Ketamine: A Club Drug Cure For Chronic Depression, Is It Safe And Effective? Find Out Here

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People who have treatment-resistant depression often choose other alternative medications. Ketamine, a widely known club drug is highly gaining attention as a potential cure for this condition.

Not all people suffering from major depression disorders respond with anti-depressant treatment. Therefore, they undergo different kinds of medication increasing their risk of drug abuse and undesired side effects. An estimated 10 to 30 percent of the patients have treatment-resistant depression.

According to Healthline, the anesthetic ketamine was previously regarded with doubt. But people continue believing that this injectable drug could treat complicated depression that doesn’t anymore respond to medications.

About 345 patients with treatment-resistant depression were treated with ketamine, Dr. Theodore Henderson, Ph.D., medical director of Neuro-Luminance Ketamine Infusion Centers in Denver said. Out of that, 80 percent of them showed a good feedback from the treatment.

Ketamine should be constantly observed as an effective alternative medicine for depression. “To not use ketamine when it is available, I think is ethically and morally repugnant because we’re saving lives,” he told the news outlet.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is one among organizations that warned about the possible addiction to ketamine. Nevertheless, many groups are open for such a case, yet safety is still their main concern. The APA Task Force on Novel Biomarkers and Treatments alongside a sub-group are setting up a treatment advisory for the present-day use of the drug.

Furthermore, the National Institute of Mental Health is funding a current clinical trial to prove the safety and effectiveness of ketamine for major depression. The testing, which includes 324 participants, is set for completion this April, Clinical Trials reported.

In a clinical setting, ketamine is also utilized as a recreational drug or an anesthesia. It will reduce pain, and a person feels sleepy and could perhaps hallucinate. This drug is used in curative practice since 1970 and was considered as a controlled substance in 1999. For nonmedical purposes, people termed it as “Special K."