RESEARCH ARTICLE


Use of Ketamine in Ameliorating Opioid Withdrawal Symptoms During an Induction Phase of Buprenorphine



Sota Omoigui*, Fahad Hashmat, Zeudi Bernardo
L.A. Pain Clinic, 4019 W. Rosecrans Avenue Hawthorne, CA 90250, USA


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Creative Commons License
© 2011 Omoigui et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the L.A. Pain Clinic, 4019 W. Rosecrans Avenue Hawthorne, CA 90250, USA; Tel: 310-675-9121; Fax: 310-675-7989; E-mail: medicinechief@aol.com


Abstract

Ketamine can be used in the treatment of opioid withdrawal symptoms. Here are two case discussions of treatment of withdrawal symptoms in opioid dependent patients undergoing detoxification. Our case reports endorse the hypothesis that N-methyl D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonists may selectively inhibit the expression of opiate withdrawal. The use of intravenous ketamine can be considered as a bridge to successful initiation of buprenorphine to wean the patient off from high opioid doses while providing adequate analgesia during the transition period.

Keywords: Ketamine, opioid, opiate, withdrawal symptoms, buprenorphine..