
21 Jul The New Frontier: Psychedelic Therapy and Wellness
For the last couple of decades, Ketamine has been most well-known for its use and abuse in party culture, often associated with drug addicts or rebellious youth. However, in recent years, Ketamine has found itself in the spotlight again as a potential treatment for mood disorders such as treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, and anxiety.
Many clinicians, doctors, and researchers have hopped on the Ketamine bandwagon in the hopes that they can provide new treatments for mood and behavioral disorders as, despite the constant forward motion of healthcare, mental health treatments have been stagnant for decades.
The new frontier of therapy is in psychedelics, and we are here today to talk to you about why.
Ketamine Compared To Older Medications
Take, for instance, Prozac—first introduced by Eli Lilly and approved by the FDA in 1987. When this groundbreaking antidepressant hit the market, it was immediately popular, as it was far more effective as an antidepressant than any of its predecessors and was infinitely more tolerable. Thirty-five years later, Prozac is still the most widely-used antidepressant on the market. When it comes to behavioral disorders, Clozapine is still considered the gold standard for treatment-resistant schizophrenia.
Clozapine was prescribed to the public in 1974—that’s almost five decades ago, with little innovation to speak of since.
With such little forward movement in the realm of mental health treatments in decades, it’s no wonder that mental health professionals are clinging to the notion of Ketamine becoming the new frontier of mental wellness. Today we will examine the implications of this move and how it can help patients achieve better wellness and fulfillment in their lives.
When compared to SSRIs, the ongoing patient support and history of well-rounded treatment plans all make Ketamine a potentially life-changing treatment path for those who have struggled inside or outside of the context of therapy. With Ketamine Therapy at our Bonita Springs Clinic, you are never alone.
The New Frontiers of Psychedelic Therapy
Closing the gap between outdated mental health treatment options is of the utmost importance to many researchers and mental health professionals today. And when we stop to think about how far other aspects of healthcare have come in the last 50 years, it’s easy to see why it’s become necessary to close that gap.
When we talk about gaps in mental health treatment, think of it like this. The last ice pick lobotomy for treatment of schizophrenia was performed in 1967. That was just seven years before Clozapine was introduced, and no significant changes have been made since.
It’s high time that mental health treatments evolve, and at the forefront of that new frontier are Ketamine and other classified psychedelics. Whether it’s microdosing MDMA, LSD, or psilocybin to treat PTSD or anxiety disorders, Ketamine Infusions for treatment-resistant depression, or even ingesting Ketamine tabs in an effort to stop smoking, as Maya Singer, contributing writer for Vogue Magazine did, it’s clear that Ketamine and Psychedelic Therapy is on the rise with no clear sign of stopping.
Innovation and social change go hand-in-hand—if you have been hesitant to try new therapy options, the research taking place today should massage your fears away, just as Ketamine will in our controlled environments.
Ketamine Therapy
Traditional antidepressants are SSRIs, meaning they work to treat depression by increasing serotonin levels in the brain. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps nerve cells in the brain communicate with one another. Serotonin reuptake (reabsorption) into neurons is inhibited by SSRIs. This promotes message transmission between neurons by increasing serotonin availability. SSRIs are known as “Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors” because they exclusively affect serotonin and not other neurotransmitters. SSRIs can take weeks to months to take effect on patients; 35% of patients report complete symptom resolution.
Meanwhile, it is believed that Ketamine Therapy works quicker and more effectively than SSRIs due to the fact that it targets different neurotransmitters in the brain than traditional SSRIs. Robert C. Meisner for the Harvard Health Blog says, “One likely target for Ketamine is NMDA receptors in the brain. By binding to these receptors, Ketamine appears to increase the amount of a neurotransmitter called glutamate in the spaces between neurons. Glutamate then activates connections in another receptor, called the AMPA receptor. Together, the initial blockade of NMDA receptors and activation of AMPA receptors leads to the release of other molecules that help neurons communicate with each other along new pathways. Known as synaptogenesis, this process likely affects mood, thought patterns, and cognition.”
After 35 years and less than half of all patients going into remission, it’s about time we start looking forward in terms of mental health treatments. If we’ve been targeting the wrong neurotransmitters all this time, then the time has come for a new frontier to mental wellness to be born.
For more information about Ketamine Therapy, to get started on your healing journey, or to learn more about the history of Ketamine, its uses, and how it may be able to help you, visit MY Self Wellness today or call us for a free consultation. Relief is as easy as 1, 2, 3.