In medicine and veterinary medicine, ketamine has been used for decades as an anesthetic and painkiller, but for some Albertans, this dissociative drug has become a lifesaver in the fight against depression and other mental health issues.
"He literally changed my life," says Cassandra Walker, who suffered from depression for most of her teenage years and throughout her adult life. "I was a person who couldn't get out of bed, woke up in the morning with paralyzing anxiety, and could barely explain why."
A woman from Smerekovyi Hai said that her life was like a roller coaster of trying different medications, endless visits to doctors, intensive psychotherapy and counseling: "When I was in the middle of it, I was seeing (my therapist) one to two times a week." More...
According to her, trying different antidepressants was an exhausting process. "You slowly wean yourself off them, and it takes some time. And then you slowly get used to the new one, and that also takes some time. And all of this is not very pleasant. And so it goes - one medicine after another."
Depression is hard to understand - even for doctors. Once, a new doctor suggested that she simply go for walks to overcome her depression. She said that nothing she had tried had worked - her brain resisted.
It wasn't until a new doctor asked why Walker wasn't seeing a psychiatrist and then referred her to the Manor Clinic in Edmonton that things started to change for the better.
Last fall, Alberta became the first province to regulate the use of psychedelic drugs for the treatment of mental disorders, including psilocybin and psilocin (both found in magic mushrooms), MDMA, LSD, mescaline (peyote), DMT, 5-methoxy-DMT, and ketamine. The province made an amendment to the Mental Health Regulation that came into effect last month.
Dr. Yogesh Thakker, a psychiatrist and owner of the Manor Clinic, says that, according to statistics, about one in eight Canadians will experience depression at some point in their lives.
According to Tucker, about two-thirds of them respond to the antidepressants that are commonly prescribed - selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac, Zoloft, and Lexapro - but for the rest, which is one-third, traditional medications do not work.
According to Thakker, in people with treatment-resistant depression, ketamine has a treatment response rate of up to 70-80%, which he says is higher than with traditional medications. The results are also observed almost overnight.
"Unlike conventional antidepressants, which take two to four weeks to take effect, ketamine works within hours, and the effect lasts from several days to several weeks."
For people with treatment-resistant depression, this is crucial.
"If they have a very poor quality of life, they can't even get out of bed, they have very low motivation: it has a significant impact on the quality of life even for them, especially if they don't respond to traditional antidepressants and psychological therapy."
There are risks: Thacker says they carefully monitor patients for signs of abuse or addiction, as well as the rare possibility of high blood pressure or seizures.
The duration and frequency of ketamine treatment depends on each patient. They are usually referred to the Manor Clinic by their family doctor after traditional treatments have been exhausted. "We get people who have been taking a lot of antidepressants for many years," said Thakker, adding that their quality of life has deteriorated significantly.
"They have no energy. They can't work. Their social life has suffered. And often they have a history of failed treatment, even ECT - or electroconvulsive therapy - and psychological therapy as well. So often for many of the patients who come to us, ketamine would really be the last resort. And it can be life-changing."
The Alberta Ministry of Health, the College of Pharmacy of Alberta, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta have strict regulations for drugs like ketamine that require a valid prescription.
Cassandra Walker said that ketamine allowed her brain to process antidepressants the way they were supposed to.
Ketamine therapy is not an "either/or" treatment: Walker said she supplemented what she was already doing to maintain her mental health, such as taking her medication, going to therapy about every two weeks, and exercising, sleeping, and eating well.
After starting treatment, she said that her outlook on everything improved: the world became brighter, the colors more saturated. It was as if a weight had been lifted from her.
While ketamine is the only psychedelic Thakker prescribes, he says research is quickly emerging on the benefits of other drugs, such as magic mushrooms and LSD.
"The future is in psychedelics and their use in mental health, and I would say it's very, very promising based on the evidence I've seen."
Based on materials from globalnews.ca
