Ketamine Therapy Success Stories: 

Patient Reports from MY Self Wellness

Adam Mitchell, MA- Director of Clinical Research

All day, we could pour over the nuanced cascade of neurometabolic effects which lead researchers to propose therapeutic mechanisms for ketamine therapy across a wide array of conditions.  None of this will help us understand the consolation a bereaved parent had, seeing and talking with their lost child throughout her ketamine therapy sessions, finding peace and comfort she could not have imagined before her treatments.  Going down a rabbit-hole of lowered inflammation and altered immune functioning say little of the lasting relief found by chronic pain clients as immediately as their first medication session, or the glow clients carry with them after benefiting from their fourth or fifth medication session.  Understanding neuroplasticity gives little appreciation of how miraculously lives- long burdened with depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and substance abuse- transform and begin to flourish.  Real people experience real & unprecedented relief from ketamine therapy at MY Self Wellness.

In my time working with my caring colleagues at MY Self Wellness, I’ve been humbled, seen strong, giant men embrace their tears, forgiving parents of “thirty years” of childhood issues; people seeking help with anxiety and depression, surprised to see their pain and alcohol use diminishing as well.  While the ‘wow’ of hearing how a color-blind client “saw color” for the first time, witnessing the recovery of stroke and brain damaged clients is more fantastical than I imagined.  While the nerve growth factors and increasing number of dopamine receptors are well enough understood results of ketamine treatments, the lasting relief clients have from restless leg syndrome and compulsive tics are real world effects which are hard to measure with words and scales of worth.

It’s not uncommon for me to hear peoples’ concerns about ketamine therapy.  “What if it doesn’t work?  What about addiction?”  Very good questions, which I don’t like to skirt around. To address each:

“What if Ketamine Therapy doesn’t work?”

Simply, ketamine therapy is not a silver-bullet.  Nothing is 100% assured to achieve full treatment goals across conditions.  Despite astonishing promise of ketamine for many hard to treat and chronic conditions, I can’t promise treatment will work for any one individual, though I can promise our staff at MY Self Wellness is committed to helping each and every one of our clients achieve their therapeutic goals.  Though no assured guarantee, for treatment-resistant conditions for which nothing else has worked well enough, research continually shows 70%-95% success.   These aren’t Las Vegas odds, these are odds tremendously in clients’ favor.  Ketamine therapy works better than typical psychiatric medications, and- unlike so many drug treatments- doesn’t need to be taken day after day.   

This brings us to another common concern: “What about addiction?” 

When used in clinical settings like ours here at MY Self Wellness, there is no addictive potential or significant risk of harm.  Using far lower doses than used in hospitals, time-limited treatments administered in our clinic by medical staff completely avoids risks of at-home self-administration.  Brain growth is linked to short-term therapeutic use of ketamine (1), however excessive self-use (using more than 1gram/day for 2+ years) has been linked to brain damage (2) and lower levels of the very same BDNF (3) which is raised in therapeutic dosing protocols of ketamine (4), as we use at MY Self Wellness.  Dose, frequency and settings matter.  In the caring setting maintained by trained and skilled staff at MY Self Wellness, we avoid pit-falls of less supervised at-home ketamine options, giving clients a safe environment for life-changing Ketamine Therapy.

To explore more about Ketamine Therapy’s potential to help you and those you care about, don’t hesitate to call our Bonita Springs, FL clinic at 239-908-9958 to coordinate a free tour of our clinic, or to schedule an assessment for Ketamine Therapy today.  We look forward on helping you achieve your therapeutic goals.

References

1)Deyama, S., & Duman, R. S. (2020). Neurotrophic mechanisms underlying the rapid and sustained antidepressant actions of ketamine. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 188, 172837.

2)Wang, C., Zheng, D., Xu, J., Lam, W., & Yew, D. T. (2013). Brain damages in ketamine addicts as revealed by magnetic resonance imaging. Frontiers in neuroanatomy, 23.

3) Ke, X., Ding, Y., Xu, K., He, H., Zhang, M., Wang, D., … & Fan, N. (2014). Serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor and nerve growth factor decreased in chronic ketamine abusers. Drug and alcohol dependence, 142, 290-294.

4)Garcia, L. S., Comim, C. M., Valvassori, S. S., Réus, G. Z., Barbosa, L. M., Andreazza, A. C., … & Quevedo, J. (2008). Acute administration of ketamine induces antidepressant-like effects in the forced swimming test and increases BDNF levels in the rat hippocampus. Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology and biological psychiatry, 32(1), 140-144.

Want to learn more about Colorblindness?

NIH.gov says, ”