How Ketamine Therapy is Helping Patients With PTSD
Nov 29, 2022
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental illness that results from experiencing a traumatic event. Nearly 8 million people deal with it, and estimates indicate that 8 out of 100 people will develop it over their lifetime.
It can take years to show symptoms, and men and women may present with different symptoms. While it is the current term for a condition diagnosed as far back as World War I as “shell shock,” many different forms of trauma can cause it.
Traditional treatments for treating PTSD include different forms of psychotherapy and medications, but if these methods are not helping or not providing enough relief, it may be time to consider adding ketamine therapy to your treatment regimen.
If you live in the Spring, Texas area, and you’re struggling to cope with the effects of PTSD, Katherine Go and her skilled staff at Rejuvenate IV Therapy can help relieve your symptoms with ketamine therapy.
To better understand how we can help, let’s explore what PTSD is, how ketamine therapy works, and what it can do to treat this illness.
The stress and trauma associated with PTSD can come from a variety of sources, such as serious injury, loss of a loved one, accidents, physical abuse, and other life-threatening situations.
Your specific issues may be a complex mixture of stressful experiences, inherited mental health risks, your individual temperament (inherited features of your personality), and the way in which your brain regulates the chemicals your body releases to cope with stress.
Your chances of getting PTSD increase if you:
All of these factors can trigger PTSD symptoms, like avoidance of the trauma, intrusive memories, mood changes, changes in physical and emotional response, intensity of symptoms, and suicidal thoughts.
Ketamine is a chemical first developed as an anesthetic, but medical professionals eventually discovered its antidepressant properties. It has also been abused as an illegal substance.
Ketamine infusion therapy (specifically esketamine) was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2019 to manage treatment-resistant depression. In addition to the infusions, patients can receive ketamine through intramuscular shots, nasal applications, and even oral lozenges.
Research shows that repeated intravenous ketamine infusions reduce symptoms for people suffering from PTSD rapidly and are maintained over several weeks following treatment.
PTSD and various depressive mental illnesses are linked with abnormal levels of NDMA receptors, a type of ionotropic glutamate receptor. Ketamine helps to produce new glutamate to repair the abnormal NDMA receptors and is often effective at quickly reducing symptoms.
Other treatments either take more time to treat or fail to treat at all.
PTSD is a difficult illness to cope with, but ketamine therapy can help. If you live in Woodlands or Springs area contact us at Rejuvenate IV Therapy today to see what ketamine therapy can do for you.