Anonymous asked:

Hey, Aunt Scripty, thank you so much for running this blog! I would like to know if doctors have some way to wake someone up from a sedation (ketamine) or if you always have to wait for the medicine to wear off. thanks so much!! hope you have a nice day, my beautiful person~! xx

scriptmedic answered:

Hey there nonny! 

So first of all, there’s no “antidote” for most forms of sedation, including ketamine. The medications are simply allowed to wear off on their own, as the kidney and/or liver break down the sedative in the bloodstream and the effects begin to wear off. 

There are two exceptions to this. Benzodiazepines can be, but are almost never, reversed with flumazenil, and opiates (which aren’t sedatives, no matter what certain misinformed doctors think) can be reversed with naloxone. 

I can think of two other drugs that are reversed simply by stopping the infusion of them. Propofol is a very common surgical anesthetic, and is literally unconsciousness in a bottle; when the infusion stops, the character wakes up (unless it’s given with other sedatives), and Precedex (dexmedetomidine to its friends) works in a similar way. Precedex is a neat drug: you can put someone under, then shake them to wake them up, have them answer, and let them go right back under. It’s expensive, so it’s less common. 

Neither of these drugs can be given by injection into the muscles. 

The reason benzos are almost never reversed, by the way, is that benzos are the number one medication family used in treatment of seizures. So if your character is given flumazenil and then has a seizure, for whatever cause, the first-line drug will be completely ineffective. Unless the medication was given in significant overdose, it’s safer to just let it wear off. 

I hope this answer helps your story!! 

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

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