Psychiatry’s Latest Insane Magic-Bullet Treatment for Depression: Why Ketamine?
www.counterpunch.org
Clinics offering ketamine infusions and injections for “treatment-resistant depression” are today claiming 24-48 hours remission, and ketamine is also being marketed for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorder. “Between 500 and 750 ketamine clinics have cropped up across the United States,” NPR reported early in 2024 (“The Ketamine Economy: New Mental Health Clinics are a ‘Wild West’ with Few Rules”). This may be an underestimation, as Psychiatric News reported later in 2024, “More than 1,500 intravenous (IV) infusion clinics have proliferated nationwide.” Ketamine industry revenues of $3.1 billion were reported in 2022, and projected to be $6.9 billion by 2030.

Some discussion of pharma-psychiatry stuff, i haven't gone through to verify claims (whether it's some crank journals), but the gist is that antidepressants show effectiveness around placebo for depression treatment, and thus not getting success from them and getting approved for ketamine shouldn't inspire confidence, as it shows the same effectiveness.

(obviously not a call to abandon medication if it helps you, who it helps - it helps)

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    7 days ago

    Well shit. Last I'd heard it was showing effectiveness in about 85% of cases.

    I legit think the reason for the decline of observed effectiveness is that as psych treatment has become more widely available they're running in to a much higher number of people whose symptoms are caused by either more severe traumas or more intractable socio economic circumstances than ssris can overcome.

    • plinky [he/him]
      ·
      7 days ago

      The results of the Stanford study? Both the placebo group and ketamine group showed large improvement post-infusion at one, two, and three days; the likely explanation, according to the researchers, was that heightened expectations created this improvement, as such expectations can be created by the belief that one is taking a powerful antidote. However, in comparing the effectiveness between the placebo group and the ketamine group, the researchers concluded: “A single dose of intravenous ketamine compared to placebo has no short-term effect on the severity of depression symptoms in adults with major depressive disorder . . . . Our results suggest that ketamine may actually be ineffective for the short-term treatment of MDD.” The patients were followed for two weeks and assessed at 7 days and 14 days, and the placebo group actually did better than the ketamine group, especially at the beginning of this time period.

      shrug-outta-hecks single injection and short term efffects are there, but long term seems whatevs (?)

      people sometimes misunderstand placebo point as well, that people believe it's medication. You eating sugar tablets you self-prescribed would help much less than eating sugar tablets prescribed by a doctor. So if they suggest some medication, it still might help randomly (or by matching your issue)