On reading this article, it must be so hard for parents to see a way forward for treating their child's condition, but be roadblocked by either funding, or study participation criteria. If I observed my child have such a profound change as Mateo did, I think I might be incentivised to continue seeking these drugs for their treatment.
I know that it would be absolutely a criminal act to purchase ketamine illegally and administer it to my child, or to find a shady doctor who prescribe it off-label. I wonder how often these scenarios come up? And how often parents go out of their way to seek unapproved medicines (much like the AIDS Buyer's Clubs of the 90s).
With a nudge from AI, ketamine emerges as a potential rare disease treatment
111–120 of 140 posts
Re: With a nudge from AI, ketamine emerges as a potential rare disease treatment
#112It feels like in the last few years I have been constantly hearing about new research showing “fun” drugs as cures to a wide array of medical conditions. There’s marijuana for chronic pain, mushrooms for depression, mdma for ptsd, and now ketamine. They are often talked about as if they have little or no harmful side effects. I’m glad we are moving away from the incredibly destructive drug policies that have been in…
> The opioid epidemic was largely caused by the idea of them being non addictive being heavy pushed by the pharmaceuticals industry That's not true. The new idea was that a manageable addiction was preferred to chronic pain. The theory was that addiction to opioids could be managed. That turned out to be not the case. People started selling pills and buying street heroin and it spiraled out of control.
[deleted]
Re: With a nudge from AI, ketamine emerges as a potential rare disease treatment
#113“I advise strongly against trying to pursue ketamine, commercially or clinically, because of safety concerns and the risk of losing our opportunity to study it rigorously,” said Kolevzon [the clinical director]
Research to gain quality evidence is good, but sometimes other considerations outweigh that. Visible improvement in the sufferers of a rare disease may be such a case.
Re: With a nudge from AI, ketamine emerges as a potential rare disease treatment
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don’t glorify Kratom as some sort of miracle herb without downsides. Kratom is an opioid, full stop. People are under the mistaken impression that it’s less addictive because it’s less potent on a per-gram basis, but addicts simply end up consuming more grams to get similar highs. It’s not a “mood regulator” in any magical sense other than it’s an opioid and opioids temporarily put people in good moods. There…
I dunno about illegal drugs, they're illegal for a reason.
"I dunno about illegal drugs, they're illegal for a reason. "
They're illegal for many reasons, which are mostly: stupid, unjust, racist, harmful, and hypocritical.
Alcohol is one of the most harmful "recreational" drugs, but it's still perfectly legal, and no one is seriously proposing we make it illegal again, despite all the violence, addiction, sickness, and death it causes.
Virtually all of the illegal drugs are less harmful than alcohol, and when they are harmful it's largely because they're illegal, as it means people can't reliably get what they thought they were buying, which leads to overdoses.
Not to mention all of the organized crime, imprisonment, and ruining of lives that prohibition causes (especially of the poor and minorities).
Re: With a nudge from AI, ketamine emerges as a potential rare disease treatment
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to burst your bubble but U.S. drug policy is not as progressive as you might think. Cannabis is still illegal under federal law. And right now America is petitioning the WHO for a GLOBAL ban on KRATOM, a herb which has been used in Asia for hundreds of years with no recorded deaths. It has been in use in Europe and America for a couple of decades and still there are no deaths recorded from pure Kratom use. Krat…
Please don’t glorify Kratom as some sort of miracle herb without downsides. Kratom is an opioid, full stop. People are under the mistaken impression that it’s less addictive because it’s less potent on a per-gram basis, but addicts simply end up consuming more grams to get similar highs. It’s not a “mood regulator” in any magical sense other than it’s an opioid and opioids temporarily put people in good moods. There…
Disclaimer: Don't start using opioids. You could become addicted and end up using street drugs and overdose and die.
But the physiological reality is most opioids are harmless if dosed correctly. They do tend to make people happier although often less productive or driven.
We should focus on harm reduction. If registered addicts can get a regular dose of a pure opioid in a safe setting they can often be productive members of society albeit maybe less so than if they had never became addicts.
People function for decades on methadone or buperenorphine therapies with few if any ill effects besides constipation.
I would like to see a society where people with refractory depression were given the option to try opioids. Often depressiom is caused by obsessive ruminations on topics of anxiety or social isolation. By supressing the subjective feeling of psychic pain opioids directly attack these problems at their root. SSRIs may be more indirect. I bet in many cases it would help.
Opioid tolerance is a real thing but we should be looking for ways to attenuate the tolerance formation process.
It is bizarre to me how current progressive circles push cannabis but demonise opioids.
In my opinion as a non-addict but somebody who has had limited experience with various opioids years ago I think they are the closest thing to a psychological wonder drug.
I wonder if they are so demonised because they actually work?
It is true overdose can be lethal but this is a dosing issue with unpure stree products not an inevitability.
Driving too fast can be lethal too.
Re: With a nudge from AI, ketamine emerges as a potential rare disease treatment
#116It feels like in the last few years I have been constantly hearing about new research showing “fun” drugs as cures to a wide array of medical conditions. There’s marijuana for chronic pain, mushrooms for depression, mdma for ptsd, and now ketamine. They are often talked about as if they have little or no harmful side effects. I’m glad we are moving away from the incredibly destructive drug policies that have been in…
I think the harmful opoids were created due to heroin being illegal. The pharmaceutical version is purified and more potent in general, helping enshrine it as the go to for smuggling due to its smaller size/volume and then cut once it's imported to its destination. Just an opinion tho.
Re: With a nudge from AI, ketamine emerges as a potential rare disease treatment
#117It feels like in the last few years I have been constantly hearing about new research showing “fun” drugs as cures to a wide array of medical conditions. There’s marijuana for chronic pain, mushrooms for depression, mdma for ptsd, and now ketamine. They are often talked about as if they have little or no harmful side effects. I’m glad we are moving away from the incredibly destructive drug policies that have been in…
Recreational doses are quite a bit bigger than therapeutic doses. Take enough of any legitimate pharmaceutical and it’ll mess you up, too.
Re: With a nudge from AI, ketamine emerges as a potential rare disease treatment
#118I recently got my full genome sequenced via a website called nebula.org. I don't have any backgrounds in genetics but I was playing around with the raw data with some github apps. Thanks so much for this - I may be able to link this app in to my custom data. That would be so awesome if we could hook this up to personal genetics results. Even people who aren't sick do have mutations and it would be so cool seeing AI r…
A drug for what? I don't see how running an AI on your genome to find drugs for a non-existent genetic disease you don't have because the AI just hallucinated it.
Re: With a nudge from AI, ketamine emerges as a potential rare disease treatment
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oxycodone was pitched as non-addicting. Opioids generally were pitched as non-addicting because they were by prescription, under control of doctors. That protection scheme obviously failed miserably.
Oxycodone was created by a pharmaceutical company and marketed in a way that would earn them a profit. Marijuana and psilocybin have been around for literal ages with widespread use. LSD and ketamine are synthesized, but we have decades of experience with them.
Marijuana use was first banned in the 13th century with the death penalty, so yeah, it's an old problem.
Re: With a nudge from AI, ketamine emerges as a potential rare disease treatment
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please don’t glorify Kratom as some sort of miracle herb without downsides. Kratom is an opioid, full stop. People are under the mistaken impression that it’s less addictive because it’s less potent on a per-gram basis, but addicts simply end up consuming more grams to get similar highs. It’s not a “mood regulator” in any magical sense other than it’s an opioid and opioids temporarily put people in good moods. There…
I dunno about illegal drugs, they're illegal for a reason.
Is this satire?