Quote :

"Injection May Treat Depression Much Faster By Shankar Vedantam Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 8, 2006; Page A11 Government researchers announced yesterday that they have had striking success in treating depression in a matter of hours, using an experimental injectable drug that acts much more quickly than conventional antidepressants. The study, based on a small sample, is part of a push by researchers to develop treatments that can bring quick relief to patients with mental disorders. Patients and their doctors report that it often takes weeks or months for most available medications to improve symptoms. Much more work needs to be done before patients can see benefits from the breakthrough, the researchers said. Among the unanswered questions are whether patients will be able to tolerate the drug for long periods, and whether it will continue to be effective. Researchers said they hope the finding will prompt the pharmaceutical industry to develop similar compounds with fewer side effects that can then be tested on a large scale. "Psychiatrists have gotten used to the idea we have to wait weeks or months, but we can break the sound barrier and get an antidepressant effect within hours," said Carlos Zarate Jr., chief of the mood disorders research unit at the National Institute of Mental Health. Zarate and his colleagues published a paper about their findings in yesterday's issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. In the study, 18 patients were injected with a drug called ketamine, which has been used for a long time as an anesthetic. Patients briefly experienced a well-known side effect of the drug -- a mild feeling of dissociation, where they felt disconnected or found it difficult to put thoughts into words. Ketamine is a controlled substance and can produce mild euphoria. But the dissociative symptoms disappeared within a couple of hours, and shortly afterward patients and physicians reported a dramatic improvement in mood. Half the patients had a 50 percent decline in depression symptoms after two hours, and by the end of the first day, 71 percent reported a similar improvement. More than a third continued to report such a benefit after seven days, and nearly a third reported a complete end of symptoms. Conventional antidepressants approach those kinds of numbers only after eight to 10 weeks of treatment. "We can truly raise the bar on what we can expect of antidepressant treatments," said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. "A modest response after six weeks is what we used to define as success. What I love about this project is it redefines success not in terms of weeks, but in terms of hours." Rather than go after the conventional targets of serotonin and norepinephrine, the new drug targets an entirely different neurotransmitter in the brain called glutamate. "This is not a subtle change," Insel added. "It is almost like rebooting a computer. It is a chemical reboot, and the striking thing is the effect lasts for about a week." "

I thought this was interesting....not the fact that the drug produces a euphoria, but that after the initial effects wear off, the anti-depression qualites still last for a week...even after just one dose. I'm curious to see if the stigma of K prevents this from ever turning into a viable option for depression. Of course, more research still needs to be done.

8/8/2006 8:32:45 AM

it fucks with your seratonin levels, right?

8/8/2006 8:37:30 AM

Quote :

"Rather than go after the conventional targets of serotonin and norepinephrine, the new drug targets an entirely different neurotransmitter in the brain called glutamate. "

8/8/2006 8:38:52 AM

8/8/2006 8:56:39 AM

8/8/2006 8:59:13 AM

interesting... go once a week for a shot.... turn it into pill form and you could have a good winner...

just veg out for the day (saturday?) when taking/getting it

8/8/2006 9:04:11 AM

talk about a K Hole

8/8/2006 9:42:52 AM

ketamine and lsd work very well together

8/8/2006 9:53:55 AM

Quote :

"just veg out for the day (saturday?) when taking/getting it "

eh, the main affects last maybe an hour or so....so you wouldnt even have to devote a whole day to it.

8/8/2006 10:45:24 AM

8/8/2006 11:11:01 AM

not that i know or anything.

8/8/2006 11:11:45 AM

special K

8/8/2006 11:12:13 AM

Interesting... lexapro is my drug of choice, but if they can develope this into a proven drug I might be willing to change.

8/8/2006 11:18:35 AM

we had a kid get arrested a couple of weeks ago for stealing over $1000 in ketamine from the vet i work for

8/8/2006 11:55:13 AM

My mom said she remembered using Ketamine for surgery on kids back in the day. They used it where they might use a local anesthesia (SP?) now. She said you could chat with them and they were hella happy despite the fact that you were cutting them open.

8/8/2006 12:01:53 PM

a quick dig only showed me the development of Ketamine for pain.

Innovative Drug Delivery Systems (IDDS), now subsidiary of Javelin Pharmaceuticals, has in Phase II clinical trials an intranasal formulation of ketamine [PMI-100; PMI-150] for treatment of acute pain and breakthrough pain. Its been suggested the use of intranasal ketamine should be restricted to problematic breakthrough pain in cancer patients because of the addictive properties of ketamine and the potential for inappropriate use.


EpiCept has in Phase I clinical trials a topical ketamine/butamben cream for the treatment of neuropathic pain. The combination of ketamine and butamben is supposed to work effectively in subsets of patients with neuropathy and myofascial pain. Butamben (butyl-p-aminobenzoate) is a sodium channel blocker while ketamine is a dissociative anaesthetic that blocks the NMDA receptor.
The technology involved in the development of NP-2 is licensed from Dr Flores and Dr Crowley who authored two patents on ketamine and ketamine/butamben for the topical treatment of neuropathic pain.


I'm sure someone is already on top of this for depression.

8/8/2006 12:05:23 PM

mdma is still my choice.

8/8/2006 1:44:35 PM

this is stupid, there I said it, it's fucking stupid

8/8/2006 1:52:47 PM

yea it is stupid that people let doctors run their lives

8/8/2006 2:16:03 PM

ketamine is also useful for the treatment of longterm sustained seizures( for example a 9+ week episode of status epilepticus), but it is a pain in the butt to administer as it requires a strict protocol for administration.

[Edited on August 8, 2006 at 4:08 PM. Reason : when nothing else will stop the seizure activity]

8/8/2006 4:07:38 PM

I could see this working well for bipolars who have hypomanic episodes.

8/8/2006 6:30:43 PM

i think they should prescribe chlorpromazine more often for that

8/8/2006 6:37:23 PM

People would get a fix on this

8/8/2006 6:38:56 PM

yeah they'd get their mind fixed. omg that would be so terrible!!!1

8/8/2006 6:42:26 PM

i've found the only drug i need to cure anything in my life is marijuana

everything else sucks in comparison

8/8/2006 6:44:28 PM

Quote :

"yeah they'd get their mind fixed."

You give enough sugarpills to these kids and they'd tell you their worlds a blast.

8/8/2006 9:12:38 PM

lol, oh the nostalgia

8/8/2006 9:36:16 PM

8/8/2006 9:40:30 PM

anyone who has ever tried this shit would know this is a bad idea

special K is scary

8/9/2006 1:56:00 AM

dr house says youre wrong

8/9/2006 2:05:42 AM

k

8/9/2006 2:08:06 AM

house has never stared down death threw the vortex of a motherfuckin k hole

8/9/2006 2:08:21 AM

^

8/9/2006 2:11:58 AM

^^ he is right now

8/9/2006 2:20:49 AM

haha, i would definetly not be able to post on tww, i wouldn't be able to crawl down a 6ft hallway

8/9/2006 2:21:40 AM

We should just blind all the depressed kids so the world doesn't sadden them further

8/9/2006 2:25:44 AM

my wife is a nurse, used to work on ICU floor at major hospital. she said an effect of Ketamine is that it can cause the person to have profound spiritual experience similar to near-death experiences. for this reason, another drug is often administered along with it that induces short-term amnesia. this protects the patient against possible psychological trauma from the near-death experience.

8/9/2006 3:53:25 AM

Quote :

"anyone who has ever tried this shit would know this is a bad idea special K is scary "

just because you can't handle your shit, doesn't mean others can't either.



^wow, i never knew that. thats interesting.

[Edited on August 9, 2006 at 8:10 AM. Reason : f]

8/9/2006 8:09:29 AM

Quote :

"short-term amnesia"

weed

8/9/2006 9:18:36 AM

^^it's obvious you have no idea what you are talking about, so why do you continue to have a stance on this

8/9/2006 10:59:49 AM

what makes you think i have no idea what im talking about?

there are plenty of people out there that use K and don't find it scary....and in a controlled environment it has showed promise to help a problem.

the only thing obvious here is that you tried it, didn't like it, and now you can't comprehend how someone else could possibly have a different opinion.






[Edited on August 9, 2006 at 1:03 PM. Reason : df]

8/9/2006 12:59:07 PM

^i know for a FACT that:

a) you never tried it
b) you got kicked out a tiny line one time, and it was some weak shit that didn't get you the real effect

K is like riding a rocket ship to a parallel universe bro, it's not like having a beer,



and for the record I liked it, too much.....I used to push viles, sell 20s in the clubs, roll in with 15 20s on a pin hidden in my shoe, stick a straw down into a bag and take the whole thing in one snort, while on anywhere between 2.5-6 rolls, and then go fucking dance my ass off like I was in some tribal alien battle ceremony, so how about you step the fuck off my nuts and stop talking about shit you know nothing about


and also ftr, this is still a stupid idea.

[Edited on August 9, 2006 at 1:24 PM. Reason : fdas]

8/9/2006 1:20:53 PM

someone needs to check their facts better....but thanks for the blog about your drug habits. it perfectly proved my point that you can't handle your shit.





[Edited on August 9, 2006 at 1:29 PM. Reason : d]

8/9/2006 1:24:38 PM

someone wrote an article, it MUST BE TRUE

^lol, actually that drip down memory lane was fun. I definetly don't do any of that shit anymore, I don't even smoke anymore, I was a crazy teenager though.

[Edited on August 9, 2006 at 1:34 PM. Reason : dfs]

8/9/2006 1:28:11 PM

show me where i said i thought it would work. i never did. i merely posted an article about research going on and said it was interesting.

i have no idea if this "medication" will work, but its an interesting concept, and apparently shows promise. to come out and flat out say it wont work or that its stupid based purely on your own lack of control and experiences at night clubs is pretty naive, i think.





[Edited on August 9, 2006 at 1:32 PM. Reason : g]

8/9/2006 1:30:30 PM

^i mean i guess you're right, but I really don't see how this could work, i mean if the article was talking about giving out small doses of acid would you still think it was reasonable? I think it's just someone trying to get published for something, but anyway.........

8/9/2006 1:33:11 PM

Quote :

""

first thing I thought of too

8/9/2006 2:43:18 PM

^^^Yeah, this is pretty interesting. At least it shows that they are taking new outlooks on treating depression.

8/9/2006 3:30:51 PM

Quote :

"just because you can't handle your shit, doesn't mean others can't either."

Oh you really PWNT me good there sober, im sorry im not a hardcore druggie that enjoys being in a K hole. i wish i could be a supercool K case like you, the ketamine guru. teach me your ways PLZ

8/10/2006 12:05:04 AM

^i think he was talking to me man

8/10/2006 12:07:03 AM