A UK mom is mourning the death of her 26-year-old son who was so addicted to Ketamine that his bladder shrank to the size of a marble.
“This drug is a killer,” said 47-year-old Clare, mother of the late Rian Rogers, while speaking to The Times Of London. “It is taking bladders from young children.”
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic used to treat pain and depression but has become increasingly popular on the party scene due to its powerful hallucinogenic effects.
Rogers, once a rising computer engineering star, was reportedly found dead in the shower this past April with a fatal dose of the club drug in his body after a years-long battle with bladder pain. At the time of his death, the Brit’s bladder capacity was 150ml — less than third of a normal adult’s.
“His bladder had shrunk to the size of a marble,” the deceased’s distraught mom described. “It was really ulcerated.”
The Warwickshire native had specifically suffered from “Ketamine Bladder. This unfortunate side effect in occurs when abuse of the psychotropic substance, also known as special K, causes the urine pouch to shrink and the sufferer to be plagued by extreme pain and incontinence.
Unfortunately, this agonizing condition is on the rise with experts estimating that 26–30% of Ketamine users experience at least one urological side effect.
Families have reported that anesthetic adherents in their teens in 20s wearing pee pads to bed, wetting the bed, and even filling water bottles with bloody urine throughout the night.
Doctors suspected that Rogers had fallen victim to a vicious cycle, in which addicts paradoxically take Special K to alleviate pain caused by bladder damage, and end up exacerbating their condition.
When he died, Rogers had reportedly been on the waiting list for a bladder transplant. Meanwhile, a consultant urologist had referred him for pain treatment in November 2021, but he didn’t land an appointment June 2023, two months after his death (the invitation arrived while they were arranging his funeral).
This marked a tragic end for for the aspiring computer engineer, who, as a teen, landed an electrical technician’s apprenticeship that involved developing prototype vehicles for Jaguar Land Rover
He notably devised ways for the company to increase efficiency with software, garnering the firm’s Rising Star awards for innovation in 2017 and 2019.
Despite his success, Rogers realized he preferred coding, and became a full-time software developer with Experian.
It was around that time that the computer whiz started heavily using Ketamine. While Rogers had tried Special K during music festivals, he became addicted while living alone in an apartment during Pandemic lockdown.
Hoping to curb his destructive path, the family reportedly pooled their resources to send him to rehab, only for Rogers to relapse three weeks after getting out.
“Rian was sporty and bright, with so many friends. He had everything to live for, but ketamine took all that away,” his mother Clare, who works as a midwife, previously told the Sun. “He hardly drank and didn’t do any other drugs, but ketamine became his tool to help him deal with his grief, numbing his pain.”
The bereaved parent is now using her son’s death as a cautionary tale against the perils of the anesthetic, which has wreaked havoc among youths across the UK. A recent investigation by the Times Of London found that 41 students died with Special K in their bodies.
Ketamine is particularly insidious due to its relative affordability — just $20-25 per dose — leading youngsters to believe that it’s not as harmful as other narcotics. Special K is also a Class B substance in the UK, meaning that dealers face lesser penalties than they would if busted selling ecstasy, cocaine and other Class A drugs, which carries a maximum life sentence.
However, in light of this recent incident, lawmakers are mulling upping Ketamine’s designation. “If you have evidence that there are systemic harms caused by ketamine on a widespread scale, which may mean reconsideration of the classification from class B to class A is merited, then please do share this with the Home Office and I will make sure that it is considered very carefully,” Home Office minister Chris Philp wrote in a letter to Rogers’ Parliamentary representative.
“Why is ketamine not class A when it is doing so much harm to our kids?” Clare declared.
And the problems aren’t limited to across the pond. In the US, Ketamine is increasingly replacing opioid painkillers as the new “it” drug for relieving hard-to-treat pain, sparking fears of yet another pharmaceutically-fomented drug crisis.
Since 2017, prescriptions have soared 500% despite limited research supporting Special K’s efficacy as a pain reliever.
Like a pharmacological groundhog day, doctors could potentially repeat the same mistakes that caused the opioid scourge; overprescribing a dubious drug that carries significant safety and abuse risks.
“There’s a paucity of options for pain and so there’s a tendency to just grab the next thing that can make a difference,” said Dr. Padma Gulur, a Duke University pain specialist who is studying ketamine’s use. “A medical journal will publish a few papers saying, ‘Oh, look, this is doing good things,’ and then there’s rampant off-label use, without necessarily the science behind it.”
Last week, doctors officially ruled that Matthew Perry’s death was due to Ketamine.
The “Friends” actor had been undergoing Special K infusions to treat depression and drug addiction, though the medical examiner noted that the drug in his system was likely not from his final infusion.