How can ketamine treat depression? Pete Davidson admits using former rave drug to treat ‘constant’ blues

Pete Davidson has revealed that he previously used ketamine to treat his depression, sparking new interest in the former drug therapy turned mental health treatment.

In 2019, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of ketamine in a very specific form — an inhalable nasal spray — for adults with depression not helped by other medications.

That was a crucial moment. Ketamine’s reputation as a rave drug that sends users into euphoric out-of-body experiences, coupled with uncertainties about how it acts on the brain and its designation as a controlled substance, has held back clinical research for decades.

But the past decade has seen a growing body of research and a flurry of anecdotal reports pointing to ketamine’s power to relieve depression symptoms, at least in the short term, in less than an hour.

Thousands of ketamine clinics have recently sprung up nationwide where people with difficult-to-treat depression can receive intravenous infusions of a refined version of the drug in a cozy environment under the watchful eye of a psychiatrist.

Esketamine is a nasal spray version of a potent form of ketamine and is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of depression not relieved by other agents, such as SSRIs.

Before entering an inpatient mental health treatment facility earlier this summer, Mr Davidson said he had undergone ketamine treatments.

He has spoken candidly about his depression resulting from the loss at age seven of his father, a New York City firefighter, who last encountered the World Trade Center before it collapsed into rubble.

The comedian said in 2020, “I’m always depressed, all the time. I constantly have to get myself out of it.

“I wake up depressed, but now I know my steps. I need to get out and get some sun, or take a walk. It’s all programming yourself to fool your brain.’

He used the FDA-approved spray called esketamine, marketed as Spravato.

It is more potent than the anesthetic that partygoers know and love, but when administered in the presence of a medical professional, it has been shown to be generally safe.

After the patient is given the IV, a medical professional will monitor them in the office for about two hours until potential side effects such as dizziness, euphoria, and vertigo go away on their own.

Its approval in 2019 represented a major victory for psychiatry, a field that has struggled to develop new and effective treatments for major depression due to a combination of insufficient research funding and the lengthy process of trial and error that is part of every clinical trial of drugs for depression. and a general lack of innovation.

According to New York-based psychiatrist Dr. Jeff Ditzell, who administers ketamine treatments, not just anyone can get ketamine treatment. There is a lengthy screening process that takes into account the person’s psychiatric history before determining eligibility

In a treatment room at Ditzell’s clinic, patients spend an hour, fitted with a sleep mask, listening to theta brain waves, which are the dominant frequency in healing, high creative states and remembering emotional experiences. Patients report feeling “stoned” and many say they have had out-of-body experiences

Many of the major depression treatments work the same way because they target the same neurotransmitters, serotonin and neuropinephrine.

These medications are collectively known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs).

While there have been some changes in the formulation of these medications, they have generally remained stagnant, frustrating mental health professionals and the approximately 21 million Americans living with major depression.

The debut of the ketamine nasal spray was intended to help fill the gap in innovation that has been hampered by years of failed clinical trials.

Ketamine fights depression symptoms in a completely different way. While conventional treatments increase levels of naturally occurring chemicals such as serotonin, ketamine increases levels of a glutamate, a neurotransmitter crucial for mood regulation, learning, memory and information processing.

Research into controlled substances as legitimate medical interventions is rapidly developing, leading to increased interest in the uses of ketamine, as well as MDMA, or ecstasy, and psilocybin, the psychoactive chemical in magic mushrooms.

Findings from a recent study conducted by researchers at Mass General Brigham Hospital in Boston suggested that ketamine infusions worked just as well in treating major depression in humans as the “gold standard” electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 403 people aged 45 who had treatment-resistant depression participated. The group was divided into two, with one half receiving ECT three times a week, while the rest received ketamine intravenously twice a week for three weeks.

The results showed that both treatments caused depression relief and an improvement in quality of life. And while ECT carried several side effects, such as memory loss and muscle problems, ketamine recipients reported only one side effect: an out-of-body experience at the time of treatment.

Research on the long-term effects of using ketamine as a treatment for depression is ongoing. But many depression sufferers have heaped the praises, including 52-year-old Niki from Canada who credited ketamine treatments as saving her life.

Niki suffered from treatment-resistant depression and seizures, which doctors blamed on anxiety and said nothing could help her. At one point, she was taking 11 pills every day, including anti-anxiety and antidepressants, a mood stabilizer, and a muscle relaxant. Instead of helping her, Niki said she “felt like a zombie.”

But after meeting with a doctor for a ketamine session in which she took a ketamine pill followed by an intranasal dose of more ketamine, Niki said the stress weighing on her shoulders disappeared, adding, “I felt so comfortable and I felt safe.’

After just a month of weekly sessions, she was able to return to work full-time.

Ten months later, she now takes only one pill as a maintenance dose once every two months.

Her story does not stand alone. Researchers at MindPeace Clinics, a ketamine therapy clinic in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington DC, found that more than 70 percent of patients taking the drug showed improvements in their mood over a year, with 40 percent reporting no symptoms . of depression after 10 routine infusions of the drug.