The Effect of an Oral Ketamine on Post-herpetic Neuralgia - A case report-

Post-herpetic neuralgia is a kind of neuropathic pain that severely annoys patients all their life. Many remedies are now available, but a panacea does not exist Ketamine, a non-competitive N-methyl-D- aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, has been used for analgesia in many pain syndromes, including post-herpetic neuralgia. The routes of administration are variable, but intravenous and intraspinal options are popular. Oral Ketamine has been used effectively in a variety of pain syndromes, as well as in the premedication of children, or psychiatrically problemed patients. We applied oral Ketamine (0.3-0.7 mg/kg), with a continuous intravenous infusion of low dose Ketamine (0.1-0.2 mg/kg), to post-herpetic neuralgia patients. The patients reported various effects of the oral Ketamine.