User:Geraldwgaines

I am a new user to Wiki as of July 2014, please forgive any missteps as I learn the community.

The reason I joined is to influence the perception of mental illness and its treatments. The stigma associated with mental illness prevents many from seeking help, and many of the definitions in Wiki inadvertently reinforce those stereotypes and stigmata.

My first attempted contributions are on the topic of Ketamine, a 50 year old anesthetic that has found a new life in the treatment of physical and emotional pain. It has been so effective that Yale University has hailed it as the greatest discovery in mental health science in 50 years.

Despite that notice, Ketamine is not being investigated as a clinical treatment - instead, there has been a half century effort to produce a patented alternative. Those alternatives have consistently been positioned as showing potential for greater efficacy with lower side effects than Ketamine. That is a dis-information campaign that is supported by loose language on the Ketamine page.

The dis-information about Ketamine is with regard to side effects and efficacy. The side effects are dose dependent and all of the bad side effects are at abuse dosages that are literally a hundred times higher than medical uses. The researchers then compare those side effects of ketamine at high dose compared to the side effects of their meds at low dosages. Hundreds of patients have achieved sustained remission in depression symptoms at commercial ketamine clinics, yet the treatment is still considered experimental.

As there is no drug industry or government effort to develop a clinical ketamine protocol, there is no research being done to show the efficacy of such treatment. Instead, a cottage industry of anesthesiologists and psychiatrists have opened dozens of commercial ketamine infusion clinics. Those clinics have treated thousands of patients, if they have the cash. Insurance coverage, in the absence of published reports and with extremely high provider charges, is not imminent.

People are suffering and dying for lack of a treatment that exists today and the unfounded prejudices about it.