Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurs in about 9% of the population and is caused after going through a traumatic event such as a car accident, threatened with death/injury/sexual aggression, war, rape, various disasters just to name a few. Many times PTSD can come from the death of a close family member or friend. Those who experience PTSD generally have anxiety, high levels of constant stress and issues sleeping. All of these together make it very hard to cope and live a normal life.

Approximately 1 out of 11 adults have been diagnosed with PTSD and while it is most common among military veterans anyone is susceptible from this disorder. Women tend to be twice as likely to get PTSD and we also find that a lot of first responders, due to their line of work, are often diagnosed with Post-traumatic stress disorder.

PTSD symptoms usually manifest within days or weeks of the traumatic event. The general route of therapy is antidepressants and cognitive-behavioral therapy but for many this fails to provide real long lasting results. Research suggests that a brain with PTSD has problems with the synaptic connections creating a situation similar to depression where the patient is stuck in a rut and unable to get “unstuck.”

Symptoms of PTSD usually involve recurring, intense and extremely disturbing memories/flashbacks and nightmares. Due to this intense nature of the disorder many individuals avoid having to deal with these memories by avoiding people or places and often times resort to drugs or alcohol to help them cope. While this may provide temporary relieve it only exacerbates the problem and makes it more intense.

This is why ketamine infusion therapy has shown great success with PTSD since it classified as a rapid-acting antidepressant (RAAD) and can provide relief within minutes or hours while traditional pharmacological treatments can take weeks or even months. This rapid onset of relief gives the patient much needed breathing room to be able to distance themselves from their disorder and take a less reactive approach to their life. This allows them to break the cycle of avoidance and/or self destructive behavior often associated with PTSD. As with depression, many patients feel completely different after one treatment but we recommend speaking with our doctor and seeing if you require subsequent treatments to maintain these results.

According to researchers at Mount Sinai, a single dose of intravenous ketamine for PTSD has shown significant and rapid PTSD symptom reduction 24 hours post-infusion. Ketamine acts as an antagonist of the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NDMA) receptor, an ionotropic glutamate receptor in the brain. In contrast, other widely used antidepressants target different neurotransmitters – serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine – and can takes weeks or months to work. In addition, these drugs are shown to be ineffective in at least a third of cases and only partially effective in an additional third.

“The data presented in our current study not only replicates, but also builds on our initial findings about ketamine for PTSD, indicating that in addition to being rapid, ketamine’s effect can be maintained over several weeks. PTSD is an extremely debilitating condition and we are pleased that our discovery may lead to a treatment option for so many who are in need of relief from their suffering,” said Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and President of Academic Affairs for the Mount Sinai Health System and senior author of the paper.

Call us today and schedule a free consultation and see if in home Ketamine infusion therapy is right for you.