Ketamine for PTSD

Ketamine Teatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Post-Traumatic stress disorder can have a debilitating effect on your ability to function emotionally, socially, and occupationally if not treated successfully. Symptoms of PTSD can develop after experiencing a traumatic event. A traumatic event can be anything that is perceived as terrifying or causes a strong sense of helplessness, horror, serious injury, or the threat of serious injury or death. Nearly 10% of people may experience significant PTSD symptoms at some point in their life.

Symptoms of PTSD

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder involves intrusive memories involving recurrent, unwanted, and distressing thoughts about the event, feeling as though you were reliving the traumatic event again (flashbacks), distressing dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event, and strong emotional distress and/or physical reactions (elevated heart rate, shortness of breath, etc.) in response to reminders of the traumatic event. PTSD also involves symptoms of avoidance such as attempting to avoid thinking about or talking about the traumatic event, and/or avoiding places, people, or activities that remind you of the traumatic event.

In addition, PTSD is also likely to involve negative changes in your thoughts and moods, including your view of yourself, others, and the world in general. You may feel hopeless about the future, struggle with memory problems (particularly involving aspects of the traumatic event), have difficulty establishing or maintaining close relationships, a sense of feeling detached or emotionally numb, decreased positive emotions and feeling less interest or pleasure in things you previously enjoyed.

You may also experience physiological or physical changes such as being easily startled (exaggerated startle response) or frightened, feeling as though you are always on guard or expecting danger, difficulty maintaining attention or concentration, difficulty sleeping, problems with irritability or anger, and strong sense of guilt or shame. PTSD also carries a risk of developing problems with alcohol, as many attempt to dull or numb these unpleasant heightened physiological symptoms with excessive alcohol intake.
Conventional treatments of PTSD typically involve psychotherapy and psychotropic medications such as antidepressants. Antidepressant medication has historically resulted in approximately 60% of patients showing improvement in symptoms and approximately 20-30% achieve full symptom remission. Research has consistently shown that even a single infusion session with Ketamine can significantly reduce anxiety symptoms associated with PTSD. Patients often see benefit within a few hours to days of receiving Ketamine infusion treatment, which is a significant improvement over conventional treatments which can take weeks to months to show benefit.

Before the benefits of Ketamine were fully understood, there was an interesting finding during the first Iraq war in the 1990s. Ketamine was used as a battlefield anesthetic for surgery during the war, and servicemen and women who received Ketamine for anesthesia had significantly lower rates of PTSD than those who did not receive Ketamine as the anesthetic used for their surgery.

How Ketamine Therapy Treats PTSD

The effects of Ketamine, particularly Ketamine infusions, can take hold almost immediately. This happens through Ketamine stimulating certain areas of your brain that are associated with glutamate, which is a neurotransmitter that plays a central role in regulating your mood. This also separates Ketamine from conventional treatments of anxiety and PTSD which do not have this mechanism of action and have no effect on the glutamate pathway.

If you are suffering from PTSD, please allow us to assist with a referral to a trusted Ketamine provider near you so you can determine if Ketamine treatment is right for you.

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