For decades, the world of Sherri Topple was eclipsed by the overwhelming weight of depression that did not seem to fix any medication or therapy.
It was not until he tried ketamine therapy that finally felt a feeling of relief.
At her worst, the woman in New Scotland says she could barely gather the energy to shower.
“You look at the shampoo bottle and think: ‘It’s too far. I can’t reach,” Topple said. “So you stay there with the water running and cry and think: ‘What the hell happens to me?'”
But after completing a clinical trial through the University of Dalhouse and receiving five doses of ketamine in January, he said everything changed.
“I have a life behind. I have a better life than the one I have had,” said Topple, who now likes to paint, gardening and writing, hobbies of those who was not able while he was very depressed.
Ketamine is a rapid action anesthetic used in medical or veterinary surgery. Selling it, possessing or producing it in Canada is illegal unless it is authorized for medical or scientific purposes. In recent years, it has become a tool used to treat severe depression that otherwise cannot be treated.
Approximately 20 patients in the province have received ketamine therapy since March 2023, according to the New Scotland Health Authority.
Psychiatrist Dr. Abraham Nunes directs the program through the mood disorders clinic at the QEII Health Sciences Center, but can only administer infusions compassionately due to limited resources and financing.
Nunes has witnessed firsthand how ketamine therapy has improved the lives of patients such as Tople.
“It is quite remarkable how it can work, even for people who have been depressed for so long. But it helps them feel much better that it really gives them hope that there is something that can be done,” said Nunes.
But some might think of ketamine as a drug of the club that is often used and abuses its hallucinogenic effects.
“If you are buying ketamine outside the street, using it in an uncontrolled way, or if you only give Ketamine vials, that, of course, would be, yes, a story of terror,” he said.
A forensic doctor ruled that ketamine was the main cause of the death of actor Matthew Perry. Perry was using the drug legally through his usual doctor, but began to look for more ketamine than his doctor would give him and buy him illegally, and finally suffered a fatal overdose in 2023.
Nunes says that the drug is “very safe” when used at a low dose in a medically supervised environment.
Because the treatment is not publicly financed in Nueva Scotia, Nunes and a handful of other health professionals offer their time to treat a patient every two weeks.
He said that the QEII Foundation is raising funds to hire two nurses and an administrative staff to expand the program and administer approximately eight treatments per day for two years as a pilot project.
He said from there, they would evaluate the data and seek more stable funds from the government.
CBC News asked the Department of Health and Welfare if he is considering financing ketamine therapy for treatment resistant depression.
In a statement, the department replied that it regularly reviews the procedures and services covered by MSI, the New Scotland insurance system, but “there are currently no plans to include the infusion treatment of ketamine as an insured procedure or ketamine as a benefit under the Nova Scotia Pharmacare program.”
Patients like Lisa Herritt could benefit from Ketamine therapy becoming part of the New Scotland Public Health System.
It was also treated by Nunes, but unlike Topple, Herritt requires infusions more regularly and had to seek treatment beyond what is offered through the QEII Foundation.
Finally, she was referred to a private clinic where she receives ketamine infusions every two weeks for a sum of $ 12,000 per year.
Although it is expensive, she says that going without treatment is not an option for her.
“I feel that I know what would happen, and I would return to where it was. And it is a horrible place,” said Herritt, who has suffered depression for more than 22 years since the birth of his first child.
He said that before receiving Ketamine, his depression was “unsurpassed.” Herritt disconnected from the life of his children and finally had to leave his 20 -year -old career as a pharmacist.
Herritt had tried many different medications to control his depression in vain. He even tested electroconvulsive therapy until he turned to ketamine as a last resort in 2023.
She has responded well to the drug and believes that ketamine therapy should be more accessible to New York’s scotians suffering with mental illness.
“If there is a treatment that would work after multiple failures, why wouldn’t we do it for people? It is not as if they did not deal with other diseases for which there is a treatment,” he said.
Talfple agrees.
“The Novas’s scotians need this … and need to be financed. It will save a lot of pain, a lot of injured and save a lot of money in unnecessary medical care,” he said.
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