Chattanooga clinic warns against self-administering ketamine after 'Friends' actor's death

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A Chattanooga therapy clinic is advocating against the self-administration of Ketamine following the death of "Friends" actor Matthew Perry.

Medical examiners revealed in an autopsy report last week that “the acute effects of ketamine” were identified as the cause of death for Perry, who was found unresponsive in his pool in late October.

The DEA says Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that has some hallucinogenic effects, often used to treat anxiety, depression, or other mental illnesses.

This therapy is generally administered by certified medical professionals, but it can also be used at home.

However, Charles Miller, CRNA with Scenic City Neurotherapy says unsupervised administration of ketamine can be reckless.

"We have to be advocates for our patients, instead of advocating for our pocketbooks, which unfortunately, that's not always the case," says Miller.

Scenic City Neurotherapy uses ketamine infusion therapy to optimize cognition functionality.

They say in the last 15 years, they found that when you stimulate the neuro protective response that ketamine causes, you can actually treat mental health in a way that we've never been able to treat before.

Miller says ketamine therapy doesn't make people feel good, it makes them feel correctly.

Scenic City Neurotherapy is stressing to only administer the anesthetic under the supervision of a clinician.

Side effects of ketamine can include nausea, dizziness, and feelings of disassociation and unreality.

An increase in blood pressure can also occur. That's one main reason why some experts recommend professional supervision.

"The self administration of ketamine has caused numerous deaths, even when taken as prescribed. I think that something that people aren't catching with Matthew Perry, is that this is probably not an illicit abuse of ketamine. In all likelihood, this is him taking the ketamine that somebody prescribed to him at home. It's just the environment he took it in," Miller says.

According to a ketamine therapy report by All Points North, aver half of at-home ketamine users misuse the treatment.

In that same study, researchers surveyed 2,000 adults and found that 64% of those taking ketamine said it helped with their mental health symptoms.

However, 55% of all Americans and 58% of millennials who tried at-home ketamine therapy reported accidentally or purposefully using more than the recommended dose.