Despite the anaesthetic Class B drug ketamine being closely associated with horses, there are plenty of two-legged folk out there who dabble with the white stuff.
Just like cocaine users, those who choose to spruce up their nights out (or curtains-closed nights in) with little bags of ketamine are playing with fire – fire that will show itself via one’s nose.
Drugs are bad for you, everybody knows it, but some people only begin to truly realise the magnitude of it when their physical appearance deteriorates.
Ketamine is one of them that gets at you from the inside, specifically within your precious sniffer.
Per the Priory Group, the long-term effects of the substance is described as ‘severe’.
“When someone regularly abuses or is addicted to the drug, they’re likely to see their physical and mental health deteriorate and their quality of life diminish as they focus their time and energy on getting, taking and recovering from ketamine,” one article states.
Doctors warn long-term ketamine use can cause severe and irreversible bladder damage (Johnrob/Getty Images)
So what of the ‘ketamine nose’ phenomenon?
Snorting ketamine can cause damage to the nasal passageways, according to experts.
The manifestation of this is often sinus inflammation or infection, as well as septum perforation and damage to the structure of the snout itself.
What’s equally distressing is the fact that it impairs the sense of smell.
So the next time you spot somebody with a slightly compromised nose, there’s a chance they’re big users of Special K.
How else does ketamine affect the body?
- Physical and psychological dissociation – numbing thoughts and feelings
- Stress on internal organs – sometimes known as ‘K-cramps’
- Increased heart rate, high blood pressure, seizures and respiratory issues
- Urinary tract and bladder problems
- Ketamine-associated cystitis – a condition of frequent and urgent urinating, pelvic pain, and a burning sensation when passing liquid
Meanwhile, a physically impaired ex-ketamine addict called Amber Currah previously opened up about her own dark journey with the drug.
During an episode of Minutes With, the mum from Morecambe exclusively told LADbible that after using it recreationally, she later became so reliant on the drug that she needed to ‘sniff a line before doing the food shop’.
A year after she sampled it for the first time, she began experiencing terrible symptoms similar to a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection).
“I didn’t have a clue about what ketamine could do,” she said. “A female bladder should hold 500ml and a male is 600ml. And mine, at its worst, was holding 20ml.
“I would literally live and breathe ketamine. No matter where I was. It just ruled my life at this point. I was just thinking about it wherever I was.”
The physical impact her addiction had wreaked on her body at the time had ‘become really bad’ – it even left her running to the toilet hundreds of times each day.
“I got to the point where I was now having to wear nappies all the time. I’d say at my worst, I was weeing 200 times a day.”
She was stuck ‘in her bathroom’ constantly as a result of needing to urinate so much and said she spent the rest of the time in bed or the bath.
“Sometimes the pain could be that bad, I wouldn’t be able to move for eight hours,” Currah continued. “And that’s not an exaggeration. You will do anything just to stop the pain, even for a second.
“It’s relentless. It will go on and on and on. The physical effects made me want to take more ketamine, because I just thought, ‘I’m in this horrible place, I can’t get out of it’. Without it, I’d be dragging myself around.
“I couldn’t even walk a hundred metres down the street. I couldn’t even walk to the bottom of my driveway or out my door, down the stairs, just because of the physical pain and how bad it was.”