Putting Out Pain

Ketamine got its start as an anesthesia medicine in the 1960s. It was used on the battlefields of the Vietnam War.

At lower doses, it can help ease pain. Ketamine helps sedatives work and may help people need fewer addictive painkillers, like morphine after surgery or while caring for burns.

When misused, ketamine can change your sense of sight and sound. You can have hallucinations and feel out of touch with your surroundings — and even from yourself. It can make it hard to speak or move, and it’s been abused as a date-rape drug.

“Outside of the clinic, ketamine can cause tragedies, but in the right hands, it is a miracle,” says John Abenstein, MD, president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.