Emerging Trends in Pain Medication Management: Back to the Future: A Focus on Ketamine

Providers face many challenges when faced with pain management. Pain is complex, difficult to understand and diagnose, and especially enigmatic to manage. The discovery of nonopioid agents for pain management has become particularly important considering the ongoing opioid epidemic. This review is focused on revisiting ketamine, an agent that has historically been used for anesthesia, in new ways to manage pain. Ketamine has unique pharmacologic properties that may prevent the development of pain as well as reduce chronic pain. This has led to the use of ketamine for perioperative analgesia as well as chronic pain syndromes. In select patients with pain refractory to other treatment modalities, ketamine may provide much needed relief.