Ketamine: What Is It, uses, treatments, effects, and more effects

As part of the faculty, he completed a medical education fellowship and received a certificate in innovation in curriculum design and evaluation. He was the fellowship director at the Center for East-West Medicine and led courses for physician fellows, residents, and medical students. Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions. To learn more about specific psychedelic drugs that may play a role in medicine, check out the Resource Library from the Psychedelic Medicine Association, which is made up of physicians, therapists, and healthcare professionals.

Although people with certain heart conditions should not take ketamine, it is generally safe when a trained professional administers it in clinical settings. Some studies suggest the drug may have other medical uses, but more research is necessary to prove its safety and effectiveness in these areas. I don’t know the degree to which esketamine is currently under serious clinical investigation for some of these other psychiatric indications. It would stand to reason that the manufacturer would have an enormous incentive to identify and get FDA approval for other indications.

At his clinic, Stewart sees patients who have been diagnosed by other health care providers with a treatable condition. “Treatment protocols are based on the patient’s specific diagnosis and research,” Stewart says. You can also look for ketamine therapy on your own, but you’ll want to be extra cautious if you go this route.

Possible Benefits of Ketamine Therapy

Being “under” in ketamine is being in a wake state but resting, says Uribe. This is a dissociative state where you feel detachment from your body and your environment, per a study published in Anesthesiology in November 2020. “You’re not paralyzed, but you feel a weight over you that makes it difficult to move around and speak,” says Uribe. If you are getting an infusion, the clinician can shut off the infusion at any time if you are uncomfortable, which will bring you back to consciousness. Ketamine is also being studied for other mental health issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and in those What to Do if You Relapse with a history of psychosis.

A 2016 study cautions that the inappropriate use of ketamine is a worldwide health problem due to its hallucinogenic properties. With this in mind, they urge doctors to prescribe standard antidepressants before trying ketamine for depression. Ketamine is an NMDA receptor antagonist, meaning it blocks the N-methyl-D-aspartate neurotransmitter in the brain. It was developed in the 1960s and used as a battlefield anesthetic in the Vietnam War, as well as clinically in health care settings.

What Is Treatment-Resistant Depression?

Ketamine shows promise in the treatment of a variety of mental health conditions, including depression and other mood disorders. It may be particularly effective when used to help people with treatment-resistant depression. Like all treatments, you should talk to your doctor to determine if this option is right for you. Getting a prescription from your healthcare provider or a mental health professional can help ensure that the drug is safe based on your health status and condition. A prescription version of ketamine called esketamine (Spravato), given through a nasal spray, was approved in 2019 by the FDA for hard-to-treat depression. One concern is that there are a lack of established standards governing ketamine treatments, though there are more offerings through companies like Fluence to provide continuing education programs for licensed clinicians.

Given how common TRD may be, limitations in medication options — typically a crucial component of depression treatment plans — are a significant roadblock. Though they’re far from perfect treatments, ketamine and esketamine mark a breakthrough for treatment-resistant depression. Other drugs may affect ketamine, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal products. Anesthesia may still be necessary for a life-threatening condition, medical emergency, or surgery to correct a birth defect. Your doctor can inform you about all medicines given during a surgery or procedure.

1. But the drug’s potential as a treatment for depression and suicidal thoughts has drawn researchers’ attention.
2. Partiers inject it, put it in drinks, snort it, or add it to joints or cigarettes.
3. Individuals who take ketamine recreationally report sensations, such as being separated from their body or a pleasant feeling of floating.
4. “We think that the number of synapses goes down because severe stress triggers reactions in the brain that eliminate these synaptic connections,” Krystal says.

Usual Adult Ketamine Dose for Anesthesia:

Ketamine delivered in low doses can provide rapid relief of TRD lasting for days to weeks. Usually, it’s given in decreasing frequency over several weeks, starting with two doses a week for 2 to 3 weeks, then once weekly, then once monthly and then hopefully tapering off. Response rates as high as 70% have been observed in clinical trials involving regular infusions. Aside from its medical use as an anesthetic, ketamine is prescribed by some healthcare providers as an alternative treatment for severe depression. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved ketamine as a treatment for any psychiatric disorder. The only FDA-approved option is Spravato, a nasal spray made from a derivative of ketamine, which is used for treatment-resistant depression in adults.

Because several other trials indicate ketamine may have significant antianxiety effects, the authors encouraged future studies to explore this possible benefit more fully. The 2017 clinical trial tested the drug on 18 participants and concluded that it might effectively treat SAD. Despite these positive results, the authors warn that data on the use of ketamine for this condition are limited, so practitioners should consider the risks of the drug before prescribing it. Research in 2017 notes that some studies indicate ketamine can quickly relieve depression in people who do not respond well to other treatment. Ketamin can sedate, incapacitate, and cause short-term memory loss, and because of this, some people use it as a date-rape drug. Ketamine is a medication that doctors use as an anesthetic to induce loss of consciousness.