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John was suicidal, depressed and unresponsive to other treatment when he was accepted into a drug trial at the Royal Ottawa Hospital that he says saved his life.

The Ottawa father of three, whose name is being withheld at his request, is one of a growing number of suicidal patients whose lives have been turned around through experimental treatment with a drug that has another life as a street drug known as Special K .

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Ketamine, a long-used anesthetic, is now being studied for its ability to rapidly stop suicidal thoughts in a high percentage of patients — including in John — when given intravenously.

“I was suicidal. I was desperate,” the 50-year-old man said. After intravenous treatment with ketamine, he said, he started to feel better almost immediately. Although he has had some relapse of depression, it is more manageable, he said, because his suicidal thoughts are gone.

“I am able to spend time with my kids, to at least feel like a normal human being. Before, I was one step away from getting into another world. Now those thoughts don’t bother me.”