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Using ketamine to treat depression
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
A recent study by the National Institute of Mental Health suggested that ketamine could be useful in treating symptoms of depression.
From the the BBC:
Link to abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16894061&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum
(I'll get the full text article when I'm on a machine with full access)
From the the BBC:
The study involving 17 patients found ketamine - used as an anaesthetic but also taken as a recreational drug - relieved symptoms of depression.
Most existing treatments for depression take weeks or even months to relieve people's symptoms. But the team, writing in Archives of General Psychiatry, said ketamine would need to be altered so it lost its existing hallucinatory side-effects.
Scientists from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) injected 17 patients with either a very low dose of ketamine or a placebo of saline solution. The participants were all depression sufferers who had tried an average of six treatments that had failed.
The researchers then measured their levels of depression minutes, hours and days after the dose was given.
Lead researcher Dr Carlos Zarate Junior, head of the mood and anxiety disorders programme at NIMH, said: "Within 110 minutes, half of the patients given ketamine showed a 50% decrease in symptoms."
By the end of day one, he added, 71% had responded to the drug. And at this point the team found 29% of these patients were nearly symptom free.
The researchers also discovered one dose lasted for at least a week in more than one-third of the participants.
Link to abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16894061&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum
(I'll get the full text article when I'm on a machine with full access)
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Comments
I don't really understand why they bother researching that. cocaine could be a great antidepressant, but the abusefactor is too great for it to be prescribed safely. I think ketamine would be the same thing.
However it does act as a depressant when mixed with a depressant.
Also, on a side note. I can only take it when mixed with other drugs now. I never have it without anything else as, as soon as I do, I throw up and the feeling is horrible.
I abused it quite a lot when I was younger, I took it loads without anything else. I think it's my body saying no.
I have a friend who I’ve had to be harsh with and stop seeing her. For the last 8 years, she has done it every day and it’s not like bits here and there. She’ll do the whole gram in one go, so she doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing. Obviously her body is more used to it than our’s, so she doesn’t pass out but she needs looking after and it’s so dangerous. She has got a serious problem, her parents ground her(she’s 25 but they are strict since they found out about it), monitor her money and all sorts. She lost her bf doing it. If you nag she says you are boring and starts hanging around with people who do it too. Though, sometimes she does admit she has a problem. The girl even drives on it! There’s quite a few people like her, that I know but she’s defo the worst. I used to cain the stuff and love it but never to this extent.
So now, I only ever see her if she doesn’t have it. I cant be bothered getting thrown out of pubs on a Tuesday lunch time, people staring, having to look after her. Everyone’s sick of it. After all these years she is the only one that hasn’t moved on and there’s not much I can do.
Did it for the first time this weekend and find I can't shut up or chill out. It's cool though.
I can also find ket quite theraputic in some circumstances. Half an hour's journey into k-space feels like an eternity, and is so completely removed from reality. There's no escape quite like it. I can see how people can come to rely on it though.