Ketamine Therapy: What You Need to Know Before Beginning Treatment

If you struggle with mental health, you know how tough it is to find a long-lasting solution. In between therapies and antidepressants, you don’t want a hit-and-miss treatment. Innovative treatments such as ketamine infusion therapy by Dr. Neal Taub provide the long-term relief you’ve been seeking. The evidence-based treatment is ideal for post-traumatic stress, depression, chronic pain, and other life-altering conditions. If you are considering ketamine treatment, here’s what you need to know.

What is Ketamine Therapy?

Ketamine is an FDA-approved anesthetic used for surgery and fast pain relief. The versatile drug is an effective treatment option for physiological disorders. Doctors are advocating for ketamine owing to its effectiveness, fast-acting properties, and low side effect profile.

Ketamine infusion therapy is an innovative treatment approach that involves the delivery of ketamine through intravenous infusion to your body. Ketamine is beneficial for patients experiencing depression or chronic pain.

How Does Ketamine Work

Ketamine provides fast relief to ease depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts when used to treat mental illnesses. Unlike traditional mental disorder medicines, ketamine targets the neuropathways. Traditional medicine targets neurotransmitters that are responsible for depressive feelings. Ketamine infusion therapy creates healthy neurons that line the passageway.

Doctors prefer ketamine treatments since they are highly effective compared to over-the-counter antidepressants. Studies show that about 30 percent of people with major depression are resistant to antidepressants.

Other methods to treat depression may include psychotherapy, acupuncture, and meditation. But they do not treat severe depression, unlike ketamine. During treatment, the doctor intravenously administered ketamine to your bloodstream. It binds with receptors in your brain to stop negative thoughts. At the same time, ketamine changes negative thought patterns since it supports neuroplasticity. Ketamine also treats PTSD, anxiety, and bipolar disorder.

What to Do Before Ketamine Treatment?

Ketamine infusion therapy dosages vary from person to person. However, leading up to treatment, there are general steps to help you get the most out of your treatment. Before your treatment, rest adequately and do not drink alcohol or smoke. Also, avoid medications such as benzodiazepines for 4-6 hours as it may lower effectiveness. If you want to dine, eat a light meal and do not ingest too many fluids.

You may feel groggy after your ketamine treatment; therefore, have a family member or friend around to drive you back home. Doctors advise against operating heavy machinery or driving after the ketamine infusion therapy sessions.

Benefits of Ketamine Therapy

Innovative therapy is still a new player in the medical world. Therefore, it is imperative only to receive ketamine treatment from an experienced provider. Have a candid discussion with the doctor before commencing treatment.

Ketamine treatment is ideal for treating psychological disorders. The therapy is fast acting and eases depressive symptoms within hours. Ketamine also builds new neurons that are beneficial in reducing depressive symptoms.

Ketamine infusion therapy provides long-term remission from depressive symptoms. While ketamine is not a cure-all treatment, it provides remission that is typically longer lasting than antidepressants. For an average patient, six sessions are ideal for significantly eliminating feelings of depression. The intertwined merit of ketamine infusion therapy is that the sessions are spaced enough; therefore, you can’t develop an addiction. Research shows there’s no link between addiction and ketamine.

Another bright spot in ketamine infusion therapy is that it is highly effective. The high efficacy rates are one of the key reasons ketamine is popular among specialists who treat physiological disorders. Patients who haven’t found relief with other treatment approaches benefit from ketamine infusion therapy.