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A new way to treat depression, anxiety and chronic neuropathic pain
Newsletter No 6 (5th November 2021)
1 in 7 women experience Postpartum Depression (PPD) during the year after giving birth. For some, this triggers MDD.
Can ketamine help?
Postpartum Depression is a disabling condition affecting not only mothers but the infant and family unit as well.
A recent double-blinded RCT was conducted on 134-women scheduled for Caesarian section. Half received a single dose of ketamine (0,5mg/kg) as part of the anaesthetic package. In the intervention group, depression scores were significantly lower at 2 and 4-weeks postpartum than the control group.
A 2019 Chinese study enrolling 654-women confirmed the benefit of ketamine in reducing risk of PPD.
We would love to hear your views and answer any questions you might have.
This is KCSA's 6th newsletter...
It's time for us to hear from you, the recipients.
If you have any questions about KCSA or ketamine not covered on our website, please email them directly to:
info@ketamineclinics.co.za
We will post a selection of your questions and KCSA's answers in upcoming newsletters.
KCSA Bedfordview turns one!
Birthday wishes to all at our Bedfordview branch in Gauteng.
The Bedfordview Clinic is a 'jewel in the crown' of the KCSA group and is beautifully appointed and very upmarket.
Well done to Loralie, Shaun and the team on getting through the torrid times of COVID and administering over 650-infusions.
Take a walk through the Bedfordview KCSA branch by clicking the link below.
KCSA offers outpatient ketamine infusions at the following locations:
BEDFORDVIEW (GP)
CONSTANTIA (WC)
UMHLANGA (KZN)
HILTON (KZN)
20-KCSA staff members from four clinics around the country attended training in KZN during October.
An intensive training and evaluation program awaited attendees who arrived at the Riverside Hotel in Durban on Saturday 30th October.
Including 8 new members of the 'KCSA-family' from Cape Town, delegates were introduced to the neuroscience behind ketamine, the safe 'KCSA-way' of administering outpatient ketamine infusions, and four of our doctors shared very moving accounts of patients they had treated recently.
The weekend concluded with the awarding of SOKePSA membership certificates (both clinical and non-clinical categories), followed by dinner.
Anecdotally, the ability of ketamine to induce dramatic but short-lived remission of the core features of autism is encouraging.
Watch this space... Could ketamine infusions possibly benefit children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD)?
The mechanism of action of ketamine has striking overlap with the theory of ASD as a disorder of synaptic communication and neuronal networks.
Neurexin gene deletion dramatically increases the risk of developing autism - and ketamine's target, the NMDA receptor, is front and centre.
A study published last year in Cerebral Cortex shows probable translational evidence of a rodent study to humans with autism. In the mouse model, sub-anaesthetic ketamine normalized thalamic dysconnectivity suggesting a role for NMDA-R antagonists in ASD.
In the next newsletter..
Should patients with scheduled ketamine infusions stop taking benzodiazepines and lamotrigine? KCSA Anaesthetist, Dr P.J. Allen reviewed outcomes (improvement in PHQ-9 scores) in 63-patients with MDD treated at our Umhlanga Clinic. He compared those taking BZD's and/or lamotrigine with those who were not. The results are telling. 
Dr PJ Allen |
How did KCSA start in South Africa?
Ketamine Clinics of South Africa (KCSA) was founded by Dr Alan Howard, a Consultant in Emergency Medicine who returned home permanently to his native South Africa from Ireland in 2019. To read more about Dr Howard, KCSA's flagship clinic in the Natal Midlands and the establishment of additional clinics around the country in three informative articles published in South African Psychiatry, click on the link below. |
