I thought ketamine was an anaesthetic. Is it really good for pain?

Ketamine was developed in the 1960s as an anaesthetic drug, but was later found to have significant pain relief and anti-depressant effects as well. So ketamine is now used at low doses to treat a variety of chronic pain syndromes, especially nerve pain.

Ketamine is licensed as an anaesthetic, but at low doses it’s widely used off-label to treat chronic pain, treatment-resistant depression, and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). It’s such a long-established drug that it’s no longer under patent, so it isn’t worth any drug companies applying for a new license. However, it’s now firmly established as a treatment option for chronic pain and treatment-resistant depression.

The pain medicine consultants at the Welbeck Pain Medicine centre have been treating patients with low-dose intravenous ketamine infusions since 2016 and have developed day-case outpatient treatment protocols with clinical effectiveness and safety at the forefront.