How Does Ketamine Therapy Help With Depression?

If you have long-term or serious problems with depression, then your doctor might recommend that you consider a ketamine therapy treatment. Here, medical staff administers controlled doses of ketamine over a few sessions. This treatment can help people who struggle to manage their depression.

What are the benefits of this treatment?

Get Faster Mood Boosts

While regular medications such as antidepressants do help some people manage their depression, they don't usually work fast. These medications can take weeks or even months to reach the right therapeutic levels in your body to make you start feeling better.

Plus, the first medication you take might not work for you. You'll have to wait to find this out. Your doctor or therapist might then change your meds or combine them with other treatments to try to find a successful solution to your problems. You'll have to wait even longer before you feel any benefit.

Ketamine therapy works faster. Patients typically feel better a few sessions into their treatment. Some get an immediate boost after their first treatment.

So, you could see positive results in a far shorter time than if you solely rely on antidepressant medications. You should continue to take your meds while you have this therapy, but you'll feel better while you wait for them to work.

Avoid Medication Side Effects

Antidepressants are a proven treatment for depression. However, like any medication, they can give you side effects.

For example, your tablets might make you feel numb, dull, and disconnected from the world. You might suffer from insomnia or you might be tired all the time. You might gain weight and lose your sex drive.

If you don't want to take antidepressants because you've had some or all of these problems, then ketamine therapy could be a good alternative. You get all the benefits of its mood-heightening properties with no significant side effects.

Get a Treatment-Resistant Solution

Some people with long-term depression are classified as treatment-resistant. They might not have responded to traditional treatments, leaving them with uncontrolled mental health issues and no obvious cure.

Ketamine therapy can help people who have these problems. It can give them the help they can't get from other treatments.

To find out more about ketamine therapy and whether it can help you with your depression problems, talk to your doctor or a professional ketamine therapy treatment clinic. While this therapy works well for many people, it isn't suitable for everyone. You should be screened before you have this treatment to ensure you fully benefit from it.

Contact a medical professional, such as Dr. Christina M. Charlotin, Licensed Psychologist, to find out more.

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