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Vicc · 01-20-2008, 09:08 AM

In a past discussion about Paula Abdul’s behavior, I suggested that it might be possible that her behavior might be the result of ketamine use, whereupon some members who had used ketamine said that they didn’t experience the kinds of feelings and emotions ms Abdul demonstrated on various TV clips. The fact that they didn’t doesn’t automatically mean she was not under the influence of this drug.

Ketamine is classified as a hallucinogen, or euphoric drug, and is a popular recreational drug among those who can get it (mostly by burglarizing veterinary clinics, where this medically expensive drug is used to treat cats and dogs), as is marijuana, but may be an even more pleasant experience for some users.

According to Drugs.com, here is an excerpt from an official FDA warning about ketamine:

SPECIAL NOTE
EMERGENCE REACTIONS HAVE OCCURRED IN APPROXIMATELY 12 PERCENT OF PATIENTS.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MANIFESTATIONS VARY IN SEVERITY BETWEEN PLEASANT DREAM-LIKE STATES, VIVID IMAGERY, HALLUCINATIONS, AND EMERGENCE DELIRIUM. IN SOME CASES THESE STATES HAVE BEEN ACCOMPANIED BY CONFUSION, EXCITEMENT, AND IRRATIONAL BEHAVIOR WHICH A FEW PATIENTS RECALL AS AN UNPLEASANT EXPERIENCE.

I suggest that thisi s a pretty good description of what I saw in those clips, and that she may not one of those who feel the experience was unpleasant.

I think that if I was making great money in almost every show business enterprise I tried, and if I were warned that my career could come to a sudden end.either through disability or via disclosure that I suffered from an incurable and controversial disorder, I would probably try anything to suppress the symptoms and deny the disease.

Her announcement that Embril helped relieve her symptoms is not the first time this drug has been mentioned in RSD literature, but thus far that drug has only been mentioned in case studies, which aren’t widely regarded as reliable by medical professionals. In the period since I first saw it mentioned, I haven’t seen it widely adopted as a treatment of choice for RSD, and suspect that she may have benefited from placebo-effect that ended.

Embril is about as dangerous as drugs get, and if I were Paula Abdul I would switch to ketamine the day after I first learned of it. Unilke Embril, ketamine is widely advertised as effective against RSD, and its side-effects are not nearly as dangerous, so I would find a doc willing to give me enough ketamine to sustain my career. In fact, if my RSD was as severe as it is for many of you, and if I had the money, I’d look up a doc for me: I would prefer euphoria and activity over pain and disability any time.

One can hardly turn on a cable news channel without learning about another “celebrity” being prescribed dangerously high doses of drugs, so I don’t think it would be difficult for someone in her position to find a doc willing to give her enough ketamine to keep her symptoms under control (and hopefully not as much as some might prefer),

I’m not a Paula Abdul fan: I’ve never watched American Idol, and the only music video of hers that I saw was one that my son pointed out was a total rip-off of Bob Fosse’s “FlyAir-rotica” from the movie All That Jazz. It was, except the dancers kept their clothes on.

I have also posted in the past that ketamine “studies” have been less than honest, so I don’t have a horse in this race, but I don’t think she deserves condemnation until we know more (which we may never learn). I can’t condemn her for doing something I would do.

I think that her later denial of RSD, combined with a few incidents that could, according to the FDA description, be the result of ketamine abuse, makes her an unlikely candidate for spokesperson for RSD, but that probably isn’t her goal anyway…Vic