The Dangers of Ketamine Treatment

At the beginning of the year, my therapist consulted my psychiatrist on possible ketamine treatment for some of my symptoms. Since I had experienced psychosis on more than one occasion I was not a good candidate. They ruled it out and we moved onto other possibilities. Still, my therapist was quick to assure me the treatment would have been done in a doctor’s office under careful supervision had we gone through with it.

Yesterday I was listening to Youtube videos and taking care of a present for a friend, when an ad for at home ketamine treatment came on. Like taking freakin horse tranquilizers is the same as popping some tylenol! The ad was quick to say you needed to consult a doctor first. In the same breath it said this was not FDA approved. Of course it’s  not. It is an extremely new and experimental treatment. If you are being targeted for ketamine treatment, I’m sorry but you are a fragile part of the population. And I can’t help but feel that offering these drugs to you is bordering on patient abuse. 

I didn’t take ketamine when it was offered to me at a bonfire when I was nineteen and I would never take it alone at my house without a doctor to be there in case I had a seizure or reacted badly to the medication. According to Oxford Health, ketamine is not a licensed treatment for depression and the side effects are unknown. So for the people who say it wears off after taking it, we don’t know that. We don’t know much about this drug. Oxford Health says 10% of people with ketamine infusion will have a “challenging” experience which can lead to suicidality. So these companies and treatment facilities want people to take a drug that can make them suicidal in the privacy of their homes where no one can intervene or get them help. Great idea guys. Did it ever occur to you that you are sacrificing safety for convenience? Do you ever think maybe this is unwise at  best, malpractice at worst?

Ketamine doesn’t even seem to provide long term benefits since the “majority of patients relapse after two weeks” and the response only lasts for three days for 30% percent. The risks seem to far outweigh the rewards. 

 Mayo Clinic also stresses the importance of being monitored by professionals lest something go wrong. The idea of being left alone while taking a drug of this magnitude reeks of incompetency and replacing quality care with patients attending to their own needs. It feels irresponsible and careless.

For example, Better U Care advertises ketamine treatment for anxiety and depression. Step One is an online assessment. An online assessment. Can you really gauge a potential patient from an online assessment? Once you are deemed qualified you can select a treatment (shouldn’t the doctors select the treatment? That’s what they went to school for. As a patient I would need a lot of guidance to select a path of treatment that would work for me) or schedule a virtual consultation. Again, virtual. Don’t these people do anything in person?

I’m not saying we shouldn’t fight to discover new methods to battle mental illness. We’ve come a long way and we can go much further. But we need to be careful. These are people’s minds we are playing with, the essence of who we are. It isn’t right to treat them like guinea pigs. Or rather it isn’t fair to treat us like guinea pigs. It isn’t safe to experiment with drugs alone and without supervision. We might be able to do talk therapy through a screen but that doesn’t apply to all types of therapy. Sometimes you can’t be remote. Do no harm. Think about it.