What are the advanteges of Ketamine from other anestetics?
Never had it, but given it before. Typically, ketamine is given in a few situations. We give it intramuscularly to combative young kids who won’t sit still to have an i.v. placed to sedate them so we can induce general anesthesia. It’s also a very potent intravenous sedative with analgesic (pain killing) properties for adults, but adults can have severe hallucinations/nightmares with ketamine that kids don’t have. So, we usually give some valium-like drugs along with it to smooth out those effects and wipe out any memory of such nightmares. Ketamine is sometimes chosen over other sedatives because it’s less likely to stop your breathing or depress your cardiac system, which other sedatives can do. This is ideal in certain patients. It is actually the most widely used anesthetic in the world (not in the U.S., however), because if you give a bunch of it i.v. you can do many types of surgeries without intubating or giving other pain-killers, though the patient is still “kind of” awake. We
