KETAMINE

 KETAMINE

Medicine Name : KETAMINE

What Is Ketamine?

Ketamine is a medication mainly used for starting and maintaining anesthesia. As a medicine, ketamine is used to induce a trance-like state while providing sedation and pain relief. It has also been used in treatment of pain and depression as well as sedation for intensive care. 

It’s main production for recreational use, traced back to 1967, gave it the nicknames such as “mean green”, “rockmesc”, “Special K”, “K”, “Kitty”, “Vitamin K”, “New Ecstasy”, “Psychedelic Heroin”, and others over the years.  At sufficiently higher doses a consumer may experience what is referred to as a “K Hole” when in the state of dissociation, having auditory and visual hallucinations. 

Active Ingredients

Due to its water and lipid solubilities, ketamine is absorbed either by intravenous, intramuscular, oral or by topical routes. Delirium, drowsiness, dissociation, and hallucinations have been the usual effects experienced by patients treated with ketamine starting at circulating concentrations of 50 to 200 ng/mL, while analgesia will start at dose levels of 100 to 200 ng/mL.  The peak concentrations of ketamine have been reported in wide variations in association with its use as a anesthesia, as well as on the lower side for trials against that of an anti-depressant. What do you know, another psychedelic with uses to combat depression.  

Formula :C13H16CINO

Molar Mass : 237.725 g/mol

Melting Point : 496 to 502 F (258 - 261 C)

CHEMBL Id: 742

ChemSpider ID: 3689

PubChem CID: 3821

The effects usually begin in about 5 minutes and last up to 25 minutes, when given by injection.  Agitation, confusion, and/or hallucinations are some of the more common side effects experienced as the medication wears off.  Rarely occurrences of spasms in the larynx may happen, as well as more commonly an elevated blood pressure and muscle tremors. 

Other medications, or drugs, which increase blood pressure, may have an additive effect on ones blood pressure in interaction with ketamine such as: anti-depressants, stimulants, SNRI, and MAOIs. An increase in heart rate, blood pressure, arrhythmias, and palpitations may be potential effects.  Ketamine may increase other effects of of other sedatives, benzodiazepines, opioids, and barbiturates.  Be mindful of this when/if deciding to consume ketamine if you are on these other medications. 

History of Ketamine

Originally discovered in 1962 by Calvin L. Stevens, a professor of Chemistry at Wayne State University, and a Parke-Davis consultant that conducted research on alpha-hydroxyimine rearrangements. After some trials of preclinical research was done, ketamine was first tested on humans in 1964 and was then later approved for medical use in 1970 in the United States, followed by other countries.  

It’s non-medical use began in the United States on the West Coast  in the early 1970s. Recreational ketamine was also first documented in the 1970s used in psychiatric and other academic research culminating in 1978 of psycho-naut John Lily’s The Scientist, and Howard Alltounian and Marcia Moore’s Journey’s into the Bright World, documenting the unusual phenomenology of ketamine intoxication. Ketamine’s use as a recreational “post-clubbing experience” went on the rise in the dance culture beginning in the 1990’s most rapidly in Hong Kong.  It has since gained in popularity. 

Legalities 

Ketamine is a controlled substance in many countries, whiles it also is legally marketed worldwide. Check on the scheduling of ketamine in your country, as it being a controlled substance, some have classified it as a Schedule I narcotic, as it is in Canada. 

Current Use

It is used as a recreational drug for its dissociative and hallucinogenic effects commonly among most festival-goers. However, Ketamine has many staples of uses in the medical world that are used in a multitude of countries and practices.

MEDICINAL USES

Ketamine is used in medicine commonly as a anesthetic since it suppresses breathing much less than most other anesthetics available on the market. Although, due the hallucinations that ketamine can cause at such doses, it isn’t typically used as a primary anesthetic. When ketamine is used as an anesthesia it is generally :

• As a supplement to epidural and spinal anesthesia/analgesia in low doses. 
• Chronic obstructive airway disease as asthmatics
• In Detox procedures.
• In emergency departments as a sedative for physically painful procedures.
• Opioid-induced hyperalgesia prevention.
• Pain management.
• Sedative medicine of choice for those in traumatic shock who are at risk for hypotension. 
• Used in children as a sole anesthetic for minor procedures, as well as an induction agent then followed by a tracheal intubation and neuromuscular blocker.
• Veterinary medicine, used for an anesthetic and analgesic effects on cats, dogs, rabbits, other small animals, as well as horses.

Ketamine’s effects on the respiratory and circulatory systems acts differently from that of other anesthetics as it will usually stimulate rather then depress the circulatory system. It is also used as a bronchodilator for severe asthma treatments. 

Low doses of ketamine may be used for postoperative pain management to aid in reducing morphine use, nausea, and vomiting after surgeries. It has a similar efficacy to opioids in the emergency rooms for management of acute pain and for controlled procedural pain.  This traits also have aided ketamine in making its way into a position of a detox medicine aiding in weaning off addicts from its more addictive adversary’s, one procedure in a ketamine infusion with NAD+. 

NAD+ is a coenzyme that fuels many important precesses in the body.  Given in a mega dose to addicts, it allows them to easily and quickly detox from the powerful grip of drugs and alcohol.  NAD+ acts to increase energy levels, stimulate production of neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and noradrenaline.  It reduces irritability and anxiety while the body is cleansing.  It helps to improve and regulate the sleep-wake cycle and provides the mental clarity and focus to overcome addiction. 

Ketamine is a powerful tool in assisting in the maintenance of sobriety from drugs and alcohol.  Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS) is the emotional and psychological withdrawal phase that occurs shortly after physical detoxification.  Ketamine infusions act to significantly reduce PAWS, and the cravings that usually result in a return to substances of abuse.  In addition it helps to quickly treat depression, anxiety, and pain, which frequently go hand in hand with addiction.  In several recent studies, Ketamine has been shown to prolong abstinence from alcohol and heroin in detoxified alcoholics and heroin dependent individuals.  It was also able to significantly reduce cravings in cocaine abusers.