Ketamine and Depression

The American Spectator ^ | 8/15/2006 | Michael Fumento

[neverdem]

Author William Styron called it "Darkness Visible." Another writer labeled it "The Noonday Demon." Successful and beloved people such as William Holden and Ernest Hemingway were never able to shake off the beast called clinical depression. Depression saps the life from you, so thoroughly destroying hope and happiness that you can't even imagine why somebody else might smile or laugh. It wrecks dreams figuratively and literally in that it's often linked with persistent, severe insomnia. It afflicts almost a tenth the adult population each year, is the leading cause of disability for ages 15-44, and frequently involves suicidal fantasies. Sometimes it doesn't stop at fantasizing. Two weeks ago depression claimed my brother-in-law. The good news is that most depressives can be treated with drugs, talk therapy, electroconvulsive treatment, or a combination thereof. Newer drugs tend to have fewer side affects than earlier-generation ones, but all antidepressants provide agonizingly slow results -- usually requiring at least 4-6 weeks. Further, the first drug prescribed probably won't do the trick and there's no way to know which will be best for each patient. That's why despite the plethora of anti-depressant medicines, none can rightly be called a "me too" drug. This is what's so exciting about a treatment conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). It's an injection, not a pill (no, that's not the exciting part), of a substance called ketamine. Since 1970, ketamine has been used as a general anesthetic for both humans and animals. Given in doses too low to cause anesthesia, it relieved depression in as little as two hours. The study, appearing in the August Archives of General Psychiatry, comprised 17 depressed patients randomly assigned to receive...

[msnimje]

Isn't Ketamine a disassociative drug? Is it that it really cures depression or is it that you no longer care that you are depressed?

A major complaint with most anti-depressives is that they cause the patient to be emotionally numb.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

I would comment, but what's the use?

[Jaysun]

Interesting. They need to do a much broader study, 17 people won't cut it. But it's interesting and sounds promising.

[cll]

Omega 3 fish oil, modulated breathing technique and excercise will get almost anyone farther than meds.

(I'm no doctor but have seen the above work)

[martin_fierro]

That was depressingly funny.

[Jaysun]

I would comment, but what's the use?

Indeed. Take it from me friend, save your strength. I'm so exhausted that I can't even lift two cyanide pills to my mouth, much less a revolver.

[verity]

So you stayed at a Holiday Inn Express?

[kinoxi]

:(

[tallhappy]

Yeah. Ketamine is a serious dissociative anesthetic related to PCP (aka Angel Dust). Ketamine is shorter lasting.

Ketamine does have neuroprotective effects, though.

[xpertskir]

Ketamine is also known as "special k" and is revered for its ability to completely $#%& you up. It is commonly used for sedation of animals by veterinarians. It is often stolen from vets in liquid form, cooked down into a white powder, and is either smoked, snorted or turned back into liquid and injected. I am not sure what doses this guys is talking about, but anyone I ever knew that used this stuff was a "tweaker."

[IronJack]

Bummer.

[vimto]

I wrote an posted some descriptions of my depressive episode. I wrote this this because some FReepers seemed to believe depression doesn't exist or isn't that much of problem. Incidentally I am a qualified psychiatric nurse. I still had no idea of just where depression can take a man.

"Sleep brought a relief from the unremitting tiredness but introduced disturbing dreams. Foul and sickening, the dreams seemed to inhabit me. Sometimes I would awake screaming. They were so intense and crisp and colourful in their clarity. The images inside them were bleak and debasing and degrading. The horrors that life can and does reserve for the unfortunate few were aggregated together for me to gaze upon in seemingly unrelated but disturbing sequences. It was as if I was looking into the recesses of my own black heart and inspecting it’s cadaver and viewing the possible causes of it’s death. As within Mervyn Peake’s Gorhmengast Castle I discovered metaphorical rooms and corridors within me that had been sealed up for years and subsequently forgotten. Entering each one I was witness to degrading occult scenes of pornographic macabre savagery. This nighttime litany of torture and death was preferable to being awake and knowingly alive."

[trisham]

I would comment, but what's the use?

Indeed. Take it from me friend, save your strength.

I'm so exhausted that I can't even lift two cyanide pills to my mouth, much less a revolver

***************

LOL! All right you two, cut it out. This is a serious subject. :)

[Buck W.]

LOL. My cure for depression: get over it.

[najida]

Sounds soooo familiar. It's like the world is grey, sounds are muted and everything either hurts too much or you feel nothing. It's like the volume control on feelings has been snapped off...

And yeah, why is it that those with clinical depression always are related to a moron who says 'well, why don't you just think happy thoughts?'

Sure! I'll do the same for my broken leg too!

[vae_victus]

you disgust me sir for your insensitive sarcasm.
/snarcasm
Why is it people are so much quicker at these witty ripastes than I am?
Let me see... Special K? or X? The kids have been telling me how great they work.
Never mind, the FDA won't let us use anything that helps.
Now I'm depressed even more.

[vae_victus]

sorry my response was to Jaysun
I would comment, but what's the use?

[vimto]

clinical depression should not be underestimated,

I have used C.B.T. to some good effect.

[Onelifetogive]

It's like the world is grey, sounds are muted and everything either hurts too much or you feel nothing.

Would you stop it....now I'M feeling down.....