More On Ketamine (Courtesy of the StudMuffin)

Courtesy of Jim Broatch, the StudMuffin of RSDSA (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome Association -- an organization in need of a new name, if ever there was one...). Jim and His Fellow StudMuffins at RSDSA do phenomenal work for those mired in suffering now, all the while keeping their heads above water, their eyes on the prize of future therapies and happenin' research.

In fact, kiddos, the real "read" here is not this pitiful little article from People magazine (I mean, the magazine's editors *would* look at the most extreme and ill-afforded "therapy" out there -- forget the hundreds of thousands who have no access to it, or who don't believe in its claims, or who are just too far gone into misery... and co-morbidity. I rhymed!) -- no, the real read is in this link that Jim Broatch also provides, which is to legitimate information to help you make up your mind about the ketamine angle based on solid stuff.

To read up on my illegitimate posting on ketamine, much of it having to do with Laura Beckett and her sad odyssey, take a gander here. I promise it is all uninformed opinion. You're welcome.

All of that said, here's the gist of the People article, and best wishes to John Roach, its subject.

I love the title!

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This Man CHOSE to be in a Coma

After years of excruciating pain that drove him to thoughts of suicide, John Roach decided to gamble on a controversial new treatment-a ketamine-induced coma.

August 10, 2009
By Alicia Dennis
PEOPLE Magazine

John Roach looks up at wife Rosemary from his bed in room 133 at the Hospital San Jose in Monterrey, Mexico. "Don’t say goodbye," he pleads as doctors prepare to send the burly grandfather form Allentown, Pa., into unconsciousness. "It’s okay," Rosemary says. "Pleasant dreams."

Soon, deep in a coma, John descends into a frightening, topsy-turvy world. Scene: He’s in a strange house with paintings on the ceiling. Scene: He’s watching as his cat rushes into the path of an oncoming car. Scene: He’s a World War II soldier fighting on a blood-soaked battlefield. "It was weird and frightening," John recalls of his voluntary, five-day ordeal in late May. "But I needed to do something."

Suffering from a debilitating neuromuscular disorder called reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) , John, 50, is one of about 100 chronic-pain patients resorting to a radical new treatment in search of relief-medically induced coma using ketamine, a surgical anesthetic and hallucinogen sold illegally as "Special K." advocates say ketamine comas can be a godsend for some. "We're giving people in excruciating pain a normal life," says Dr. Robert J. Schwartzman, neurology chairman at Philadelphia's Drexel University College of Medicine; since coma therapy isn't FDA approved, he's sent more than 60 patients to Germany and Mexico. But other experts say the treatment, which costs as much as $ 50,000 with travel, is too risky. "Vulnerable people are getting something expensive and potentially dangerous," says Dr. Norman Harden of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Some 200,000 people suffer from RSD, in which ordinary pain escalates to crippling levels. "Think of holding a blowtorch to your skin," says John, whose entire left side was affected after he fell down rotted stairs and tore his rotator cuff in 2002. Because ketamine blocks pain receptors, Schwartzman says, very high doses can restart the nervous system, "like rebooting a computer."

Brandy Sachs, 23, of Christianburg, Va., had spent seven years in a wheelchair after a finger injury and ankle sprain spiraled into all-over agony. "I was giving her pain meds in doses that would have killed a horse," says her family doctor, Jeremy Freeman. Last fall, after undergoing a five-day coma in Germany, Brandy needed months of therapy to relearn how to walk, talk and eat. But now, she says, she's pain-free and plans to start her master's degree: "It's a miracle."

Not always. In October 2008, RSD patient and mother of three Laura Beckett, 47, of Magnolia, N.J., developed pneumonia while in a coma in Germany and was kept under for three weeks as doctors fought to save her. She woke up paralyzed from the neck down and now lives at a rehabilitation center. "It's an understatement to say things went wrong," says husband Karl, though he adds his wife's pain was so unbearable they would likely choose the coma again. Says Schwartzman: 'We've had tragic outcomes. But this is only attempted after every other treatment has been tried."

John, a jovial retired phone-company worker, had tried surgery, physical therapy and heavy doses of pain medication, including OxyContin, codeine and fentanyl. When nothing worked, he thought of ending it all. "I couldn't be touched," he says. "I couldn't hold my wife's hand or sleep next to her. It wasn't the life I wanted."

Back home now, John is amazed that he's been virtually pain-free. Getting regular ketamine booster injections (at non-coma levels) from his physicians, Schwartzman and Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick, he has removed a protective compression sleeve he wore for years and can once again wear his watch and wedding ring. Best of all, he can walk hand in hand with Rosemary and scoop up his granddaughters for hugs. "I have been missing all the little joys in life," he says. "Now I want to live every one of them."

RSDSA: Information on Ketamine Treatment