London wellness clinic is using KETAMINE to treat depression… and charging £3,600 without a single supervising doctor

A London wellness clinic is offering ketamine, more commonly known as an illicit party drug, to help treat depression, anxiety and other mood related disorders. 

Silva Wellness, which is due to open this week in Farringdon, offers bespoke ketamine therapy packages in various ‘gold’, ‘silver’ and ‘bronze’ formats, with a med-tier ‘silver’ option costing almost £3,700. 

The drug is provided by a nurse prescriber, who also supervises therapy sessions — in which patients discuss traumatic experiences immediately after taking the drug. 

Representatives for the clinic say a doctor is ‘on call’ for cases of ‘rare’ negative reactions. 

Concern has been raised over private clinics that offer the drug following the death of Friends star Matthew Perry, whose team of medics injected him with ketamine 21 times in the week before he died. 

One of the doctors selling Perry the ‘medicine’ reportedly texted another of his medical team asking, ‘I wonder how much this moron will pay?’

There has been growing interest in ketamine, also known as Vitamin K, Special K or Ket, as a potential treatment for various mental health conditions over the last few years.

Ketamine increases levels of a glutamate in the brain, a neurotransmitter crucial to mood regulation, learning, memory, and information processing.

Ketamine therapy works by taking an extremely low dose of the drug, to provoke its glutamate boosting effects, and then working through issues with a trained psychotherapist. 

By taking the drug, a patient opens up emotionally and becomes more receptive to therapy, a concept known as psychedelic medicine. 

The treatment has attracted high-profile endorsements from the likes of celebrities like of Sharon Osborne, Chrissy Teigen and Elon Musk.

However, British experts have warned of the potentially ‘deadly consequences’ of using the ‘highly addictive’ drug to treat depression, even in a controlled environment, saying they have seen patients ‘work well with ketamine initially, only to later develop severe dependency issues’.

Dr Sham Singh, a psychiatrist at the Winit Clinic, previously told MailOnline: ‘It may be highly addictive because it is a dissociative anaesthetic that has euphoric and hallucinatory effects, and hence it becomes dangerous.’

He also pointed to a range of physical risks, including increased blood pressure and heart rate, as well as bladder and kidney damage.

Ketamine is allowed to be prescribed as a so-called ‘off-label’ treatment in the UK. This means when a drug that is approved for another use is prescribed by doctors for another purpose.

Ketamine is already used by doctors as anesthesia for medical procedures. A nasal spray for of the drug is also approved by drugs safety watchdog the MHRA for treating treatment-resistant depression, alongside traditional antidepressants. However this is not approved for NHS use. 

This has led to some clinics, as well some parts of the health service, popping up to offer the treatment privately. Silva Wellness is the latest such clinic to offer ketamine assisted therapy in this way.

 Silva Wellness described ketamine ‘lozenge therapy’ as having ‘changed the way we view mental health treatment’.

It sates: ‘Those with treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, and a variety of mood disorders can benefit from this cutting-edge approach to care.’

‘Ketamine Assisted Therapy is highly effective, showing incredible results and long-term benefits. 

‘Quick-acting results are just the beginning for anyone embarking on a course of ketamine assisted therapy. Long-term healing is possible due to its many abilities to help reduce and eliminate symptoms associated with these disorders.’ 

Silva Wellness chief executive and psychotherapist trained in ketamine therapy, Lucy da Silva, told MailOnline that the clinic takes a number of precautions with any patient seeking ketamine assisted therapy.

The first is that they are screened both during their initial consultation and on the day of their treatment by a trained mental health nurse prescriber, who also gives  ketamine if appropriate. 

This screening involves ensuring a patient has no medical or mental health conditions that might make taking ketamine dangerous, as well as ensuring they are not taking any medications that will interact with the drug.

If this screening is passed a patient will then take a low-to-moderate dose ketamine lozenge, that sits under the tongue allowing the drug to slowly release into their system.

Ms da Silva added that while a therapist is conducting a session a nurse will come in at regular intervals to check a patient’s blood pressure for any changes that suggest  a potentially dangerous reaction.

She added that while a doctor is not on site the treatment centre will have medics on call. 

MailOnline has discovered that the clinic’s nurse prescriber and medical lead of the ketamine sessions, Danny Kungebeharry, has retweeted anti-vax messages in the past. 

On an X account Mr Kungebeharry retweeted a post by Dr Aseem Malhotra, a well-known Covid vaccine sceptic who often shares antivax sentiment on his social media profile.

In one such retweeting Mr Kungebeharry shared a 2022 post from Dr Malhotra talking about the ‘biggest story in the world’, with the medic sharing a video of Neil Oliver on GB News discussing ‘mounting evidence’ of vaccine related8 injuries and deaths.      

Dr Malhotra wrote said the clip was ‘a powerful and extraordinary call to action on the Covid mRNA vaccine scandal’. 

Ketamine, even in low doses, does carry some hazards.

Long-term use can cause severe, irreversible damage to the bladder and kidneys, and excruciating abdominal pain — sometimes known as k-cramps.

Ketamine works as an anaesthetic by blocking the neurotransmitter N-methyl-D-aspartate (NDMA), which controls actions in the nervous system.

This can rapidly diminish sensations, prevent pain, induce sleep or even inhibit memory.

For this reason, it is usually taken in small doses for non-anaesthetic purposes, and large doses as an anaesthetic in a medical setting, such as before an operation.

At smaller doses, it gives users a feeling of euphoria, out-of-body experiences, and hallucinations.

If injected, ketamine’s effects can take control within just a minute. 

Users typically feel such effects within five to 15 minutes if snorted and half an hour if swallowed.

Snorting ketamine results in a more potent ‘rush’, may present a higher addiction risk and can damage the nasal passage.

While its effects — when taken in smaller doses — can last around an hour, a user’s coordination or senses may be affected for up to 24-hours after initial use.

Signs and symptoms of a ketamine overdose or toxicity can vary depending on how much Ket is consumed. 

Typically, within a couple of minutes of taking the drug users experience an increase in heart rate and even palpitations. 

At the same time, blood pressure drops over 10 to 20 minutes, resulting in a woozy and faint feeling. A dramatic quick drop acts as a key sign of an overdose or toxicity, which can happen with one, large dose. 

Its numbing effect also makes users unresponsive more quickly.   

When in this state, users experience involuntarily rapid eye movement, dilated pupils, and stiffening of the muscles such as them ‘freezing up’. 

Its effect on muscle relaxation also suppresses the respiratory system, leading to sudden difficulty swallowing and making it harder for people to breathe. 

This lack of oxygen, in turn, may even result in permanent brain damage. 

Tolerance to the drug, which usually comes as a crystalline powder or liquid, recreationally is known to build quickly.

This leads to users needing more and more to feel the same high, which increases the risk of overdosing or experiencing adverse side effects. 

Higher doses can also lead to a phenomenon dubbed the ‘k-hole’, an intense feeling of dissociation, delerium and being disconnected or unable to connect to reality. 

British experts have said they are alarmed that ketamine’s image is becoming sanitised – given the potential for patients to quit pricey treatment and self-medicate with the widely available street drug, which costs as little as £10-£20 per gram.

Figures, released by the Office for National Statistics, show one in twenty (4.8 per cent) 20 to 24-year-olds in England and Wales last year admitted to taking the drug, more popular among men.

This compared to just 0.9 per cent across all age groups.