Drug Ketamine gaining favor as anti-pain / anti-depressant drug

[Cort]

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Blogs/EPMonthly/51359

Low dose ketamine appears to have excellent pain reducing properties. It can also potentiate the effects of opioids - thus cutting the dosage needed for them.

However, it also has analgesic properties (an advantage over an agent like Propofol which is a pure sedative) and these analgesic effects are still present even in lower doses. In addition, through its action as an NMDA receptor antagonist, ketamine can also potentiate the analgesic effect of opioids, allowing lower doses of opioids. These properties are the reason there is now a growing body of evidence supporting the analgesic potential of sub-anesthetic, or low dose ketamine for acute pain in the emergency department (ED).

 

[Who Me?]

What about for those of us who are in pain and not in the ER?

 

[Cort]

What about for those of us who are in pain and not in the ER?

I'm going to have a blog on someone with huge pain problems who gets ketamine IV's regularly and they work for her. They're the only thing that really has..plus it's helped her rather understandable depression.

 

[Who Me?]

I fortunately don't have too much pain.

The issue with that and so many things is getting someone to prescribe it.

And pain is one of those things docs have a hard time with. They think we all just want drugs.