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I agree with Minerva that intravenous Ketamine is not one to try at home for depression, or indeed chronic pain. However I would like to bring to Minerva's attention and to the attention of readers in general, my experience with using low dose sublingual ketamine in a heterogeneous group of patients with chronic pain, reflecting over 200 patient years of experience of using this treatment modality and something that these patients do use at home[1]. By reading the paper you will see that whilst sublingual ketamine treatment is a therapy that is not consistently helpful, for a small group of patients, it does appear to afford some symptom relief.
[1] Jaitly V. Sublingual Ketamine in chronic pain: Service evaluation by examining over 200 patient years of data. Journal of Observational Pain Medicine – Volume 1, Number 2 (2013) ISSN 2047-0800 (open access)
Competing interests:
Over the years I have attended meetings and had lunches/dinners sponsored by a range of pharmaceutical firms and equipment manufacturers.
06 May 2014
Varun K Jaitly
Consultant Anaesthetist with an interest in Pain Medicine
Wrightington Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust
Department of Anaesthesia, Royal Albert Edward Infirmary, Wigan Lane, Wigan WN1 1NN
Re: Wagner’s migraine and other stories . . .
I agree with Minerva that intravenous Ketamine is not one to try at home for depression, or indeed chronic pain. However I would like to bring to Minerva's attention and to the attention of readers in general, my experience with using low dose sublingual ketamine in a heterogeneous group of patients with chronic pain, reflecting over 200 patient years of experience of using this treatment modality and something that these patients do use at home[1]. By reading the paper you will see that whilst sublingual ketamine treatment is a therapy that is not consistently helpful, for a small group of patients, it does appear to afford some symptom relief.
[1] Jaitly V. Sublingual Ketamine in chronic pain: Service evaluation by examining over 200 patient years of data. Journal of Observational Pain Medicine – Volume 1, Number 2 (2013) ISSN 2047-0800 (open access)
http://www.joopm.com/index.php?journal=joopm&page=article&op=view&path[]=26
(last accessed 16 2 14)
Competing interests: Over the years I have attended meetings and had lunches/dinners sponsored by a range of pharmaceutical firms and equipment manufacturers.