![]() ![]() So it's difficult."īut ketamine's potential for side effects and abuse have been well established. "The flip side is, it's incredibly expensive to get quality data. "There's very minimal data to support the use of at-home ketamine," said Gerard Sanacora, PhD, MD, professor of psychiatry and director of the Yale Depression Research Program in New Haven, Connecticut, who has treated patients with ketamine and written about its role in treating mood disorders. ![]() Ketamine's reputation as a party drug, in addition to its side effects, and a lack of randomized, controlled trials to establish its safety and effectiveness for long-term use have drawn skepticism, including from clinicians concerned that widespread off-label prescribing for home use, without supervision, has jumped ahead of the available research. According to Smith's website, patients would get their monthly prescriptions of sublingual ketamine troches through local compounding pharmacies. These include tablets, troches, and infusions. Other forms of ketamine, a sedative that has traditionally been used around operations as an analgesic or anesthetic, are increasingly being prescribed off-label. He told the Washington Post that access to the drug was critical for his patients: "I'm like a medic running around on the battlefield taking care of wounded people, and ketamine helps the people I'm taking care of."Ī nasal spray derivative of ketamine known as esketamine (Spravato) is FDA approved for the treatment of treatment-resistant depression and related symptoms. Smith was licensed in at least 45 states, according to a previous Washington Post story, and had built an active patient pool of over 3,000, largely on Reddit where he posted as u/KetamineDrSmith in a subreddit where patients went to exchange information on ketamine treatment. His website now reads, "Please contact us through the patient portal for records transfer and assistance for referral to providers in you area due to the closing of our practice." The reason for the suspension and closure is still unclear, and Smith did not respond to multiple requests for comment from MedPage Today in time for publication. "I am in quite a bit of a shock about this." "My privileges to prescribe controlled substances have been suspended until further notice," Smith wrote in the email. ![]()
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