Effectiveness of Ketamine

Posted by soft reboot wellness on July 5th, 2021

In the cases of treatment-resistant depression, the patient is already quite bothered, adding several types of medications would further make him frustrated. It is due to this reason, those people who have gone through depression or those who have a relative or know someone with depression, do consider the wider use of ketamine. Ketamine is a dissociative drug taken by recreational drug abusers mostly to feel more detached from the world around them.

In the latest research. Clinical researchers in Sweden highlighted why ketamine infusion therapy works so rapidly and how even low doses can be quite effective for those patients with major depressive disorder.

Scientists used brain scans of around 30 participants. These participants had tried the usually prescribed antidepressant drugs (i.e. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) including Celexa, Lexapro, etc) and these drugs have not relieved their symptoms. After a low dose of IV ketamine therapy, the scans revealed that they had an elevated number of serotonin 1B receptors which is a positive sign showing the symptoms are getting better.

Serotonin is basically a chemical that your body produces that delivers signals between your nerve cells and it has been revealed to contribute to the regulation of mood and feelings of wellbeing.

The mode of action of SSRIs is that they increase the levels of serotonin in the brain, however, they don’t work well in cases when there are not enough receptors to ‘catch’ the chemical. Increasing the number of serotonin receptors will enable more and more serotonin and dopamine, which is another neurotransmitter that makes you feel good, to be released efficiently, and hence the symptoms of depression will be relieved.

In another study, the above process happened around 24-72 hours after the IV ketamine therapy was given among 72% of the participants

Around more than 17 million people or we can say about 7% of the adults in the USA are dealing with depression. The majority of those with depression get some combine therapy and medications which includes psychotherapy, SSRIs, antidepressants whereas 35% of the people having major depressive episodes could not receive the required treatment.

Potential of Ketamine

Several other types of research have been done about the effectiveness of ketamine as an antidepressant in cases of treatment-resistant depression. According to the European Journal of Anaesthesiology, ketamine was introduced in the early 1950s when physicians developed this drug as a veterinary anesthetic. After some years, it began being used on humans but it was found that it produces a trance-like, dissociative state. It was one of the reasons it's currently used in emergency rooms for conditions like resetting a dislocated shoulder.

The antidepressant effect of Iv ketamine therapy was acknowledged in 2000 in a study published in Biological Psychiatry. Although it was a small study including only 7 participants, it formed the basis of further research which eventually led to FDA approval in 2019.

Recently a meta-analysis was published which showed rapid and robust antidepressant effects of a single dose of IV ketamine therapy in treatment-resistant depression patients. It included data from other researches too to show for the first time that repeated IV ketamine therapy is effective and has high efficacy in getting the initial antidepressant effects seen after single dosing.

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soft reboot wellness
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