While ecstasy had been outlawed in 1985, trafficking ketamine was no more illegal in the '90s than selling unused penicillin. But by 1999, the government had classified ketamine under the Controlled Substances Act, and today, dealing the drug can earn you the same sentence that you would get for selling heroin or meth.

Now it turns out that both ecstasy and ketamine may have healing qualities. On Aug. 2, the esteemed Archives of General Psychiatry published the results of a randomized, controlled trial hailing ketamine as a promising treatment for depression among patients with bipolar disorder. Just two weeks ago, another study showed that MDMA is a potentially valuable therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder.

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Article Continued at:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2008151,00.html?xid=rss-mostpopular
 
"In fact, ketamine was used as a battlefield anesthetic during World War I because it's so forgiving to the central nervous system."
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HA! Fact Check FACE.

Of course many of us know Ketamine was first introduced as a battlefield anesthetic in VIETNAM not WWI, as it wasn't around until the 60's =p


Besides that though, very nice article to see main stream =)
 
I have more than 100 journal articles about Ketamine's medicinal value (outside of anaesthesia). At least half of them pertain to its antidepressant action. There are at least 3 big studies that are specifically aimed at the antidepressant effects and all have positive conclusions. I'd do anything to see K used for depression.
 
It is also widely used in veterinary medicine, which is the source of the dance-floor rumor that the drug is a horse or cat tranquilizer.
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Good to see someone calling it a rumor, it would have been even better if he admitted it was heavily perpetuated by the media instead of blaming it on kids.
 
Edit! So now they change the rules around here?

.... mmm ketamine for depression.... my doc needs to take a look at this.
 
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the nice thing about ketamine is that it takes a small amount to help depression, but a large dose to get high. so nobody should ever get prescribed an amount large enough to cause trouble, even if somebody took a whole months supply it probably wouldn't be recreational. .
 
The MDMA info is very outdated as is the ketamine info to a smaller degree.

I doubt ketamine will be used to treat depression in the mainstream--it's just too "weird" and too much fun.
 
^ i scanned through the recent posts to see if this had already been posted. guess i missed yours.
 
Yeah I was going to say this was posted previously.

And yes, I have used Ketamine for depression for several years and nothing comes close to its healing properties of the galaxy of medications I've tried.

I've posted my regimen in PD (I'd link it here but I'm at work behind a proxy so my links are jumbled).

I pray for the day a Ketamine patch or a timed release pill becomes available for depression...
 
the way i understand it, ketamine may have a huge therapeutic index, which i'm a fan of. i personally know somebody who fatally overdosed on tricyclics. you just couldn't do that with K, and going off of it suddenly won't make you suicidal.

with the recognition of marijuana as a medicine i sincerely hope that our society can begin to view many other drugs with an open mind.
 
New study touts Ketamine as "magical" anti-depressant

Study touts horse tranquilizer Ketamine as ‘magic’ anti-depressant
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0819/study-touts-horse-tranquilizer-ketamine-magic-antidepressant/

Ketamine, a general anesthetic usually administered to children and pets but perhaps best known as a horse tranquilizer, is also highly effective in low doses as an anti-depressant, according a study published Thursday.

Researchers at Yale University wrote in the August 20 issue of the journal Science that unlike most anti-depressants on the market which can take weeks to take full effect ketamine can begin to counter depression in hours.

"It's like a magic drug -- one dose can work rapidly and last for seven to 10 days," said Ronald Duman, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale and senior author of the study.

The researchers noted that ketamine was tested as a rapid treatment for people with suicidal thoughts. Traditional anti-depressants can take several weeks to take effect, they noted.

About 40 percent of people suffering from depression do not respond to medication, and many others only respond after many months or years of trying different treatments.
The researchers found that ketamine improves depression-like behavior in rats by restoring connections between brain cells damaged by chronic stress.

"The pathway is the story. Understanding the mechanism underlying the anti-depressant effect of ketamine will allow us to attack the problem at a variety of possible sites within that pathway," said George Aghajanian, another Yale scientist, who co-authored the study.

Clinical use of ketamine has been limited because it has to be delivered intravenously under medical supervision and in some cases can cause short-term psychotic symptoms.

The National Institute of Mental Health found in a separate study that almost 70 percent of patients resistant to treatment with all other forms of anti-depressants were found to improve within hours after receiving ketamine.
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Just because it's best known as a horse tranquilliser, that doesn't make it one…

"Clinical use of ketamine has been limited because it has to be delivered intravenously under medical supervision and in some cases can cause short-term psychotic symptoms."

Absolute shite. One of ketamine's massive plus-points, is that it doesn't require medical supervision - hence its use as a battlefield anaesthetic. Furthermore, it is usually administered IM, not IV - another advantage of the drug.

Edit: I have learned that for the clinical use of ketamine to treat depression, the drug is indeed administered via an IV infusion…
 
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At least it is getting some positive attention... the reporters may still be retarded, but I'm glad the 25+ positive studies on the subject of K as antidepressant are coming to some sort of fruition...

In fact, seeing K's very very wide therapeutic-window and related variation in effects, I'd say that safe anaesthesia is a side-effect rather than the main effect of Ketamine.
 
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