Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is generally considered a life-long affliction that can have wide-reaching implications. Life with PTSD can be extremely challenging, depending on the severity of your symptoms.
This article discusses the use of ketamine to treat trauma disorders like PTSD.
What Are The Treatment Options for PTSD and Trauma?
While there are numerous effective treatments for trauma, most conventional approaches to alleviating the symptoms of trauma disorders like PTSD and working toward resolution take time. This is one reason why the popularity of ketamine treatment for PTSD trauma disorders has grown in recent years.
PTSD and Trauma Treatment Methods
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Mental health therapy focused on changing negative thought patterns and behaviors.
- Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE): Helps patients gradually approach trauma-related memories, feelings, and situations.
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): Focusing on traumatic memories while following a therapist’s hand movements or other stimuli.
- Medications: Depression medicines, anti-anxiety medications, and mood stabilizers can be prescribed to help manage symptoms.
- Group Therapy: Provides support and understanding from others who have experienced similar trauma.
- Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: Focuses on how trauma has affected the patient’s ability to manage emotions and stress.
- Ketamine Therapy for PTSD: One of the newest approaches to treating trauma, ketamine therapy has been shown to deliver rapid symptom relief unequaled by almost every other treatment. Only EMDR comes close.
Why is Ketamine Treatment for Trauma Growing in Popularity?
The short answer to this question is that ketamine is highly effective at relieving the most prominent symptoms of PTSD and trauma disorders —- and it is fast-acting.
That second attribute is perhaps what has gained trauma treatment with ketamine the most press. While all of the PTSD treatments listed above have shown some results, all of them, except for EMDR, generally take months, if not years, to provide substantial relief.
Given just how much difficulty PTSD and cPTSD symptoms can cause in your life —- who wants to wait three months or more even to begin to feel better? No one, of course.
PTSD diagnoses in the United States have grown a great deal over the last 20 years for several reasons.
A few reasons why PTSD diagnoses have increased in recent years:
- We have a higher number of combat veterans due to the War on Terror.
- The methods of diagnosing PTSD and other trauma disorders have improved.
- Other societal stressors, like COVID-19, have contributed to an increase in trauma.
How Effective is Ketamine for PTSD and Trauma?
While ketamine therapy for PTSD and other trauma disorders is technically still considered an “off-label use,” the supporting evidence for its effectiveness is voluminous. Ketamine studies involving disabled veterans with PTSD, for example, showed very promising results.
Ketamine Shown to be More Effective Than Other Medications
Trauma therapy with ketamine also offers quick-onset symptom resolution without the level of dependency risk presented by benzodiazepines.
What’s more, the studies suggest that ketamine is also more effective for PTSD than benzodiazepines and other drugs commonly prescribed for trauma.
These same studies suggest that ketamine can relieve short-term symptoms and act as a catalyst for long-term improvement—that may be the most exciting news of all.
Can Ketamine Be Combined With Other Trauma Treatments?
Yes, although you should always inform any clinician providing you with treatment for PTSD about any treatments you are receiving. By and large, ketamine therapy tends to work well synergistically with other trauma care.
Ketamine can be a powerful tool for trauma recovery because it provides rapid symptom relief. This welcome relief can make it easier for PTSD sufferers to participate in and benefit from other non-pharmacological treatments such as individual CBT, group therapy, and EMDR, among others.
Is Ketamine Therapy for Trauma The Right Choice for Us?
If you or someone you care about is suffering from the symptoms of PTSD or another trauma disorder, ketamine therapy may be an option worth exploring.
Not only does it offer faster relief than almost any other treatment, but it is also often effective in patients who have not found adequate symptom relief from conventional medications like antidepressants. People with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) often respond well to ketamine therapy, with more than 50% finding long-term relief.
Is Ketamine Treatment Safe?
Ketamine has safely been used in anesthesia for over half of a century. The use of ketamine to treat trauma and other mental health disorders is relatively new—but it has already helped tens of thousands of people find relief from PTSD, anxiety, and depression.
The therapeutic doses of ketamine used in trauma treatment are only a tiny fraction of the amounts used in anesthesia since the 1960s. You can learn more about the safety of ketamine therapy here.
Learn More About Ketamine Therapy for PTSD
Quest Ketamine Therapies offers an innovative and modern treatment for PTSD and related trauma disorders utilizing ketamine. The best way to learn more about ketamine therapy for trauma, depression, anxiety, and other conditions like chronic pain is to contact us to schedule a free evaluation.
You are also welcome to call us directly at (425) 654-5433 with your questions about ketamine.
