Wonder Drug?
Health Rising has done several reports on how surprisingly effective Ketamine can be with pain and depression. The drug has a couple of strikes against it for sure; it's an anesthesia drug which can produce hallucinations (!) in high doses and has been used as a date rape drug to boot.
[fright]
[/fright] Ketamine has also, though, been successful in the difficult to treat chronic regional pain syndrome (CRPS). It achieved remission in about half the patients in a small CRPS trial. It works so quickly in depression that it may become the first anti-suicide drug. For some people who had about reached the end of their rope ketamine has proved to be a life-saver.
Pain
Stephanie had severe degenerative disc disease, fibromyalgia, ME/CFS and depression. As a young woman she had the spine of an 80 year old. She had undergone multiple surgeries and had tried almost everything without success yet ketamine infusions sent her from an 8/9 on the pain scale to a 2/3.
Recently Fibromyalgia News Today reported on another woman who was bedridden with severe fibromyalgia who's pain virtually disappeared while using ketamine.
In April, Dr. Ginerva Liptan, author and FM patient, touted ketamine's effects on The National Pain Report. Liptan first found out about ketamine when several of her patients experienced significant pain relief for weeks after undergoing surgery. When she looked further she found they had all received ketamine IV's.
She suggested that ketamine maybe causing the "massively overstimulated" NMDA receptors in FM to "cool down" or reset for weeks at a time.
Depression..plus
Ketamine can also be very effective at treating depression. The really intriguing thing about the ketamine depression studies thus far is that they tend to focus on the most difficult patients of all; people with treatment-resistant depression.
Thomas Insell, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) at the NIH felt ketamine might be the biggest breakthrough in depression ever:
[fright]
[/fright]A nasal ketamine spray for depression, became, in fact, the first drug outside of cancer or an epidemic to be awarded a "breakthrough therapy" designation by the FDA. One case study referred to a man who's inconsolable grief was rapidly ameliorated by ketamine. The young man was so grief-stricken by the death of his wife that he was referred to the hospital. He had refused food, spoke in a tiny voice and broke out in crying spells. The doctors described him as having catatonic symptoms.
Upon receiving ketamine the patient briefly hallucinated (!) but after that began to communicate, was cheerful and started taking food orally. Three months later he was continuing to do well.
Dozens of studies are currently exploring ketamine's effectiveness in depression. Just this week a study found that ketamine rapidly improved fatigue in depression as well.
(Several academic centers (Yale University, University of California at San Diego, the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic) are now offering ketamine for severe depression.).
Other studies are exploring ketamine's use in neuropathic pain, autism, post-cancer pain, migraine and others. One interesting study is determining whether ketamine IV's can reduce cancer fatigue.
Anti-inflammatory
Neither fibromyalgia nor ME/CFS, of course, is depression but antidepressants are not simply antidepressants anymore; they're also pain drugs or even microglial inhibitors. Similarly depression is not simply "depression" anymore. Immune activation or inflammation probably contributes to or even causes about thirty percent of the depression found.
The fact that people using interferon who suffer from similar symptoms and brain abnormalities as ME/CFS patients suggests that the depression found in ME/CFS could very well result from immune activation.
Ketamine, it turns out, also appears to be an anti-inflammatory. It was recently found to reduce the levels of inflammation following hypoxia (low oxygen levels) - a condition of great interest in ME/CFS and FM. Could ketamine relieve the inflammation associated with low oxygen levels (and the fatigue, pain and mood issues) in ME/CFS and/or FM?
The point is that fatigue, pain and depression can probably be produced in many ways and any drug that powerfully affects pain or depression in another disease might be able to affect fatigue as well. We can't judge a drug by its name anymore.
The Future
Ketamine is not easy to find, is expensive and is not covered by insurance if you have FM or ME/CFS but it is becoming more available. One Portland provider charges $3,800 for six infusions over twelve days. The effects last anywhere from two to twelve weeks.
Ketamine's possibilities for ME/CFS and FM surely lie in future drugs that do not require infusions and have few side effects. Drug manufacturers realize that the potential for a blockbuster drug is present. Thus far they've found three molecular targets to aim future ketamine-derived drugs at. At least one ketamine derivative is reportedly in clinical trials for depression now.
Time will tell but the future of this anesthesia drug/antidepressant/pain reliever/anti-inflammatory looks to be bright.
For More
Health Rising has done several reports on how surprisingly effective Ketamine can be with pain and depression. The drug has a couple of strikes against it for sure; it's an anesthesia drug which can produce hallucinations (!) in high doses and has been used as a date rape drug to boot.
[fright]
Pain
Stephanie had severe degenerative disc disease, fibromyalgia, ME/CFS and depression. As a young woman she had the spine of an 80 year old. She had undergone multiple surgeries and had tried almost everything without success yet ketamine infusions sent her from an 8/9 on the pain scale to a 2/3.
Recently Fibromyalgia News Today reported on another woman who was bedridden with severe fibromyalgia who's pain virtually disappeared while using ketamine.
In April, Dr. Ginerva Liptan, author and FM patient, touted ketamine's effects on The National Pain Report. Liptan first found out about ketamine when several of her patients experienced significant pain relief for weeks after undergoing surgery. When she looked further she found they had all received ketamine IV's.
She suggested that ketamine maybe causing the "massively overstimulated" NMDA receptors in FM to "cool down" or reset for weeks at a time.
Depression..plus
Ketamine can also be very effective at treating depression. The really intriguing thing about the ketamine depression studies thus far is that they tend to focus on the most difficult patients of all; people with treatment-resistant depression.
Thomas Insell, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) at the NIH felt ketamine might be the biggest breakthrough in depression ever:
[fright]
Upon receiving ketamine the patient briefly hallucinated (!) but after that began to communicate, was cheerful and started taking food orally. Three months later he was continuing to do well.
Dozens of studies are currently exploring ketamine's effectiveness in depression. Just this week a study found that ketamine rapidly improved fatigue in depression as well.
(Several academic centers (Yale University, University of California at San Diego, the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic) are now offering ketamine for severe depression.).
Other studies are exploring ketamine's use in neuropathic pain, autism, post-cancer pain, migraine and others. One interesting study is determining whether ketamine IV's can reduce cancer fatigue.
Anti-inflammatory
Neither fibromyalgia nor ME/CFS, of course, is depression but antidepressants are not simply antidepressants anymore; they're also pain drugs or even microglial inhibitors. Similarly depression is not simply "depression" anymore. Immune activation or inflammation probably contributes to or even causes about thirty percent of the depression found.
The fact that people using interferon who suffer from similar symptoms and brain abnormalities as ME/CFS patients suggests that the depression found in ME/CFS could very well result from immune activation.
Ketamine, it turns out, also appears to be an anti-inflammatory. It was recently found to reduce the levels of inflammation following hypoxia (low oxygen levels) - a condition of great interest in ME/CFS and FM. Could ketamine relieve the inflammation associated with low oxygen levels (and the fatigue, pain and mood issues) in ME/CFS and/or FM?
The point is that fatigue, pain and depression can probably be produced in many ways and any drug that powerfully affects pain or depression in another disease might be able to affect fatigue as well. We can't judge a drug by its name anymore.
The Future
Ketamine is not easy to find, is expensive and is not covered by insurance if you have FM or ME/CFS but it is becoming more available. One Portland provider charges $3,800 for six infusions over twelve days. The effects last anywhere from two to twelve weeks.
Ketamine's possibilities for ME/CFS and FM surely lie in future drugs that do not require infusions and have few side effects. Drug manufacturers realize that the potential for a blockbuster drug is present. Thus far they've found three molecular targets to aim future ketamine-derived drugs at. At least one ketamine derivative is reportedly in clinical trials for depression now.
Time will tell but the future of this anesthesia drug/antidepressant/pain reliever/anti-inflammatory looks to be bright.
For More
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![ME/CFS lecture | Dr Nancy Klimas | 2011 [Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / SEID / New Zealand] - YouTube](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
