An estimated 30,000 people in Taiwan are believed to use ketamine, and long-term use of the drug can damage the kidneys, bladder and the brain’s cognitive functions, a physician said yesterday.
Stephen Yang (楊緒棣), surgeon-in-chief at Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital’s Taipei Branch, said one of his patients — a man surnamed Chen in his early 30s — began taking ketamine several years ago to reduce work-related stress, but continued use resulted in serious bladder damage.
After a year of use, Chen found himself having to urinate as many as 43 times a day, while his urine became sticky and thick with traces of blood, while his bladder shrank and became fibrotic, Yang said.
Chen underwent three surgeries over the past few years, but he was not able to quit the drug, and now his kidneys and bladder are so seriously damaged that he needs to undergo dialysis three times a week and use a bladder catheter every day.
Yang said 387 people are being treated for ketamine addiction in 12 randomly sampled hospitals nationwide, indicating that about 30,000 people are engaged in ketamine abuse based on Food and Drug Administration data last year on the rate of ketamine abuse among people aged between 12 and 64.
The data shows the rate of ketamine abuse in recent years is between 0.27 percent and 0.54 percent, while drug abuse reports from hospitals showed that ketamine is the most popular illegal drug among people under 19 years old.
“About 3,000 people with ketamine addiction suffer from serious bladder damage, with about 50 of them undergoing bladder- removal surgery,” Yang said.
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