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Isn't regular Ketamine use especially bad for the bladder? I recall reading multiple anecdotes from the Erowid ketamine vaults where people lost their bladders

Isn't regular Ketamine use especially bad for the bladder? I recall reading multiple anecdotes from the Erowid ketamine vaults where people lost their bladders due to recreational Ketamine use.

jtmcmc 9y ago
yes https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27001627 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27001627
- newnewpdro 9y ago
  Why is this being downvoted?
IntronExon 9y ago
As the other poster said, yes. China is dealing with a fairly grim pattern of ketamine abuse cystitis. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879522615004121 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187952261... http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-33472971/inside-a-chinese-ketamine-village http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-33472971/inside-...
blobwalker 9y ago
It's a huge problem for recreational use. Some individuals have trouble with it even with prescription ketamine, but it's not nearly as common. Last time I asked him, my doctor hasn't had any patients who were forced to discontinue treatment because of it. n=1, but I've been receiving ketamine therapy for about 6 years and have not developed ketamine cystitis.
- collyw 9y ago
  Are recreational doses significantly higher than prescription doses? Why the difference?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jdietrich 9y ago
    Yes. "Recreational" users rarely suffer from ket bladder - it's people with serious addictions who are ending up in urology clinics. Users are reporting taking anything from 5 to 15 grams per day; even assuming that it's of very low purity, that's still orders of magnitude more than the doses being used to treat depression.
    - atomical 9y ago
      Ketamine is toxic to the bladder at any dose. I haven't found any long term research on this topic.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    The research for depression used much lower doses of ketamine than recreational use. One UK clinic was using about 80 mg as a max dose. https://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/news/first-uk-study-of-ketamine-for-people-with-severe-depression/ https://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/news/first-uk-study-of-ketam... A large recreational dose may be 250 mg. This is partly because the recreational dose is looking for different effects, so they use more. And because people build up a tolerance.
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      It’s also a result of ketamine typically being used in the context of other drugs, especially stimulants.
nylonstrung 9y ago
It is in the way that alcohol use is bad for one's liver- the cases where it results in bladder issues are those of abuse where doses massively larger than the therapeutic psychiatric dose are used on an ongoing basis. "A young adult male taking 1 g of ketamine could expect 85% of the drug to be excreted in the urine within 24 hours, and taking into account the average voiding rate of 6 × 300 mL per day, a urine concentration in excess of 1 mmol/L is theoretically possible, suggesting the scale of in vitro toxicity reported [in the study] and by others in cancer cell lines is relevant clinically," For reference, the dosages this is referring to are generally .5mg/kg, which of course is comparatively small
- fragmede 9y ago
  Back of the envelope... 175 lb ~= 80 kg, which means a single medical dose of 40 mg, with effects lasting weeks to months, compared to abuse-levels of 1g per day!
spiralx 9y ago
It's not great for your bladder, but it takes a serious ketamine habit to get to that point - I've known people doing a couple of ounces a week or more for several years who were fine, but tolerance builds up enough over time that people can consume some huge amounts on a daily basis - and injecting it intramuscularly makes it even easier to do so.
sneak 9y ago
Those people were using 10-20x a typical recreational dose, daily.

Isn't regular Ketamine use especially bad for the bladder? I recall reading multiple anecdotes from the Erowid ketamine vaults where people lost their bladders due to recreational Ketamine use.

jtmcmc 9y ago

yes https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27001627 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27001627

newnewpdro 9y ago
Why is this being downvoted?

IntronExon 9y ago

As the other poster said, yes. China is dealing with a fairly grim pattern of ketamine abuse cystitis. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879522615004121 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187952261... http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-33472971/inside-a-chinese-ketamine-village http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-china-33472971/inside-...

blobwalker 9y ago

It's a huge problem for recreational use. Some individuals have trouble with it even with prescription ketamine, but it's not nearly as common. Last time I asked him, my doctor hasn't had any patients who were forced to discontinue treatment because of it. n=1, but I've been receiving ketamine therapy for about 6 years and have not developed ketamine cystitis.

collyw 9y ago
Are recreational doses significantly higher than prescription doses? Why the difference?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jdietrich 9y ago
  Yes. "Recreational" users rarely suffer from ket bladder - it's people with serious addictions who are ending up in urology clinics. Users are reporting taking anything from 5 to 15 grams per day; even assuming that it's of very low purity, that's still orders of magnitude more than the doses being used to treat depression.
  - atomical 9y ago
    Ketamine is toxic to the bladder at any dose. I haven't found any long term research on this topic.
- DanBC 9y ago
  The research for depression used much lower doses of ketamine than recreational use. One UK clinic was using about 80 mg as a max dose. https://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/news/first-uk-study-of-ketamine-for-people-with-severe-depression/ https://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/news/first-uk-study-of-ketam... A large recreational dose may be 250 mg. This is partly because the recreational dose is looking for different effects, so they use more. And because people build up a tolerance.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    It’s also a result of ketamine typically being used in the context of other drugs, especially stimulants.

nylonstrung 9y ago

It is in the way that alcohol use is bad for one's liver- the cases where it results in bladder issues are those of abuse where doses massively larger than the therapeutic psychiatric dose are used on an ongoing basis. "A young adult male taking 1 g of ketamine could expect 85% of the drug to be excreted in the urine within 24 hours, and taking into account the average voiding rate of 6 × 300 mL per day, a urine concentration in excess of 1 mmol/L is theoretically possible, suggesting the scale of in vitro toxicity reported [in the study] and by others in cancer cell lines is relevant clinically," For reference, the dosages this is referring to are generally .5mg/kg, which of course is comparatively small

fragmede 9y ago
Back of the envelope... 175 lb ~= 80 kg, which means a single medical dose of 40 mg, with effects lasting weeks to months, compared to abuse-levels of 1g per day!

spiralx 9y ago

It's not great for your bladder, but it takes a serious ketamine habit to get to that point - I've known people doing a couple of ounces a week or more for several years who were fine, but tolerance builds up enough over time that people can consume some huge amounts on a daily basis - and injecting it intramuscularly makes it even easier to do so.

sneak 9y ago

Those people were using 10-20x a typical recreational dose, daily.