> However, the average ketamine “user” consumes 500-1000mg of ketamine per day, which is 100-300x as much as therapeutic use (0.5mg/kg)
For users weighing one kilo. For users of a more normal weight, you’re off by an order of magnitude.
For users weighing one kilo. For users of a more normal weight, you’re off by an order of magnitude.
Not sure where the 300x is coming from, since that's an average body weight.
Ketamine tolerance upon continued use can reach some really wild levels. I’ve worked with people who reported that a 1g single dose nasally won’t get them properly high.
I think for therapy with humans it is also given as a nasal spray.
So I'd say it's used in humans for anesthetic too.
And guys, I'd the doc says after your first dislocation you should have the surgery to prevent it from happening again, you should listen to them so you don't spend a night in excruciating pain three months later.
For what it's worth, when I came too I felt like I was black out drunk, not a good experience for a previous alcoholic
https://www.drugs.com/dosage/ketamine.html says 1-4.5mg/kg for anaesthesia, with more as needed to maintain
https://reference.medscape.com/drug/ketalar-ketamine-343099 says 0.5mg/kg for depression off label, repeated twice weekly.
https://dancesafe.org/ketamine/#:~:text=30-60%20mg says that the common recreational dose is 30-60mg, so the number mentioned by the author is between 50 and 250 'bumps' a week? I'm not familiar with ketamine usage, but that seems to be a very high number.
Many recreational users insufflate (snort) ketamine, and that ROA has much lower bioavailability than IM or IV - IIRC, it's something like 20% for insufflation, 80% for IM, and 100% for IV. Thus, you need a much higher dose for snorting.
For recreational users snorting (I think it's 'insufflate', rather than insulate), the DanceSafe link is clear that that's the method (it says 'snort 30-60mg').
As you say, you'd expect users to need a much higher dosage for snorting than IV.
Either way, the article has since been silently updated to remove the 100-300x claim that I took issue with, so either I, or someone else, managed to get the point across to the author.
Haha, auto-correct strikes again!
0.5mg/kg for a 70kg person would be 35mg, which is not 100-300X less than the 500-1000mg number.
The claim isn’t even close to mathematically correct. It’s also easy to find clinics giving IV or IM doses at significantly higher rates.
This entire article does not leave a good impression, to be honest. It feels like the author started with one conclusion and then made assumptions to fill in the blanks to write the article.
> However, a heavy ketamine “user” often consumes multiple grams per week, which is a lot more than therapeutic use (0.5mg/kg about once per week to every other week).