Ketamine Nasal Spray
Ketamine Nasal Spray the drug is a form of ketamine, a generic drug that’s been used as a form of anesthesia for many years, Dr. Anand says.
The drug also has been used for years in smaller doses in IV form for patients with treatment-resistant depression.
But as a generic drug, it has not been put through the FDA’s review process for that use. It’s actually a controlled substance (it is sometimes
abused as a recreational drug – you may have heard it called Special K).
Because of that, and because it can create feelings of dissociation and hallucination in people who take it, the new ketamine nasal spray will
only be administered in a doctor’s office or hospital setting. “It’s a slightly different form of ketamine and will be given as nasal puffs, but the
effects are essentially the same,” Dr. Anand says.
A patient will go to their doctor once or twice a week to get nasal puffs of a dose of ketamine. Because they may experience disorientation or
confusion immediately afterward, they will stay at the doctor’s office for two hours.
They are also advised not to drive, operate machinery, or undertake a task that requires similar mental effort for the rest of the day.
ketamine nasal spray appears both effective and fast-acting for treatment-resistant depression,
Why Is Ketamine nasal spray promising
One potential benefit of the new drug is that it’s fast-acting. People may notice a relief in symptoms within just a few hours, and it could last for
several days, Dr. Anand says. Most oral antidepressants, on the other hand, can take weeks to start working. That’s because it works in a
different way from other depression drugs. “Whereas most other available antidepressants work mainly on the serotonin, norepinephrine or
dopamine systems, ketamine has major effects on glutamate, which is a different neurotransmitter that is much more prevalent in the brain,” Dr.
Anand says. Side Effects
An Imperfect solution
Beyond potential side effects, ketamine does have additional drawbacks. Though it has been used safely as a short-term anesthetic and in
lower doses as a short-term antidepressant, doctors don’t yet understand whether it’s safe and effective to use over many months or years.
“This drug affects a major neurochemical in the brain, and if you interfere with that long-term, we’re not sure what the effects of that are going to
be,” Dr. Anand says. “It’s also a drug of addiction, and people can misuse it or overuse it.” There’s also no guarantee that it will work in all
groups of people with treatment-resistant depression. And, like other antidepressants, there’s always the chance that it could make symptoms
worse. ketamine was studied in five clinical trials leading up to its approval. Only one short-term trial, and its follow-up, longer-term relapse
prevention trial of patients who had benefited from ketamine, produced positive results that were statistically significant. Another study focused
solely on adults over age 65 and found that benefit of treatment with antidepressants plus ketamine in that group of patients did not reach statistical significance
Reviews
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