alt med corner
UNDERSTANDING KETAMINE THERAPY
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From veterinary sedative to rave drug, Ketamine is now emerging as a mainstream treatment option for multiple mental health issues.
leafmagazines.com
Alternative medicine, by definition, isn’t widely accepted by the mainstream medical community, as it often seems to fly in the face of conventional treatments. One popular modality that’s blurring the lines between alternative and traditional medicine, however, is ketamine. Thanks to promising mental health research, doctors are beginning to welcome this substance as a psychedelic treatment option with open arms. aug. 2022
WHAT DOES KETAMINE DO? RONAN LEVY, Co-Founder ABOVE: The reception Ketamine modulates glutamate and Executive Chairman of the area at Field Trip’s receptors NMDA and AMPA, which ketamine-assisted psychotherapy Los Angeles control inflammation, memory, program Field Trip, attributes the Health Center mood, cognition and thought emergence of ketamine therapy patterns. At low doses, the result to developments in mental health is pain relief and hypnosis. Increased amounts research and Cannabis normalization. create an illusion of disconnect between body, “It took a while before it got embraced,” Levy environment and self, and even induce a state says, “but there is a desire for natural, integrative of temporary paralysis known as a “k-hole.” But approaches to healthcare. SSRIs (Selective Seroused correctly in a controlled therapeutic setting, tonin Reuptake Inhibitors, commonly prescribed it can be highly effective in shifting patients out antidepressant drugs) don’t always work and have of negative mindsets. unpleasant side effects, and psychotherapy takes “People suffering from anxiety and depression a long time.” are often locked into damaging thought patterns like ‘I am not worthy of love’ or ‘I will never WHAT IS KETAMINE? recover from this loss.’ When people suffer for a Ketamine is a mild hallucinogen that causlong time, their brain chemistry changes, and it es a dissociative sensation, allowing someone can become difficult to break out of these thought experiencing trauma to disconnect from their processes without help,” explains Dr. Leonardo unpleasant reality (a crucial factor in why it’s so Vando, the Medical Director at Mindbloom – a effective in treating ER patients). Ketamine was NYC-based mental health and wellbeing comfirst synthesized from PCP (phencyclidine aka pany founded in 2019 that partners with licensed angel dust) in 1962 and patented as a veterinary psychiatric clinicians to offer patients access to sedative in 1966. Since it minimally impacts the safe, guided, psychedelic treatments. respiratory system, it was approved by the FDA “Ketamine seems to provide relief from these in 1970 for use on injured soldiers in Vietnam. ruminative thoughts, which allows the brain to It wasn’t until the emergence of the 1980s rave create new, healthier, neural connections. In neuscene that “Special K” (as it came to be known) roscience, we call this ‘neuroplasticity.’ gained popularity recreationally.
