Why not Ketamine?

[Mudhole]

Are any CFS/ME doctors offering Ketamine treatment for their patients? This drug has some remarkable qualities that would seen to make it a likely treatment for our condition.

'Science' August 20, 2010
Ketamine effects synaptogenesis - in other words, it heals fried brains, and reverses the effects of stress on the brain.

'Journal of Neuroscience' October 3 2012
Ketamine reverses abnornal brain function in mice.

'Science' October 5, 2012
Yale researchers call Ketamine "Magic Drug" and "The biggest breakthrough in half a century" in the treatment of severely depressed and suicidal people.

'The Scientist' December 16 2012
Ketamine encourages nerve remodeling.

'JAMA Psychology' April 16 2014
Ketamine rapidly effective in PTSD.

Are not many persons with CFS/ME depressed, some to the point of suicide? Do not these people deserve the best treatment available?
Does not CFS/ME resemble PTSD in at least some respects? If a simple, cheap and effective treatment works for one group, why not at least try it on a few of us?

 

[Sushi]

@Mudhole

There are several threads here on Ketamine. Check the google site search under Resources.

Here is one of them.

Sushi

 

[minkeygirl]

Are not many persons with CFS/ME depressed, some to the point of suicide? Do not these people deserve the best treatment available?
Does not CFS/ME resemble PTSD in at least some respects? If a simple, cheap and effective treatment works for one group, why not at least try it on a few of us?

Silly girl. There are threads all over her about people not getting the care they need because docs don't believe us. Australia just said treating Lyme's is illegal. Or we all belong in a psychiatric hospital. The lists goes on and on.

 

[searcher]

I don't know of any doctors who are using ketamine for CFS right now other than in pain creams, but maybe some doctors are using it under the radar. Dr Goldstein had some good luck with it. The main issue is that we have so little money for research and basically zero dollars for non psychologically-based treatment studies.

I think ketamine is a really promising treatment, especially for neurogenesis. In the US (and potentially other countries) it's probably easiest to get access to ketamine as part of a research study for a comorbid condition like major depression. You can see a list of open clinical trials at http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=ketamine&recr=Open

 

[Martial]

Isn't ketamine a horse tranquilizer? I had no idea it had all these kinds of functions unless I am thinking of something else lol... Interesting though.

 

[Martial]

Ohh guess it is the drug I was thinking of, apparently also useful for severe depression

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journali...er-Ketamine-could-cure-severe-depression.html

 

[Mudhole]

Silly girl. There are threads all over her about people not getting the care they need because docs don't believe us. Australia just said treating Lyme's is illegal. Or we all belong in a psychiatric hospital. The lists goes on and on.

Come on, Kitty Cat- think positive! I know you have been suffering for a long time but I can't help thinking- help is on the way. We have been cast into the darkness, but not forever!

 

[Mudhole]

The advantages of Ketamine as a treatment for CFS/ME

1 It's cheap. No $8,000 for a bottle of Valcyte.

2 It works right away. Hours, not months.

3 It's safe and non toxic. This stuff has been around for decades as an anesthetic and is very safe when administered SLOWLY in a clinical setting. Doses for depression and PTSD are much lower than the anesthetic doses. Ketamine abuse is common among Hipsters, but even weeks-long binges on some garbage 'Special K' made in a basement in Guandong seems to do remarkably little permanent harm.

4 It's very widely available, and can be administered in an outpatient setting. If periodic 'booster' doses are required,
I see no reason why patients could not self inject IM.

All these advantages I have outlined are advantages for the patient only, of course. They are disincentives to the medical industry, because there is no profit in a treatment like this. Does it work? only one way to find out- ask your doctor to let you try it.

 

[minkeygirl]

@Mudhole. I'm a realist. I have found over the years that being angry and wondering why serves no purpose for me.

What has helped me the most is acceptance. Fight what battles I can (going through hell right now with my insurance company) and do what I can to help myself since no one else is.

I'm not holding out hope that there will be something significant to help me in my lifetime. It's easier for me that way.

 

[xrayspex]

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dxm/dxm_health1.shtml

here says it can fry yr brain

 

[peggy-sue]

I am far too terrified of the hallucinatory effects of this drug to ever consider it.

Doesn't it work for depression and addiction in the same sort of way as Ayahuasca? It's the "insights" you get while on the trip that have the "curative" effects?

That's not something I would ever want to experience.

 

[Fogbuster]

Interesting thread. That is all.

 

[Mudhole]

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dxm/dxm_health1.shtml

here says it can fry yr brain

That piece was written back in the Stone Age [1998] . Cliff Anderson rebutted ' Walter White' point by point in 2003 and 'White' formally withdrew his conclusions in 2004. Modern clinical research shows the opposite- Ketamine actually heals the brain.

 

[peggy-sue]

You keep saying it heals the brain - but HOW?

Does it mend it in a physical manner?

- or is it the insights of the hallucinations - the "trip" that takes the patient through their past imaginings and thoughts and feelings and lets them see them in a different light?

 

[Mudhole]

I am far too terrified of the hallucinatory effects of this drug to ever consider it.

Doesn't it work for depression and addiction in the same sort of way as Ayahuasca? It's the "insights" you get while on the trip that have the "curative" effects?

That's not something I would ever want to experience.

The therapeutic doses given for depression and PTSD are fairly low - .5mg/kg. This is only around 1/4th of the anesthetic dose. Recreational users often take much, much more. Also, it is administered by slow infusion, so if you don't like the flight, inform Nurse Handy and she'll shut off the drip and make soothing noises until you go wheels down- probably less than an hour.

 

[Mudhole]

You keep saying it heals the brain - but HOW?

Does it mend it in a physical manner?

- or is it the insights of the hallucinations - the "trip" that takes the patient through their past imaginings and thoughts and feelings and lets them see them in a different light?

Yes, Ketamine physically heals the brain. It repairs the damage caused by stress. Read the article on Ketamine and synaptogenesis in the August 20 2010 issue of 'Science'. Sorry, I can't post a link- I'm a computard- maybe I've got brain damage!

 

[peggy-sue]

So, if somebody didn't want to experience the trippy bit, could they be given it under anaesthetic and it would still work?

But now you're talking nasty stuff - infusions - that means needles containing unknown substances in the hands of folk who can make mistakes and don't care about me enough to quadruple check. No way!
And an anaesthetic would mean similarly dodgy needles in the mitts of strangers too.

 

[peggy-sue]

I can only access the abstract.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5994/959.abstract

 

[searcher]

Since the dosage is so much lower than what recreational users take, it shouldn't be very trippy. The healing is not from new insights (unless the research is wrong.) http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...ressive-disorder-is-it-better-with-special-k/ talks a little about how it appears to work. Although much of the research is about major depression, the findings should also apply to ME/CFS since we also appear to have problems with glutamate.

 

[peggy-sue]

I'm having a bit of trouble with their models of depression.
There was a seminal study carried out by von Holst in '86, studying the effects of social stress in tree shrews which identified 3 phenotypical responses to uncontrolled social stress. (having another shrew in the cage next to them - they're normally solitary)

Thriving - called Dominant

Coping (but with mild ongoing stress and behavioural avoidance of the stranger) called the Sub-dominant

Collapsing into total helplessness and dying - these poor shrews didn't even make it to the end of the study, called the Submissives.

I would have been much happier about the study if that had been taken into consideration.