Ketamine

Ketamine therapy offers hope to patients for whom frontline mental health treatments like medication management and therapy don’t work. Axis Integrated Mental Health offers intravenous and intranasal ketamine therapy at its offices in Louisville and Aurora, Colorado. You could get swift relief from depression symptoms with a carefully managed ketamine treatment program. To learn more and arrange a consultation, call your nearest Axis Integrated Mental Health office or request an appointment using the online booking feature today.

What is ketamine?

Ketamine was originally an anesthesia drug, but more recently, researchers have discovered it has significant effects on chronic pain and a range of mental health problems. It’s available in two forms:

Ketamine infusions

Ketamine infusions deliver the drug directly into your bloodstream via a needle and cannula in an arm vein. Infusions may offer fast-acting, effective relief from depression and treatment-resistant depression.

Spravato®

Spravato nasal spray contains esketamine, an extract of ketamine. Under the Axis Integrated Mental Health team’s supervision, you spray the drug into your nasal passages, from where your body absorbs it into your bloodstream.

Axis Integrated Mental Health has an established procedure for Spravato treatment, beginning with a 60-minute psychiatrist appointment. If Spravato is appropriate for you, your provider discusses its benefits and obtains insurance authorization for you.

Following approval, treatment begins as soon as possible. For the first four weeks, you attend two treatment sessions a week, then for the second four weeks, you have one session a week. After eight weeks, you enter a maintenance phase where you receive top-up treatments as required.

How does ketamine work for mental health?

People with depression have fewer synapses — the connections between neurons (nerve cells) — in the brain’s mood center. Ketamine improves the brain’s chemical links and increases communication between the neurons.

Ketamine therapy also uses neuroplasticity principles (how the brain reacts and changes over time) to help the brain function better and improve mood.

Brain synapses exposed to ketamine can regrow and produce more links between neurons. This affects how parts of your brain controlling logic and emotion speak to each other, resulting in a fast antidepressant effect.

What can ketamine treat?

Ketamine can treat the following mental health conditions:

Treatment-resistant depression

Psychiatrists determine depression is treatment-resistant if symptoms don’t improve after two or more courses of antidepressant medications from different classes. You should have tried them for a reasonable period with no mood improvement or developed intolerable side effects.

Major depressive disorder

Major depressive disorder (clinical depression) causes persistent sadness, hopelessness, loss of interest, cognitive challenges like trouble thinking clearly, and changes in eating and sleep patterns.

Ketamine is also useful as an off-label treatment for many other mental health problems, from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) to bipolar disorder and anxiety.

Call Axis Integrated Mental Health to learn more about ketamine, or schedule a consultation online today.