Ketamine is a drug that has long been used in medicine, but is increasingly being treated as a drug by teenagers. In Western Europe, ketamine is currently the most popular club drug. Probably because it stimulates and causes hallucinations - just like ecstasy, which is so much cheaper. Unfortunately, many are not aware of the harmfulness of this drug and the possibility of becoming addicted to it, both mentally and physically.

Ketamineis a powerful and fast-actinganestheticgenerally derived from phencyclidine - a substance belonging to the group of psychodysleptic agents, also known ashallucinogens . Ketamine is used in human and veterinary medicine as a pre-operative anesthetic drug. In addition, it has an analgesic effect. It is also used in the treatment of mental diseases - severe forms of bipolar or unipolar disorder. It is also used to treat alcohol and heroin addiction as it alleviates withdrawal symptoms. It may soon become an antidepressant drug, as research by British scientists from the Oxford He alth NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Oxford shows that ketamine alleviates symptoms of depression, even in those resistant to treatment.

Ketamine as an anesthetic. Indications for the use of ketamine

Ketamine is used as an anesthetic. In the 1960s, it was proposed to be called a "dissociative anesthetic" to describe the properties of ketamine that disconnect the mind from the body, as opposed to traditional anesthetic agents that completely disable consciousness. Ketamine "turns off" conscious experience without affecting the respiratory and circulatory systems .²

There is some evidence that ketamine may prevent the neurotoxic mechanisms triggered by stroke, head injury and seizures .²

Currently, ketamine can be used:

  • as a single anesthetic for short diagnostic and surgical procedures not requiring skeletal muscle relaxation
  • as induction of general anesthesia before using other anesthetics.
  • simultaneous with other anesthetic drugs

Special types of use or types of treatments:

  • surgical debridement, painful dressings, skin grafts for burn patients, and other surgery involving the integument
  • some neurological, radiodiagnostic and therapeutic procedures in children, requiring immobilization
  • if it is difficult to control the airway patency

Read also: AMPHETAMINE: how does the drug work? Is your child taking the amp?

Ketamine as a potential depression and pain reliever

In the 1970s and 1980s, ketamine was used and evaluated as a drug used in conjunction with psychotherapy in patients with depressive, anxiety and psychosomatic disorders. Case reports confirmed its effect on reducing the severity of symptoms.

Ketamine has emerged as the first drug to provide acute antidepressant effects in major depressive disorder (MDD) patients, as confirmed in randomized, placebo-controlled trials .² Modern studies also confirm these properties of ketamine. According to researchers at the University of Hertfordshire, ketamine can help people suffering from depression, who are suicidal and for whom other treatments have failed. The researchers analyzed 21 studies published so far on the effects of ketamine on people diagnosed with depression. They show that the symptoms of depression were significantly alleviated within four hours of the administration of a single dose of the substance. Despite the positive results, researchers emphasize that before ketamine is classified as an antidepressant, it is necessary to verify its long-term effect. It can cause side effects such as an increase in blood and intracranial pressure and damage to the urinary system, and can also be addictive.

Current research on the use of ketamine strongly supports its role in the treatment of drug-resistant pain syndromes, e.g. regional pain syndrome, as well as pain crises in chronic pain syndromes, e.g. in the course of advanced neoplastic diseases .² In several centers in the United States Active further research on this effect of ketamine has begun in the United States.

Ketamine May Help Treat Alcoholism

Ketamine can also help cure alcoholism - this is the conclusion of British scientists from Exter University. A pilot study found that three doses of ketamine combined with psychotherapy reduced the rate of return to drinking over 12 months from an average of 76%. up to 34 percent Properties are believed to beThe antidepressant ketamines may also have contributed to this decline.

Scientists are currently working on the Ketamine for reduction of Alcoholic Relapse (KARE) project [ketamine used to reduce the risk of relapse into alcoholism]. This is a clinical trial using psychological therapy and low doses of ketamine as a possible treatment for alcoholism .³

Read also: 5-IT - a lethal drug similar to amphetamines

Ketamine as a drug

Ketamine is a psychoactive substance that gained popularity as a drug in the 1990s because it was cheap. At that time, it was easy to get in clubs, including Polish ones, hence the name "club drug", "recreational drug". For some time, due to its low price and availability, it has again enjoyed growing popularity among young people. In Western Europe, ketamine is currently the most popular club drug.

Ketamine is a colorless and odorless substance that dissolves easily in water and alcohol and causes retrograde amnesia. For this reason, it is sometimes (usually for criminal purposes) used as a consciousness-inducing, incapacitating substance (similar to the "rape pill").

Ketamine - how does the drug work?

As a drug, ketamine can be taken in the form of liquids, tablets, ampoules, or powdered form, usually by oral and intranasal route, less commonly by injection. Ketamine, like PCP and DXM, is adissociative psychedelic- a substance that works primarily by reducing or blocking (often in a physical sense) signals from the brain to "consciousness". Taken in a dose of 0.5 g and higher, it causes a short-term (about fifteen minutes) feeling of depersonalization, derealisation, detachment from the body. The person who took ketamine later reports that they have experienced a journey into themselves, visited other worlds and had a disturbed sense of time (its lengthening), which was accompanied by colorful visual effects (ketamine ishallucinogenic ). The onset of action occurs 5-10 minutes after administration and subsides after 1-3 hours.

The strongest effect of taking a high dose of ketamine is called K-hole. It is a condition in which there is a loss of contact with the outside world and characteristic, unpleasant experiences near death and nightmares (psychiatrists compare this condition with symptoms of severe schizophrenia). The addicted person may experience the so-called flashbacks, i.e. unexpected returns of previously experienced psychotic experiences, despite the absence of ketamine in the body.

Ketamine - howrecognize the symptoms of taking?

People who have taken ketamine show:

  • motor coordination disorders
  • speech disorder
  • double vision
  • horizontal and vertical nystagmus with pupil dilation
  • hallucinations, deliriums
  • dizziness
  • insomnia
  • increase in blood pressure and tachycardia
  • respiratory depression

Read also:Boosters before high school or session. Check what dangerous substances your child is taking

Ketamine - side effects

Side effects of taking ketamine are numerous damage and diseases of the digestive and urinary tract, including dilatation of the bile ducts and abdominal pain, and damage to the kidneys and bladder (inflammation, fibrosis and ulceration). People with myocardial ischemia should be especially careful about it, as it may exacerbate the symptoms of the disease. In addition, British scientists from University College London have shown that memorizing and associating facts are permanently impaired with long-term use of ketamine. In addition, most of the drug available on the black market is contaminated, including amphetamines, which are said to 'improve' the experience of taking ketamine, which is an even greater he alth risk.

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Methoxetamine (MXE) - a narcotic derivative of ketamine

Methoxetamineis a new, dangerous synthetic drug with properties similar to ketamine that appeared in the European Union in 2010. MXE, similarly to ketamine, causes states of unreal, hallucinations, states of mild stimulation, euphoria, a sense of prolonged time, but additionally causes bouts of anxiety and anxiety. Probably MXE has a longer duration of action compared to ketamine, hence its growing popularity.

Bibliography:

1. Skowronek R., Celiński R., Chowaniec C.,Ketamine and methoxetamine - old drug and its new narcotic derivative , "Alkoholizm i Naromania" 2012, Volume 25, No. 3.

2. Stephen Ross,Ketamine and Addiction , Post-Diploma Psychiatry 2099, Vol. 6, No.2

3. Ketamine for reduction of Alcoholic Relapse (KARE) www.psychology.exeter.ac.uk/kare/

Category:

Psychology