Ketamine. Sceptic to Convert.

[JackNymble]

After failing to find the original thread of uninformed opinions regarding ketamine, I've decided to create my own.

 

This will be long, but I believe it needs to be, to present some semblance of validity.

 

[ Start of rant ]

 

To all those who are armchair Dr's I'd like to relate my experience with ketamine.

 

I suffered a near fatal injury at work, which severely damaged my lower spine, at L4, L5/S1.

I undertook surgery in an attempt to repair the damage.

Surgery left scar tissue on those nerve-roots, where they exit the spine, effectively, and continuously, irritating the nerve roots.

 

Next came the pain.

 

Pain is very subjective, and what hurts for you may not hurt for myself, or vice-versa.

However, I can make an analogy which many may be able to relate to.

 

So I pose the question: Have you ever had a toothache?

 

Not a little twitch, or a 'sensitive' tooth, but a toothache that feels like a steel band around your head, getting ever tighter? Where your ears start to pound, and actually hurt?  Where nothing can distract you from that pain? The only relief coming from a dentist appointment extraction?

 

If you've answered yes to that kind of toothache, then that is the pain my nerve scaring caused.

I've had those toothaches myself, and it's the closest comparable pain I can make that others may relate to.

 

So, off I go on a course of trial and error pain killers, with little effect, until I tried fentanyl.

12.5ug/hour release, replaced every 3 days, gave blessed relief.

 

Over the months my body's tolerance grew, and the patch strength increased.

This cycle repeated over some years until I was using 100ug/he patches every 2 days.

 

When even that started to fail, I began to heat the patches with an infrared heater.

This worked, but I also covered my arms with burns.

 

For those who assume they know the effects of various drugs, fentanyl is ~100x the strength of morphine, and ~50x heroin.

 

By now I was thinking of suicide daily.

That toothache pain was my constant companion.

I'd be awake in the middle of the night, screaming in pain, punching the wall.

 

By now, some 7 years had passed.

I'd been diagnosed with chronic pain (huge surprise), depression, PTSD.

My job was long gone, as was my marriage, house, family, everything.

 

I was offered opportunity of a ketamine infusion for my pain.

I was told it may reset the pain receptors.

Like most ill-informed I searched Dr Google, and reading of the potential side-effects, decided it would only compound an already compromised life.

 

18 months later I had a gall-stone attack.

Ambulance came to my place, and I was given a 'sniff' of fentanyl for pain relief, which unsurprisingly did nothing.

At hospital, still groaning and punching the metal railing, a Dr gave me an IV shot of morphine.

After all the years on fentanyl it did nothing.

Then, they gave me an IV shot of ketamine.

 

The clouds opened, the sun shone, and for the first time I could recall, there was no pain. Zero. Nada. Nil.  Not just a dull numbing, but absolutely no pain at all.

OMG. I'd forgotten how it felt.

 

I remained under observation for my gallbladder, and eventually discharged.

 

I immediately contacted the pain specialist who'd originally offered me a ketamine infusion, and signed up as quick as I could.

 

A few months later I undertook a 5-day, 24/7, infusion.

None of the dreaded side-effects.

Sure there were some, like the disorientation, which I hated, but nothing scary.

 

When they removed the infusion, allowed the effects to pass, and discharged me, I felt 10 years younger.

No pain.

No depression.

 

I literally felt like skipping and singing down the street, and I'm sure anyone who saw me would have been wondering why I was smiling.

 

My opiate intake dropped by ~75%. 75% !!!!

 

And it all lasted for months !!!

I'd stopped taking those accursed anti-depressents (because I just didn't need them any more), and also stopped my blood-pressure pills.

 

Later, when the pain started to return, I tried a one-day infusion, where the dosage is increased rapidly, then just as rapidly decreased.

Unfortunately that had little effect on the pain, and just physically knocked me too much.

 

Then I started to ask informed questions.

The speciist told me that ketamine infusions were unpredictable, and only truly effective for 20% of the people he saw.

 

I'm eternally grateful I'm in that 20%

 

I later found out that in the USA ketamine is also being trialled for its anti-depressent effect.

No-one had told me anything about this added benefit.

When I mentioned it to the specialist I recall the smile that passed over his face.

 

I researched more, and found it was used as far back as the Vietnam war, to provide field pain-relief whilst the wounded soldier was transported.

 

I've since become a convert.

 

Sure, it gets abused by fools.

It gets called a "horse tranquilizer", by fools and the ill-informed.

Those same people who have never thought of suicide as a way of ending the unceasing pain.

 

Alcohol presents a far greater social problem (I like a nice whisky).

Nicotine presents a far greater social problem (I also like a nice cigar).

 

To the nay-sayers out there, educate yourselves.

Then, when you either graduate as Dr's, or are unfortunate enough to require treatment, come back and make an informed statement, not one based on media sensationism, or heresay, or, let's call them what they are, plain stupid.

 

Ketamine is not for everyone, I know that.

Ketamine doesn't work for everyone, I know that.

 

For those of us in the 20% group, Ketamine is the magic-bullet.

 

I'm now awaiting my next infusion.

In the meantime it's back to more opiates, more sleeping tablets, and that is what scares me.

 

Now, whenever I get the opportunity, forum, I advocate it's potential benefits, from an informed opinion.

 

[ End of rant ]

Edited June 11, 2019 by JackNymble
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