Author: Gary Jackson

How to Take Ketamine: Dosage, Methods, Effects, & Safety

Integration is the process of talking with a therapist after a psychedelic or psychoactive session in order to glean meaningful therapeutic insight. Ketamine is a novel and exciting part of the treatment but it’s the therapy that can really lead to lasting change beyond the neural rewiring. Keep in mind that ketamine has serious side effects which can be dangerous. Using ketamine without a prescription is illegal, and street ketamine may be mixed with other substances that can increase your risk of a serious reaction. Recreational ketamine may be used alone or mixed with other illegal substances. Because of this, it’s unclear if ketamine alone or a combination of other factors contributed to cognitive and behavioral side effects in studies.

We strive to create content that is clear, concise, and easy to understand. There are sophisticated urine and blood tests that can detect ketamine, but a standard urine drug test probably won’t pick it up, Masand said. If your use of ketamine is affecting your health, family, relationships, work, school, financial or other life situations, or you’re concerned about a loved one, you can find help and support. Here are the basics of ketamine intake, its effects, and a few things everyone should know.

So, wait, is ketamine legal?

Currently, there are no long-term studies about the effects of ketamine as opposed to many conventional antidepressants. But then again, literally no treatment is 100 percent effective at curing depression—except perhaps puppies (but this is personal conjecture as no clinical studies have been done yet). IV-infused ketamine is an FDA-approved anesthetic for surgical and medical procedures. In recent years, ketamine has increasingly been used as an antidepressant to treat TRD — considered off-label use.

But injectable ketamine for depression or other mental health conditions is not yet FDA-approved and may not be covered. Ketamine is also being studied for other mental health issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and in those with a history of psychosis. However, more research is needed before it can be recommended for these conditions. While taking an antidepressant or going to psychological counseling (psychotherapy) may work for most people, these standard treatments aren’t enough for others.

Intake methods and effects

However, further research is necessary to verify the study findings and prove the safety of using ketamine to treat this condition. Refractory status epilepticus (RSE) is a form of status epilepticus that does not respond to standard antiseizure drugs. After overusing ketamine for an extended period of time, some experience ketamine cystitis—damage to the bladder that can lead to pain and frequent urination. If a person really overdoes it, they could experience psychosis that resembles schizophrenia, even after they stop using ketamine. Others find that their hearing becomes more acute, which could explain why my friend’s dog freaked me out so much. “When we use it clinically, if somebody is in a room and there are whispered voices in another room or the other side of the building, you can clearly hear them,” Levine explained.

Or, it might give them a more objective perspective on their lives, as it did with me. Because experiences with ketamine vary so drastically, it’s hard to know what you’ll feel on it. That said, here’s what you should know if you’re thinking of trying it. That held true until some friends were snorting K in their apartment, and curiosity got the best of me. I told my friend to give me what she deemed a microdose (though I’m unsure of the actual dosage), then cut that in half just to be prudent.

questions to ask yourself before trying ketamine therapy.

This includes benefits for mental health conditions such as treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, and suicidal ideation. This means that it produces sedative effects but also produces cognitive effects that include memory loss (amnesia) and feeling as if one is detached from oneself or reality. Ketamine can also be taken orally in the form of pills, capsules, or troches (lozenges). Additionally, some people misuse ketamine by snorting or inhaling it, which is not safe and can lead to serious health risks.

Over the past decade or so, legal ketamine clinics have popped up to treat depression, OCD, and other mental health conditions. “It has literally saved lives for people who were ready to give up all hope,” Masand said. Earlier this year, the FDA approved a form of the drug ketamine to treat depression. Ketamine is a fast-acting antidepressant that relieves depressive symptoms in hours instead of the weeks or longer that previous drugs required. In addition to being a major advance in treatment, ketamine provides an opportunity for researchers to investigate the short- and long-term biological changes underlying its effects on depression.