NEWS VOICES
Welcome to News Voices, a weekly feature where members of the WVIA News team will talk with each other — and sometimes sources — about key things we've learned in recent stories we have been working on.
Today, Kat Bolus sits down with Lydia McFarlane to discuss the pros and cons of ketamine treatments. This is a transcript of their conversation as it aired on WVIA Radio.
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KAT: You're listening to Morning Edition here on WVIA Radio. I'm Kat Bolus, and this is News Voices. Today I'm here with Lydia McFarlane. She recently did a piece on the Good Drop. It's a ketamine infusion clinic in Avoca. So, Lydia, what did you learn at the Good Drop? You know what ketamine is?
LYDIA: Hi Kat, thanks for having me. So ketamine is what they call a dissociative anesthetic, so it kind of removes you from your body, and it is classified as a Schedule III drug by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which means that there is potential for abuse, but that it's also used clinically and that there's still potential for it to develop more uses in the medical field.
KAT: In reading your article, I was very interested in the nurses behind the Good Drop. Who are they? And, you know, why did they open this clinic?
LYDIA: So their names are Kelly Wilson and Mara Capozzi. And it's funny, they've been friends, they told me, for a very long time, and once they graduated college, they became emergency room nurses together. And what they noticed as emergency room nurses is that there were a lot of patients coming in who were coming in for mental health crises. So they thought there had to be a better way to treat people who are going through mental health struggles than just sticking them in a bed in the emergency room. So they looked into alternative treatments for mental health, and they discovered ketamine.
KAT: Who did you learn is a good candidate for the ketamine infusions?
LYDIA: Good candidates for ketamine infusions are people with treatment-resistant depression, people with chronic pain and people with anxiety.
KAT: So what are the risks, you know, associated with these infusions?
LYDIA: The risk with ketamine comes with too high or improper dosages, and this usually comes from self-medication, not typically something you're going to see in a safe, controlled environment, like a ketamine clinic, like the Good Drop. These side effects that come with an improper dose can be that you can almost get too dissociated, and this can come with confusion, hallucinations, a loss of control, and delirium, and it can feel difficult to get back to your normal state. There are also physical side effects that come with ketamine, and that can be harmful to the liver, hallucinations, again, difficulty urinating and trouble breathing. The infusion lasts about 40 minutes, and it is an IV that is diffused. It's ketamine that's diffused in saline, and it's a very small amount of ketamine, even. So they do not allow you to drive home after, so you have to have someone drop you off and pick you up from the appointment. But they want you to kind of just come down in this calming environment, think positive thoughts. They offer talk therapy for patients who want it after the infusions, if anything difficult came up while they were going through the infusion. If not, they can just sit in that calming room in silence or with the therapist, with one of the nurses, whatever their preference, until they feel back to normal enough to go home.
KAT: Do you have any takeaways from the patient that you spoke with?
LYDIA: Yeah, so I spoke with a patient. His name is Kyle Makavensky. And he had been going through different psych drugs for about 15 years. So he had a really difficult time just being prescribed drugs that were not working for him, and he decided that he wanted to get off of the drugs that he was on and try something new, because he said he just was not feeling like they were working. So he got a new psychiatrist who suggested trying ketamine therapy. What I got from speaking with Kyle is just that this could be a way for people with these chronic mental health issues to have a breakthrough. He told me that he had only been going to the Good Drop for a few months, and he already was seeing improvements in his mental health. It just shows me that in kind of this controlled environment, it's safer. And again, this is a drug that is it is legal for use in Pennsylvania.
KAT: Great. Well, Lydia, thank you so much for joining me today here on News Voices.
LYDIA: Thanks for having me, Kat.
READ MORE ABOUT THE KETAMINE TREATMENTS: NEPA advocates hope to destigmatize ketamine, treating mental health and chronic pain
