Americans will spend half their lives taking prescription drugs: Penn State studyPrescriptions for ketamine have soared in recent years, driven by for-profit clinics and telehealth services offering the medication as a treatment for pain,
Ketamine also didn’t result in lower rates of opioid prescribing in the months following treatment, a common goal of therapy, according to Gulur. Her research is under review for medical journal publication.Duke University pain specialist Dr. Padma Gulur and her colleagues have tracked 300 patients receiving ketamine. Right: A patient A patient has ketamine administered via an IV bag for the treatment of depression in Chicago in 2018.
Ketamine targets a brain chemical messenger called glutamate, which is thought to play a role in both pain and depression. It’s unclear whether the psychedelic experience is part of the drug’s therapeutic effect, though some practitioners consider it essential.Brooklyn resident Philip Markle poses with a ketamine pill pack at his home in January 2022. He said he faced a long fight with depression and tried medication, psychedelics like LSD, talk therapy since the age of 12, and more.
Sending ketamine through the mail has become its own profitable business for telehealth services, such as MindBloom, which jumped into the space after regulators relaxed online prescribing rules during COVID-19.“The literature for the nasal and oral formulations is pretty scant,” said Dr. Eric Schwenk of Thomas Jefferson University. “There’s just not a lot of good evidence to guide you.