WARNING SURGICAL IMAGES: A young woman continued to take up to four grams of ketamine every day for two years after a piece of her nose fell out leaving behind a hole that required surgery
Nicole Chanelle had always loved a party and would use drugs when she was out socialising – but her recreational use turned serious when she became addicted to ketamine.
Despite initially avoiding it after a bad experience when she was spiked at a rave, she tried it again three years ago and before she knew it, she was under its spell.
Within a year she noticed her nose was feeling blocked and was utterly horrified when a chunk of it fell out and she could see a hole inside.
Even that didn’t stop her using up to four grams a day though for the next two years until she realised she had to do something about her addiction before it was too late.
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Nicole from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire is now 30 and first started using cocaine on nights out when she was just 14. Everything changed though when she started taking ketamine.
Although it began as another party drug, it took a hold and she gradually started increasing the amount she was taking until she was using all the time. Although the TikToker had a huge appetite – taking up to four grams a day – it was only costing her £140 a month because it is so cheap.
Ketamine is used medically for anesthesia, depression, and pain management. It can make the user feel happy, detached and relaxed or anxious and confused, according to Talk To Frank. It can also cause memory loss, nausea, depression and stop you feeling pain, which makes the risk of injury high.
Mixing it with other drugs is dangerous and should never be done but Nicole was taking it with cocaine as well. “Once I began using ketamine it quickly progressed,” Nicole says.
“I just started using every single day, I used it as a coping mechanism. It’s highly addictive, I used it for any excuse, any emotion. The first year I didn’t realise how bad it was and in the second year I knew I was addicted but I was too far gone to get a grip on it.”
It was a year in that the physical effects started to show and she lost a section of the inside of her nose. “My nose felt really blocked and then a large chunk of my nose came out. I knew I probably had a hole and I looked up and it was there,” she recalls.
“Luckily the hole isn’t too large. I speak to people on a daily basis that have no inside of their nose. I ignored it, carried on using as it didn’t change the outside of my nose. A year in I could see physical changes on my nose from the outside because I carried on using it.”
With the effects of the drug taking hold, Nicole stopped wanting to socialise and preferred taking it on her own. She recalls she was “quite happy” just going home, “grabbing a bag and getting on it, like a weirdo”. She now knows that when it gets to that point, it means you have a problem.
“[When I first started] I was mixing it with the coke and just enjoying it when I was out and then it went to the point I was using it home alone,” she says.
A friend of Nicole’s who also had an addiction to ketamine had been to a rehab centre in India the year before so forwarded the details. But it wasn’t until Nicole had a scary wake up call that she decided to take the plunge and get help. Realising it would be too easy and tempting to still buy the drug if she was at home, she went abroad to India.
“I had a funny turn and literally thought I was going to die. I thought I can’t be trusted alone in my home anymore. I need to get away,” she explains. “I ended up going to rehab because I couldn’t seem to pull away from it. I booked the flight on the Monday, I was out of the country on the Wednesday.”
The content creator also had her nose fixed in Turkey when doctors revealed the true extent and damage her drug use had caused. Nicole wants to warn other people that holes in the nose can appear at any time – six months into using it just recreationally at weekends, or not at all. She likens it to playing Russian Roulette and says it’s just not worth the risk to health.
Now three months sober, Nicole knows she was lucky only to have suffered with stomach cramps and not serious bladder problems as some users experience. She warns that some people end up in agony and having to wear nappies.
Ketamine can cause serious bladder problems, making the user feel the urgent and frequent need to pee. It can be very painful and sometimes the damage can be so serious that the bladder needs surgical repair or even removal.
It is now a recognised syndrome, with specialist clinics opening up to deal with the issue following the increased use of the drug, especially among the young.
Nicole now wants to raise awareness of how dangerous ketamine is and urges others to get help if they think they have an addiction. “Reach out for help, try not to keep it to yourself and suffer in silence. Be held accountable,” she advises.
“I was lucky, my family knew without me telling them because I was isolating and I was really skinny. There’s nothing you can do until you’re ready for the help.
“Sober life is a lot easier now since I had the nose surgery so I know if I go back to using now, I’d just destroy everything I’ve done. I don’t want to go back there, I do have thoughts of using but don’t actually do it,” she says.
The NHS has advice on what to do if you need help with drug use. Talk to Frank provides honest information about drugs as well advice if you’re concerned about someone else or yourself.