Drug info - Help w/ Ketamine Page: Using Ketamine

[Beltane]

Next section of Ketamine page. Please look it over and offer suggestions and/or corrections.

Thanks-

- Beltane

Using Ketamine

Ketamine can be taken nasally (insufflated/snorted,) orally, rectally or injected intramuscularly or intravenously. There seems to be a crucial line where the user will lose grasp of his or her senses; this is often referred to as the K-Hole. General tolerance is appreciable and several weeks between uses are required to return to original tolerance. Effects are linear with dose and enjoyable experiences can be had at low dosages.

Ketamine is relatively safe in comparison with most other recreational drugs. Overdosing on a self-administered dose of Ketamine is nearly impossible because it has a wide safety margin and the user would pass out long before they could inject enough to be lethal.

Dosage depends on method of administration. Food should not be consumed within an hour and one-half before Ketamine use and should be avoided for longer if possible as nausea and vomiting are not uncommon possible. Dosages and reactions vary greatly from person to person. Following are charts showing approximate Ketamine dosages in mg (by administration type.)

Insufflation/Nasal Dosages
Powder for nasal use are produced by gently boiling off of solution or simply allowing it to evaporate. Nasal doses are highly unlinear next to oral and IM doses. The effects are quite different at low doses. A low dose nasally will be short and much different from a comparable oral dose.

By body weight Approximate total
Light .15 mg / lb 10 – 15 mg
Common .3 mg / lb 15 – 30 mg
Strong .5 - .75 mg / lb 60 – 125 mg
K-hole 1 mg / lb 100 – 250 mg

Onset : 5 - 15 minutes
Duration : 45 - 60 minutes
Normal After Effects : 1 - 3 hours

Light dose- A small line of Ketamine will induce a mild, slightly-psychedelic euphoria not dissimilar to Ecstasy. Visual perception and sense of touch are amplified.

Common dose- Things move in slow motion, buzzing or ringing in the ears, disconnection from one’s surroundings, loss of co-ordination and motor skills up to and including the inability to move.

Strong dose- Things move in slow motion, buzzing or ringing in the ears, disconnection from one’s surroundings, loss of co-ordination and motor skills up to and including the inability to move.

K-hole dose- At this level there is a complete separation of mind and body. It becomes difficult to move or speak or do anything other than lie staring at the ceiling.

Mega doses (250 mg+) User rapidly attains a state of unconsciousness.

Oral Dosages
By body weight Approximate total
Light .6 mg / lb 50 – 100 mg
Common .75 – 2 mg / lb 75 – 300 mg
Strong 1.5 – 2.5 mg / lb 250 – 450 mg
K-hole 3 – 4 mg / lb 500+ mg

Onset : 5 - 20 minutes (depending on stomach contents)
Duration : 90 minutes
Normal After Effects : 4 - 8 hours

Oral doses are prepared from a powder by placing the powder in a cup and pouring about 1 cm of hot water (tap should be ok) in and stiring to solution. The remainder of the cup is filled with an acid such as orange juice. Ketamine itself tastes quite bad. Ketamine is also found occasionally in pill form.
Taking Ketamine orally results in slightly different effects. The drug goes straight to the liver where it is processed into norketamine. Norketamine has greater numbing, sedating and pain-killing effects and will make it more difficult for a user to walk or move around. The psychedelic effects come on slower and the whole experience can last much longer- up to 4 hours.

Rectal Dosages
By body weight Approximate total
Light .6 mg / lb 50 – 100 mg
Common .75 – 2 mg / lb 75 – 300 mg
Strong 1.5 – 2.5 mg / lb 250 – 450 mg
K-hole 3 – 4 mg / lb 500+ mg

Onset : 5 - 10 minutes
Peak : 20 - 30 minutes
Duration : 2 - 3 hours
Normal After Effects : 4 - 8 hours

Some users who choose the rectal administration route use a syringe without the needle. The desired dosage can be put in the syringe, inserted (using lubricant) and injected. Rectal use is similar to oral in that it has a lower peak, but longer duration.

Intramuscular Dosages
By body weight Approximate total
Light .15 mg / lb 15 – 30 mg
Common .2 mg / lb 25 – 50 mg
Strong .5 mg / lb 40 – 100 mg
K-Hole .75 mg / lb 60 – 125 mg
Anesthetic 1 mg / lb 100 – 200 mg

Onset : 1 - 5 minutes (depending on dose and injection location)
Duration : 45 - 60 minutes
Normal After Effects : 2 - 4 hours

Muscle pain at the injection site can happen occasionally and can persist for several days. This soreness can be limited by using a smaller gauge needle and by injecting slowly. IM and IV administration produce a higher peak and have a shorter duration than other administration methods.

Intravenous Dosages
Intravenous dosages are approximately half of intramuscular dosages. IV administration is unwise and absolutely NOT recommended. It’s likely that a user would lose consciousness before getting the needle out of his or her arm. An IV Ketamine dose has a much shorter duration than IM and can last as few as 10 minutes.

Links:

Ketamine: Dreams and Realities (http://www.maps.org/kdreams/)
Dr. Karl Jansen’s excellent reference book on Ketamine

Go to dissociatives forum (http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=24)
Dissociatives forum of www.drugs-forum.com

Go to the Ketamine forum (http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=92)
Ketamine forum of www.drugs-forum.com

Erowid – Ketamine (http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ketamine/)
Ketamine vault of erowid

Lycaeum- Ketamine Page (http://leda.lycaeum.org/?ID=148)
Main Ketamine page at lycaeum.org

[arman]

Originally Posted by Beltane

Overdosing on a self-administered dose of Ketamine is nearly impossible because it has a wide safety margin and the user would pass out long before they could inject enough to be lethal.

SWIM thinks with ketamine it is impossible to reach LD50 when injecting ketamine (IM/IV). If we do a simple calculation, LD50 mouse for ketamine is 400mg/kg IV, as humans are generally more sensitive to drugs we devide it by 2, so 200mg/kg is the estimated human lethal dose. So it requires at least 10 grams for 50% of 50kg human subjects die. Considering solubility of ketamine in water (20g/100ml) the user needs to inject 50ml of water (saturated with ketamine) to reach the lethal dose. It is practically impossible to inject such large amount of water without passing out before finishing it. So self-administered IV/IM ketamine lethal dosage is impossible. And this is true for nasal route too, cause such large amount (10g) can't be snorted in few minutes before the user pass-out.

But if used orally then it is possible to reach lethal dose by accident as user can dissolve 60g of ketamine in a medium-sized cup and drink it. As very large amount needed, subject's body will withdraw it from stomach by vomiting before stomach absorbs large amount of it. Plus the user perhaps notices the unusually large amount before consuming it. Rectal route is almost similar except rectal syringes is small like those for injection and usually can't hold 50ml but the down-side is that the body will be unable to withdraw it from body and can absorb all of it.

So, ISWIMHO it should be noted on this page that it is theoretically impossible to self-administer lethal dosage by IV, IM and nasal routes. (theoretically cause we used theoretical lethal dose and in real-world lower doses may be lethal to humans because human body is really complex and we know very little about it)

But the reason I wrote this is that you should write about the dangers associated with high doses, as all ketamine deaths caused not by lethal dosage but by accidents when the user is unable to physically protect himself as a result of complete body/mind dissociation. The most common dangerous ketamine use is administering high doses at bathtub/pool or taking it in other dangerous places which user should be able to do things physically. Like parties, raves or almost anywhere except in a safe room which is not public, preferably with a sober trip-sitter. Many users don't know about what they should expect so they fail to choose an environment suitable for ketamine trip.

Originally Posted by Beltane

Dosage depends on method of administration. Food should not be consumed within an hour and one-half before Ketamine use and should be avoided for longer if possible as nausea and vomiting are not uncommon possible.Dosages and reactions vary greatly from person to person. Following are charts showing approximate Ketamine dosages in mg (by administration type.)

Although the dosage table provided by erowid originally is good as a guide for users and generally well accepted on internet. But SWIM found from his personal experience and many ketamine reports that dosage seems not to vary greatly by person's weight. And body weight actually make very little difference on ketamine dosage (at least for recreational use). SWIM heard a lot of people (with completely different body weights) who administered 100mg IM and reached k-hole. Also 100mg IM widely considered standard k-hole dosage without considering the body weight. SWIM thinks you should not remove this table, just add a little note that in practice body weight plays a small role on ketamine recreational dosage.

Originally Posted by Beltane

Muscle pain at the injection site can happen occasionally and can persist for several days. This soreness can be limited by using a smaller gauge needle and by injecting slowly. IM and IV administration produce a higher peak and have a shorter duration than other administration methods.

In SWIM's experience, to reduce soreness it is also helpful to massage the injection site immediately after injecting, to help ketamine immediately get fully absorbed by small veins in muscle. It will also help ketamine spread inside muscle and prevent pressure/damage caused by injected solution.

[enquirewithin]

Ketamine is relatively safe in comparison with most other recreational drugs. Overdosing on a self-administered dose of Ketamine is nearly impossible because it has a wide safety margin and the user would pass out long before they could inject enough to be lethal.

It would seem to be hard to fatally overdose taking ketamine, but in some way it is not a safe recreational drug. It is very easy for users to damage themselves, mainly by falling over (if you like, by reaching a k-hole, or anesthesia, at an inconvenient time and place.)

Look at the stories of John Lilly, Margaret Moore and DW Turner. Two of them died from ketamine-related accidents, the other nearly a few times. Lilly once said that ketamine should be illegal because it was easy for people to fall and hurt themselves.

Chronic use does cause temporary psychological problems. There is a potential for psychological addiction, although this seems fairly rare.

Muscle pain at the injection site can happen occasionally and can persist for several days. This soreness can be limited by using a smaller gauge needle and by injecting slowly. IM and IV administration produce a higher peak and have a shorter duration than other administration methods.

Soreness/ bruising can result from (a) not hitting muscle properly (being inaccuarate) and (b) using short needles/ not inserting the needle far enough into the muscle. Visible bruising is caused by the same.

Light dose- A small line of Ketamine will induce a mild, slightly-psychedelic euphoria not dissimilar to Ecstasy. Visual perception and sense of touch are amplified.

Snifiing small doses of ketamine is very popular in clubs in SE Asia. People sniff lines of perhaps 10-30mg and dance. Small doses make users talkative and able to dance!

[Paracelsus]

It would benefit a lot of readers if you would use the metric system (mg/kg) in dosage information. Or both mg/kg and mg/lb.
You kinda insisted on methods of administration and dosage. Some more detailed description of effects (I know it depends on dosage and administration) would be nice too.