Why Ketamine Therapy?

We need new solutions for mental health.

Depression is the most common mental illness and the leading cause of disability worldwide. Anxiety is so common that it is often mislabeled as stress, insomnia, or just a natural consequence of living in a fast-paced society. According to a 2017 survey conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), over 18% of American adults live with mental illness – that’s almost one in five people, or about 46.6 million individuals.

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Many would say we are in a mental health crisis.

Despite more and more pharmaceutical medications being doled out, depression and anxiety rates have continued to increase and it’s clear these drugs don’t work nearly as well as we thought. Also, the theory that depression is caused by serotonin deficiency or a shortage of other monoamine neurotransmitters has yet to be really proven. Many are questioning the efficacy of antidepressants, as are those who either aren’t being helped or don’t like the side effects. There is a growing need and interest in finding more effective solutions, and ketamine is very promising.

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Psychedelic medicine reemerges

Interest in the use of ketamine in mental health has been blooming in recent years as research is culminating, and psychedelic medicine has been re-emerging and gaining acceptance in the medical community. Ketamine is the first legal clinician-prescribed psychedelic treatment for depression, anxiety, chronic pain, PTSD, OCD, substance use disorders, and other mental health-related conditions.

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How does ketamine help?

The research on ketamine is still growing and even though it’s been used for over 20 years in mental health, it’s still considered an “off-label” use (not FDA approved) to prescribe ketamine for such conditions such as depression and anxiety. Ketamine works faster than traditional antidepressants (in a matter of hours or days) and is potentially more long-lasting, proving itself an effective alternative. With larger doses, users report that those anti-depressive effects can last for weeks or even a month. Researchers believe it can even protect against relapse with depression and reverse the physical damage that the chronic stress of mental illness causes to connections in the brain.

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