Ketamine Induced Cystitis

In this month’s blog post, I want to talk about Ketamine Induced Cystitis, also known as Ketamine Bladder Syndrome or, more informally, as simply ketamine bladder.  I have occasionally been asked if aloe vera can help with bladder pain related to ketamine use and I thought it might be interesting to write about the topic here. Ketamine is an anaesthetic with dissociative and sedative properties.  In the UK, it is used in both human and veterinary medicine, but is has also been taken as a recreational drug since the 1970s.  In recent years, such recreational misuse has increased drastically.  In 2007, twelve months after ketamine was made an illegal Class C drug, only 0.8% of 16-24 year olds reported having used it in that year1.  By 2011, this figure had risen to 2.1%2 and ketamine was reclassified as a Class B drug in 2014.  As of March 2023, 3.8% of 16-24…