Cassidy Morrison Dailymail.Com Senior Health Reporter
Updated: 30 Aug 2023 at 03:27
- Davidson was given ketamine in the form of an FDA-approved nasal spray.
- Former party medicine shows promise in treating major depression
- Read more: Pete Davidson told audience he used ketamine for depression
In 2019, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of ketamine in a very specific form (an inhaled nasal spray) for depressed adults who have not responded to other drugs.
It was a breakthrough moment. Ketamine’s reputation as a frenetic drug that leads its users to euphoric out-of-body experiences, combined with uncertainty about how it acts on the brain and its designation as a controlled substance, has led to a surge in clinical research. has been hindered for decades.
However, a growing number of studies and a series of anecdotal reports have been published over the past decade pointing to ketamine’s ability to relieve symptoms of depression within an hour, at least in the short term.
Thousands of ketamine clinics have recently opened across the country, where patients with difficult-to-treat depression can receive intravenous infusions of the refined ketamine drug in a comfortable environment under the supervision of a psychiatrist.
Davidson said he was on ketamine treatment before entering an inpatient psychiatric facility earlier this summer.
He was candid about his depression after losing his father, a New York City firefighter, when he was seven. His father was last seen running into the World Trade Center before it fell to ruins.
The comedian said in 2020: “I’m always, always depressed. I always have to get out of it.
“I wake up in the morning feeling depressed, but now I know where I am going. I have to go outside for a little sunshine or go for a walk. It’s just programming itself.”
He was using an FDA-approved spray called Esketamine, marketed as Spravato.
It’s more potent than the anesthetics known and loved by partygoers, but has been proven to be overall safe when administered under the supervision of a medical professional.
After the patient receives the infusion, the medical professional monitors the patient in the doctor’s office for about two hours until side effects such as dizziness, euphoria, and dizziness subside on their own.
Its approval in 2019 has struggled to develop new and effective treatments for severe depression due to a combination of inadequate research funding and the lengthy trial-and-error process that is part of clinical trials of antidepressant drugs. It was a great victory for the psychiatry that has been , and an overall lack of innovation.
Many of the major depression treatments work similarly in that they target the same neurotransmitters, serotonin and neuropinephrine.
These agents are known collectively as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs).
Despite some changes in prescriptions for these treatments, they remain stagnant overall, frustrating mental health professionals and the nearly 21 million Americans living with major depression. I’m here.
The debut of nasal spray ketamine was intended to fill an innovation gap hampered by years of failed clinical trials.
Ketamine combats the symptoms of depression in a completely different way. While conventional treatments increase levels of natural chemicals such as serotonin, ketamine increases levels of glutamate, a neurotransmitter important for mood regulation, learning, memory, and information processing.
Research into controlled substances as legitimate medical interventions is progressing rapidly, and there is increasing interest in the application of ketamine, MDMA (ecstasy), and psilocybin, the psychotropic chemical found in magic mushrooms.
A recent study by researchers at Massachusetts General Brigham Hospital in Boston found that ketamine infusions were as effective as the “gold standard” electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in treating people with major depression. suggested.
This research New England Journal of Medicineenrolled 403 45-year-olds with treatment-resistant depression. The group was split in half, half receiving ECT three times a week and the other half receiving intravenous ketamine twice a week for three weeks.
Results showed that both treatments promoted depression relief and improved quality of life. And while ECT was associated with some side effects, such as memory loss and muscle problems, ketamine takers reported only one side effect — out-of-body withdrawal during treatment.
Research into the long-term effects of using ketamine as a treatment for depression is still ongoing. But many depressed patients have praised its effectiveness, including Niki, 52, from Canada, who believes ketamine treatment has saved her life.
Niki suffers from treatment-resistant depression and seizures, which doctors blamed on anxiety and said nothing helped. At one point, she was taking 11 pills daily, including anxiolytics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and muscle relaxants. She “felt like a zombie,” she said, rather than Niki helping her.
But after meeting with a doctor for ketamine therapy, which involves taking a ketamine tablet followed by more intranasal ketamine, Niki said the stress on her shoulders was gone. I felt it,” he added.
After just one month of weekly sessions, she was able to return to her full-time job.
After 10 months she now only takes 1 tablet every 2 months as a maintenance dose.
Her story is not an isolated event. Researchers at the MindPeace Clinic, a ketamine therapy clinic in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., found that over a year, more than 70 percent of patients who used the drug experienced improved mood, and 40 percent had no symptoms. I found that it was reported that Symptoms of depression after 10 regular infusions of the drug.
