Chronic Pain

Generally, two types of patients with chronic pain may benefit from this medication: patients with chronic pain that have not had much success with other pain medications or treatments, and/or patients with chronic pain who plan to undergo surgery. Ketamine is used as a pain medicine because of a very specific action in the spinal cord on a set of receptors. However, not all patients in pain have these receptors activated. In 2018, the American Academy of Pain Medicine and the American Society of Anesthesiologists approved new guidelines for the use of ketamine as a treatment for chronic pain.

Several conditions, including cancer, CRPS, fibromyalgia, neuropathic pain, phantom pain, postherpetic neuralgia, sickle cell disease, and spinal injury, may result in chronic pain. Ketamine has been used to manage pain in all of these conditions.