Why Ketamine Therapy Is Becoming Mainstream
Ketamine is part of a group of drugs called arylcyclohexylamines. These drugs are powerful dissociatives and are popular in the party scene, although they were initially developed for medical and veterinary anesthesia.
This article looks at the many reasons that ketamine is starting to appeal to doctors, therapists, and pharmacists around the globe. It seems to be effective at treating a number of human maladies.
Ketamine, Psychedelic Medicine & the Law
Even though psychedelic drugs are not yet legal in most countries (aside from Portugal, which continues to lead by example regarding the efficacy of decriminalization) international organizations are dedicated to the study of these substances and their medicinal value. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of studies show that psychedelics – are very useful for helping people overcome mental health disorders.
These substances have been wildly popular ever since the 1960s. Everybody knows what they are and most people, whether or not they’ve actually used them, are familiar with their effects.
Many people first learn of ketamine when it is discussed alongside drugs like LSD and mushrooms. Although this may lead people to believe that ketamine is a traditional psychedelic, it’s not. Its effects are nothing like those of tryptamines such as LSD or mushrooms.
That said, ketamine is one of the few drugs that are already legal for therapeutic use. The DEA approved it as an anesthetic during the 1970s. It was also used during the Vietnam War to help injured soldiers. In fact, despite its reputation as an animal tranquilizer, ketamine has been used for the most part to treat human beings in hospital settings.
Who Is Advocating for Ketamine Therapy?
Groups like the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) spearheads a lot of the research and conversation surrounding new forms of drug-assisted therapy using previously-illegal drugs. Fewer groups are more qualified to talk about ketamine in the context of
Even though ketamine was approved for usage in people during the 1970s by the FDA, it remains under the shadow of its stigma as a cat tranquilizer. Enthusiasts and advocates try to uproot this stigma by affectionately referring to ketamine as “kitty.”
Although it is, indeed, primarily a veterinary medicine, its usage extends just fine to human beings. Despite the drug’s nickname, all manner of creatures can receive the benefits of the drug. It can help a horse as much as a cat, and perhaps help a human even more.
What Does Ketamine Feel Like?
Well, first and foremost, ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic. Dissociatives sever the mind-body connection, creating a serious change in perspective and perception. Anesthetics numb the body from physical sensation. Thus, the purpose of ketamine is basically to prevent the person from feeling at all!
One way to grasp the sort of mind state that ketamine puts you in can be done by visualizing an image. Imagine a hexagon; a six-sided polygon.
This image represents your mind. During everyday waking consciousness, imagine that a line connects every angle and vertice with every other angle and vertice in the image. This creates a spider web of connections, with lines overlapping lines in every which way. From a distance, they form a distinct image of the hexagon that could be viewed from much further away.
As your dosage increases, the lines begin to fragment and disappear, representing the (temporary) loss of connection between neurons. Eventually you are left with a bunch of isolated dots, each representing a different segment of your mind that is usually connected to all the others.
Methods & Dosage
It’s important to note that the method of ketamine usage seems to impact its ability to prevent depression. The way in which a drug is administered can have a profound effect on the way that it influences people. Compare, for example, a dose of smoked cannabis compared to the effects of eating a cannabis brownie. There is a world of difference here.
Snorting ketamine, such as is the most popular choice among party-goers, seems to be the least effective. Oral consumption is much less potent and requires a higher dosage, however, doctors often prescribe oral ketamine lozenges to help people manage depression in between intravenous injections.
Intravenous medication is generally the most effective way to consume any sort of drug. This allows for the administration of drugs directly to the bloodstream, losing none of their potency through excess heat, malabsorption, vapor loss, or any other issue. Most of the studies that have been done on ketamine also focused on intravenous injections.
It also doesn’t mean that you should go out and try to inject ketamine on your own unless you’re already familiar with using needles.
Just because injections are more potent doesn’t explain why they’re more effective at treating depression. One of the reasons that ketamine is so difficult to understand is because of its complex interaction with the brain and the body. Ketamine is referred to in the medical community as a dirty drug. Dirty drugs differ from clean drugs in the sense that they target a number of different neurochemical systems in the body as opposed to clean drugs which target a single one.
On top of that, ketamine produces antidepressant effects in a way that is much different than any conventional antidepressant. This means that we don’t really have a framework that shows us where to start looking. So, we are left with a complicated drug that snakes its tendrils into a myriad of chemical systems without a map to guide us towards the ones responsible for its effects.
Some researchers speculate that its antidepressant effects are the result of its impact on the glutamate system. As of yet, no approved antidepressants have been developed specifically to target the glutamate system. That makes this discovery both extremely exciting and somewhat concerning.
It’s exciting because we might have an entirely new system by which we can develop antidepressants. If you look at the data, you’ll see that the antidepressants that we’re using right now aren’t really doing the best job. Of course, this is mostly because people expect their antidepressants to solve their depression completely and don’t bother to put in the actual work necessary to overcome depression – therapy, lifestyle changes, a healthy diet, that sort of thing.
Ketamine, however, seems to work in a manner that is a step ahead of conventional antidepressants. Not only does it seem to tackle many of the cognitive effects of depression, it seems to motivate people to actually make positive changes in their life. This may be partly why ketamine produces results that are so long-lasting. Because it’s not just the drug. It’s the changes that you make when taking advantage of the temporary relief provided by the drug.
Ketamine and Neurogenesis
Another reason that ketamine is such an impressive candidate for psychiatric medicine is due to its ability to promote neurogenesis. Neurogenesis is a term used to describe the growth of new brain cells and new pathways and connections between the synapses of new brain cells.
If you imagine your brain as a spider web, neurogenesis could be seen as filling in all the gaps where bits of thread might have been missing from the web. By strengthening the web and filling in areas that have been lacking, the spider becomes able to traverse the whole web more easily. This is strangely the opposite effect as that of the hexagon image which we described earlier.
Likewise, if we strengthen and fill in our web of neurons, ketamine makes it easier for our conscious mind – like the spider – to access different parts of our brain. This not only means that we can recall different information more easily, but also that we’re able to maintain better control of our executive functions. This can help to reduce the symptoms of depression and anxiety and can help us make better use of the coping mechanisms that one will learn during a treatment program.
According to Harvard-trained anesthesiologist Glenn Brooks, this is a fantastic development. He says that this provides a unique, non-therapeutic approach for helping people overcome the actual biological changes that are responsible for depression.
Ketamine treatment sessions don’t actually involve therapy in the traditional sense. Instead, the purpose is to grow new neurons and dendrites. “What patients talk about or think about during the session doesn’t really seem to matter,” Brooks says, which makes ketamine treatment seem like a delicious ice cream sundae compared to the cold gruel of traditional talk therapy.
To Wrap It Up
Ketamine is a great medicinal substance. Partygoers may not be using it the best way for providing medicinal benefits, but when used in a medical setting, ketamine can help people overcome depression, anxiety, and even addictions.
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