Club drug ketamine cures depression instantly: How?

A vial of ketamine

/ AP

(CBS) What's the latest recreational drug to make its way to the medical field? Ketamine, also known as "Special K." The club drug, typically used by veterinarians as a cat tranquilizer, is said to provide patients an "instant" relief from depression, according to a new study.

Doctors at Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston are now experimentally using the drug to treat some patients who come to the emergency room with suicidal depression, NPR reported.

Is there an antidepressant shortage we don't know about?

Dr. Anu Matorin, medical director of the Psychiatric Emergency Center at the hospital, told NPR that antidepressants may help suicidal patients eventually, but often take weeks or months to kick in. During the critical few days when very depressed patients have suicidal thoughts, they may be a threat to themselves or to others and are sometimes admitted to inpatient units.

That's why researchers at Ben Taub are among a growing number of scientists trying to transform psychiatric care - with the help of the club drug. Previous research suggests the anesthetic ketamine could help treat depression almost instantly. Dr. Sanjay Matthew, associate professor of psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine leads the ketamine research program at Ben Taub General Hospital.

"The focus is on really rapidly helping someone get out of a depressive episode," Matthew told NPR.

"We can take care of a migraine in hours," added Dr. Carlos Zarate, a ketamine researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health. "So why do we have to wait weeks or months with depression?"

This isn't the first report of ketamine helping people with depression. A 2006 study of Zarate's found a single intravenous dose of ketamine helped relieve treatment-resistant depression symptoms within 2 hours.

How does ketamine help depressed patients?

Those who take the drug typically say, "'I feel that something's lifted or feel that I've never been depressed in my life. I feel I can work. I feel I can contribute to society.'" Zarate told NPR. "And it was a different experience from feeling high. This was feeling that something has been removed."

Ketamine works differently than other antidepressants. While pills like Prozac boost the levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin to make people feel less depressed over a period of time, an injection of ketamine works on an entirely different neurotransmitter, glutamate. It blocks the receptors critical for receiving glutamate's signals which quickly improves the brain cell's electrical flow. That in turn reduces depression, according to the NIMH.

Dr. Asim Shah, who directs the mood disorder program at Ben Taub General Hospital, told ABC News the researchers hope the effect lasts.

"Will it cure depression for a year or longer? I don't think so," Shah said. "But we're hoping it will work for a few months"

But that doesn't mean people should self-medicate with the illegal drug. Ketamine is popular and "dance clubs and raves," and can be injected, consumed in drinks, or added to smokeable materials, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Some users fall into a dissociative "trip" on the drug, which is called a "K-hole."

Dr. Robert Glatter, emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said the drug has similar effects to PCP, and may cause visual hallucinations, vivid dreams, confusion and disorientation, increased salivation, and problems with heart rhythm and breathing. Besides animals, the drug is sometimes administred to people along with a sedative in the hospital for patients undergoing painful procedures.

[davknsit]

To add to this: Reality is just that: reality! How can people justify their extistence by saying they can change "reality". A drug is a drug. A depressed person is a depressed person! What makes you think you can change their feelings totally with the use of manufactured drugs? We as parents need to pay more attention to our children and not the swimming pool we are saving for, or the third world country vacation we what to visit this summer just to get "high" legally. Think about it: you are poisoning your children because you are selfish! And when you wake up one morning , watch the news, and its your baby comminting the worst, its your arse you take care of first.

[albickers]

You ask: What makes you think you can change their feelings totally with the use of manufactured drugs?

But, what makes YOU think feelings result from anything but neuro-chemistry, which most certainly can be manipulated with "manufactured drugs."

[davknsit]

Never knew that CBS was in bed with the drug lords! Not the out of town lords, the in our cities lords. You know, you must have a nieghbor that works for them. Its a shame that we as a nation cannot make enough money to have a stay at home mom and watch the children. Look at the the killings in the elemtery schools, look at the killings done by these forgieners. All because of drugs we give to our children because we saw a commercial. Feck all you up and coming yuppies!

[owlsie]

"and problems with heart rhythm and breathing" ugh, this article is so bad. Ketamine is valuable medically precisely BECAUSE it does not interfere with heart rate or breathing.

[owlsie]

"What's the latest recreational drug to make its way to the medical field?" Um. It's ALWAYS been a medical drug.

[Paul_Boner]

How to buy and sell ketamine like a pro

http://iywib.com/how_to_buy_and_sell_ketamine.php

[narkose]

The mention of ketamine in my anesthesia has always made me a lightning rod for criticism among my anesthesia colleagues but a hero to my patients.

After developing propofol ketamine (PK) anesthesia in 1992, I made PK numerically reproducible with the addition of brain monitoring of propofol.

My brain monitored PK patients have neither postoperative nausea or vomiting (PONV) without the use if anti-emetics nor postoperative pain requiring the use of narcotic pain medications like morphine or codeine.

Last, but hardly least, brain monitoring drastically reduces the possibility of either too little (awareness) or too much (delirium, dementia and daily death) medication; aka 'Goldilocks. anesthesia.

Check out youtube narkose3535 channel for recent postings with valuable anesthesia information.

"No surgery under anesthesia" is the public education message of my non-profit Goldilocks Anesthesia Foundation.

[123AustinScott]

Hard to say, but it's important to note that both drugs would be inexpensive for any psychiatric facility: neither was ever patented, and their chemical formulations are available to anyone.
for more answers you can visit this
<a href="http://www.worldpharmarx.com">WorldPharmaRx</a>

[Scotty2fly]

Check this out, http://www.facebook.com/WestCoastTMSInstitute

Lot of interesting stuff about this treatment...

[skatm]

This is wonderful. Thank goodness for researchers who 'dare' to test treatments outside the box, against public stereotypes and stigma. Having been in the hole for more than a decade straight, marginally helped only by current pills, this sounds like a lucky dream come true, if it would help me.

This depression is not what some think, about sitting by yourself being negative and hopeless. It's not some blues, although it's that also, times 5 on bad days. It's about a severe dysfunction that you have to try to function with, and fight against each day. Bad concentration, 'senile' short term memory, slow brain, difficulties to connect to the world and others etc. It's not some 'choice'. Entering the hole was like a 'trip', except it ended up where no-one wants to be. It's great that they're taking further steps with this ketamine, hopefully making it more widely available to patients.

[TheInvMan]

I have been depressed, for over fifty years. No medication has worked, I've had ECT twice and it ruined my life. I now have memory and cognitive ability problems that exist even 2 1/2 years after treatment. I some much want to be free of depression and instead I'm going in the wrong direction. I isolate and don't go out of my house for days. Yet, the doctors that I see, continue to prescribe medication that doesn't work or treatments that caused me to lose a job of 17 years. I hope, in this area where medical care is supposed to be of the highest quality (Massachusetts), that I can find a physican that will experiment, with outside the box approaches to help me!