Anesthesiologists and other pain physicians use ketamine at subanaesthetic doses, to treat therapy-resistant chronic pain syndromes, especially complex regional pain syndrome type 1 (CRPS-1), post-herpetic neuralgia and neuropathic pain from peripheral nerve damage. The recent increase in the use of low dose ketamine in chronic pain is due to the positive effects observed during treatment and possibly due to the fact that physicians now add benzodiazepines or α2-adrenoceptor agonists to minimize psychotropic side effects.
The anesthetic ketamine is used to treat various chronic pain syndromes, especially those that have a neuropathic component Current data on short-term infusions indicate that ketamine produces potent analgesia during administration only, while three studies on the effect of prolonged infusion (4–14 days) show long-term analgesic effects up to 3 months following…
