Ketamine: A Brief Summary

Americans should be more aware of the false validity of the Chemical Imbalance Myth in our society today because of the immense usage of Antidepressants and the negative consequences they have on our physical and emotional health. The writers goal in writing this paper is not to say that mental illnesses are not real, rather, to point out some of the myths and traditions that are related to depression. We as a people tend to confuse normal emotions with clinical depression, in which they are prescribed antidepressants to make them feel better. The myth focused on in this paper is the “Chemical Imbalance” theory, which has been adopted by our society for years. The number of people in America that are currently on antidepressant medications is alarming and this issue must be addressed. A mistake that many well-meaning American’s make is taking pills when those pills are not necessary. These pills are rather damaging to an individual’s physical, emotional, and family health. When individuals take responsibility for their emotions and meet their core needs as a human, the normal emotion of sadness can be resolved.

Individuals all over the world suffer with clinical depression, which affect their quality of life. Depression usually affects a person’s emotions, thoughts, behaviors and overall physical health. Symptoms include sadness, guilt, moodiness, loss of interest, with drawling from people, changes in sleep, decrease in sex drive, and thoughts of self-harm or suicide. The common antidepressants take at least a two-week period to take effect; that two-week period is a critical time where a patient can increase their symptoms and experience suicidal depression. The party drug, known as ketamine has recently made a big impression for neuroscientists trying to formulate a medication to help those who suffer from clinical depression in a rapid time frame. A key element in the advancement for faster medications is realizing how and why, ketamine works so quickly, in comparison to the other generic drugs that are prescribed. According to Newport, a dose of the nonselective N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist ketamine can produce a constant antidepressant effect within hours. With the amount of experiments being conducted to expand the knowledge of ketamine, the objective is to find a solution that can be used to relieve the patients who experience serious symptoms in the fastest time possible.

Ketamine is contraindicated in patients with hypertension, cardiac disease, myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, stroke, head trauma or intracranial mass, or intracranial bleeding, or in other patients

In total, the results of 1460 patients receiving antidepressant medication and 858 receiving a placebo sugar pill were analyzed. This analysis combined the results from these 19 different studies and generated an effect size (which is calculated as the mean of the experimental group minus the mean of the control group, divided by the pooled standard deviation SD). Once Kirsch and Sapirstein subtracted mean placebo response rates from mean drug response rates, they found a mean medication effect of 0.39 SDs (1). For each type of medication, the effect size for the active drug response to drug response is between 1.43 and 1.69, and the placebo response is between 74% and 76% of the active drug response. This means that 75% of the effect attributed to the perceived use of anti-depressants was due to the placebo. The perception of clinical benefit from antidepressants was largely attributed to the perceptions of the mind, and not to the actual chemical make-up of the pills patients were taking. The placebo effect shows us that the mind heavily influences our perceptions of wellness and health.

Book Summary Peter Kramer’s book, “Listening to Prozac” investigates the use of the medication fluoxetine, or better known as Prozac. Prozac is a selective serotonin inhibitor (SSRI) which means that it affects chemicals in the brain believed to responsible for depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Prozac is prescribed to treat these mental illnesses and is currently one of the most widely-used antidepressants used in the United States. According to Kramer’s book, not only does Prozac treat depression but it make people feel better than well. It was explained in this book that Prozac can transform the client’s behavior.

Jennifer Garam started taking antidepressants in hope that they would work on her depression. In 2010 Jennifer went to the psychiatric for the first time because she was sick and tired of constantly getting knocked down by depression and anxiety, on top of that she had “a few small OCD tendencies” that turned into an everyday ritual. The psychiatric recommended for her to be on a medication. That night she swallowed the pill. She woke up in the morning, she felt 10 times better, she couldn’t believe it. Day 2 it got worse, she couldn’t sleep, she didn’t have an appetite. Day 3 she wasn’t her normal self. Day 4 she felt like she was trapped in a bubble, she was spaced-out and numb. Day 5 she called the psychiatric, she told her she wanted to be taken off of the medication. Off the medication she felt better then when she was taking it, as the medication left her body she felt better then ever. Research has confirmed that antidepressant drugs are no more effective than sugar pills. In some studies sugar pills may have better results than antidepressants. The best known psychological side effect of SSRIs is “amotivational syndrome”, that syndrome is a condition in where your inspiration diminishes to do anything. When Yale University's Department of Psychiatry analyzed the admissions to their hospital’s psychiatric unit, they found out that 8.1% of their patients were “found to have been admitted owing the antidepressant mania or

Results obtained in the recent years give some hope that ketamine which is a global NMDAR antagonist could be the fast and long- acting novel antidepressant. Antidepressant–like activity of ketamine was shown in many preclinical studies (1–7). The single non-anesthetic dose of ketamine reversed symptoms of major depression (MDD) in clinical conditions (8). These antidepressant effects of ketamine also occurred in patients who suffered from resistant depression or suicidal ideations (9–12). Despite a successful

This article will be used in my paper as a claim regarding the usage of antidepressant treatment. Because this article states that the usage of antidepressant treatments should be carefully assessed by the doctor that is prescribing the medication to the patient, I will use it towards the middle of my paper. I plan on using this to explain that although there is no concrete evidence that antidepressant treatment is connected

It seems that the more human development changes, the more there is a demand to understand the role of pharmaceuticals in daily life with regard to mental health. In the article, The Mental Heath Practitioner and psychopharmacology, "a growing challenge for mental health counselors is to understand the potential benefits and limitations of many different types of drugs" (Dickinson & Kaut, 2009 p. 204-205). Incorporating a thorough treatment plan, which might include the use of prescription drugs (Anderson & King, 2004).

The disorder I chose from the text was panic disorder. Panic disorder is a form of anxiety. It’s a psychiatric disorder in which a sense of fear or apprehension arises frequently without a reasonable cause. The majority of physicians will prescribe a benzodiazepine, such as Xanax or Klonopin, to not only treat but also prevent their panic attacks from happening.

The pertinent findings will be explained, and their implications on future anti-depressants will be addressed.

There is one unique issue with Ketamine that all veterinarians must be aware of and need to take into consideration: substance abuse. The illicit use of Ketamine by humans as a recreational drug is a concern to a veterinarian for a couple of reasons. The dissociate effects of Ketamine that have been attributed to the “R” form, results in a general feeling “floating” or “out of body” experiences in human patients during anesthesia recovery (Schottenfeld,

“Hallucinations and voices that caused schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders have been stopped with the use of new medications”. (MHT, 2) “Just as aspirin can reduce a fever without curing the infection that causes it, psychotherapeutic medications act by controlling symptoms,” (MFMI, 4). “Another advantage of these medications is an increased understanding of the causes of mental illness. Scientists investigate the results of the medications, and through these results, they have learned a great deal about the working of the brain system.” (MFMI, 4) The use of new drugs has made it possible for mentally ill persons to live a normal life.

Depression is a serious mental disorder that may be displayed by major episodes of sadness, restlessness, and loss of interest. Depression has several symptoms such as excessive sleep, increased or loss of appetite, aches, cramps, insomnia, and fatigue. It can affect anyone of all ages and may not be recognizable for those who are experiencing it. A medication called anti-depressants helps treat depression by altering the serotonin receptors levels. There are several types of anti-depressant medications such as Abilify, Celexa, Aplenzin, Asendin, and many more. There are individuals that may argue that anti-depressants are an over-prescribed medications. They believe that this medication can affect the patient’s mental status and inhibit self-control with this addictive drug. On the other hand, the opposition may argue that anti-depressants are not overly prescribed and that it should not be problematic because it is an accessible, helpful, and a quicker treatment. The debate of whether anti-depressants are an over-prescribed medication has been an ongoing controversial issue as evidenced by statements of supporters and those in opposition.

This is an accurate representation of medication for depression. It does not make you want to live, it does not fix your thinking, it just makes you functional. It allows you to do things you wouldn’t usually be able to, and maybe after a while you will be able to function on your own.