Taking care of one’s mental health is extremely important, but treatment can be difficult for some chronic conditions. In particular, post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD can be rather hard to live with as the mind cycles through the situations where they have developed trauma. This means having to deal with the triggers, responses, anxiety, nightmares, and more.
With progress in the medical field, there are a number of PTSD treatment options available. Many find difficulty in getting those to work on them, but you don’t have to give up on attaining a better quality of life and peace of mind. Ketamine therapy has been shown to aid in treating PTSD. Keep on reading to find out more.
What Is Ketamine Therapy?
Ketamine therapy is a process where a trained physician and psychotherapist administer the medication to a certain patient. The psychedelic and dissociative properties of ketamine are traditionally associated with anesthesia and patient treatment. Through research and evidence based medicine they have been found to be useful in helping a person’s psychosocial development and growth while improving a person’s overall mental well-being.
What Is Ketamine’s Effect on Mental Illness?
There has been research into how ketamine can treat symptoms of a variety of different mental health problems, such as depression, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and more. Patients with those certain illnesses can also find it rather difficult to find medication and therapy that works for them.
Ketamine helps in making symptoms much more manageable as it targets the NMDA receptor. The NMDA receptor is a relevant factor when it comes to memory and neurological function regulation. Essentially, ketamine helps the brain in battling certain disorders that may be plaguing those aforementioned functions.
What Is the Nature of PTSD?
PTSD is difficult to treat with the tractional methods of talk therapy and available medications. Patients with this medical condition can often be resistant to treatment as it’s rather easy to trigger reactions. What may seem like regular words and events throughout life can make people relive their own trauma within a second, making it hard to work and function around.
Statistics show that a majority of victims who’ve undergone difficult and damaging situations end up with this stress disorder. Those seeking PTSD treatment can find it rather frustrating, which is completely valid. It’s hard to maintain any calm when debilitating anxiety can occur at any time when reminded of these events.
Can Ketamine Help Treat PTSD?
A study shared in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that ketamine is efficient in treating several symptoms of PTSD. Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine had several trials of ketamine therapy treatment for individuals with clinically diagnosed PTSD. The ketamine therapy sessions ran over the course of two weeks.
The results show that those patients had more than a 50% drop in their PTSD symptoms showing up. There were fewer changes in their cognition and mood as intrusive thoughts that could lead to further stress decreased. It can be quite reassuring to know that there’s still aid available, sparking hope of living with and managing PTSD.
Conclusion
In summary, ketamine therapy is something that helps in the management of multiple mental health problems. This includes PTSD, which can be rather paralyzing and difficult to have from day-to-day life. Studies have supported the idea of ketamine use to treat these certain illnesses and disorders so patients can have a better life.
Interested in this mental health treatment? Stephanie Lyn Coleman MD is a licensed physician trained in traditional western medicine from the US and providing ketamine therapy and holistic health. Get in touch with us today.