Ketamine Tolerance: Are There Risks?

Ketamine is a medication that is used during surgery to sedate a person and make them lose consciousness. It is also known to reduce pain. More recently, ketamine has also been used as an antidepressant.

Due to its sedative qualities, ketamine is sometimes used as a date rape drug. On the street ketamine is known as Special K, Ket, or K. Regardless of how ketamine is used or what it’s called, people who abuse the drug regularly can develop a tolerance to its effects.

Is It Possible To Develop A Tolerance To Ketamine?

Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic drug that can create intense euphoric highs and vivid hallucinations when abused. While physical dependence and addiction to ketamine are considered rare, and withdrawal doesn’t typically cause dangerous physical symptoms, people can still develop strong psychological cravings for the drug. The addiction is primarily mental rather than physical, but this doesn’t make it any less difficult to overcome.

It’s possible to develop tolerance to ketamine after repeatedly using high doses of the drug. When tolerance develops, a person needs larger amounts of ketamine to achieve the same effects they once got from smaller doses, which increases the risk of overdose and other health consequences. Whether ketamine is used legally through medical supervision (in pill form or IV infusions) or illegally (often crushed and snorted), tolerance can develop through any method of use, making the drug more dangerous over time.

Factors That Influence Ketamine Tolerance

The speed at which someone develops tolerance to ketamine varies from person to person and depends on several important factors. Understanding these factors can help explain why some people develop tolerance faster than others.

Factors that affect ketamine tolerance include:

• Body Size and Weight: larger people may take longer to develop tolerance than smaller individuals
• Frequency of Use: how often someone uses ketamine significantly impacts how quickly tolerance builds
• Dose amount: higher doses lead to faster tolerance development than smaller amounts
• Time Between Uses: taking ketamine more frequently with less time between uses speeds up tolerance
• Cross-Tolerance: using other similar drugs can affect how quickly ketamine tolerance develops
• Individual Body Chemistry: each person’s metabolism and brain chemistry responds differently to drugs

Taking ketamine with other substances like alcohol, prescription opioids, or illegal drugs is very dangerous and greatly increases the risk of overdose and death.

Risks Of Ketamine Tolerance: The K-Hole

While ketamine addiction is not necessarily a risk, there are still many adverse effects and uncomfortable side effects that can be experienced with this drug. When large doses of ketamine are taken, a person can have what is called a “K-Hole”. This is typically thought of as one of the more unpleasant effects of ketamine. During a K-Hole, a person may be unable to move or speak and experience a slowed heart rate and slow breathing.

The risk of experiencing a K-Hole becomes stronger the more ketamine a person takes. As a person builds up a tolerance and consistently takes more, they are putting themselves at risk for a K-Hole.

Flashbacks

When the use of ketamine is enough to cause a K-Hole, a person may experience regular and scary flashbacks of the event later, even when they are not high.

Hallucinations

Ketamine use can produce powerful hallucinations during which the person may either see or hear things that are not happening.

Its hallucinogenic properties have been compared to those of LCD and other psychoactive drugs.

Aggressive Behavior

During a K-Hole, a person may have very little or no control of what they are doing and may behave in ways that are uncharacteristic of them, including acting aggressively.

Memory Loss

After a K-Hole experience, a person may have little recollection of what happened during it. When ketamine is abused repeatedly, it can cause permanent memory impairment.

Is Ketamine Tolerance Reversible?

It is possible to reverse a ketamine tolerance but it can take some time, such as the tolerance took time to build up in the first place. Just as a person becomes more tolerant to ketamine as they use more of it more frequently, they can reverse this by using less of the drug less frequently. The best way to reduce a person’s tolerance to ketamine is to stop using it completely for an extended period of time.

Treatment Programs For Ketamine Abuse

While ketamine is not known to be particularly addictive, it can still be dangerous when regularly abused. Treatment programs are widely available for treating a variety of drug and alcohol use disorders, including ketamine abuse.

Treatment options may include:

• outpatient programs
• inpatient programs
• day treatment
• various types of addiction therapy
• medical detox
• medication management
• case management
• peer support
• dual diagnosis treatment
• relapse prevention
• aftercare support

For more information about addiction recovery options, reach out to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Written by the Addiction Resource Editorial Staff