Ketamine and your health
As can be imagined, a drug with such powerful effects has potential consequences and
associated risks.
In line with most other drugs of abuse and alcohol,
Ketamine has been linked with depression and anxiety when used to
excess or in combinations with other drugs. Perhaps more interestingly,
low doses of ketamine have been successfully used to help individuals
with serious depression. Two other interesting elements arising from
the initial study were that the patients had been non-responsive to at
least two courses of antidepressants and that the improvement in mood
was felt within hours rather than the weeks traditional
antidepressants take before there is a any noticeable
effect.
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/17/16
Ketamine is dangerous when mixed with alcohol, at high enough doses
there is the potential for the heart and lungs to shut down, at lower
doses there is the risk of unconsciousness and choking on vomit.
Longer term, in 2006, there was a study in Hong-Kong linking
longer term ketamine abuse with urinary
problems. The problems seemed to be very serious in nature although
the investigators seemed unclear whether the problems had been caused
by ketamine or a local cutting agent. Since then, further information
has been difficult to find.
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S009042950700101X