Ketamine is a medicine developed more than 50 years ago for anesthesia during surgery, and it continues to be used for that purpose in children, adults, and animals today. More recently, ketamine has been found to be highly effective in the treatment of depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns.

It comes in a variety of forms (oral, nasal, intramuscular, and intravenous), all of which have different degrees of tolerability and bioavailability.

An analogy: If your mind is a garden, your brain is the soil. Ketamine helps loosen the soil so you can more easily pull any weeds (i.e. limiting thought/behavioral patterns) and make room to plant the seeds you’d rather see grow. These seeds (aka: intentions) are the desires you have for your new self and life. Throughout your ketamine journey, you’ll “fertilize” these seeds and your garden through integration efforts. Integration looks different for everyone…just know you’ll have lots of support and guidance with this. You can read more about integration here.

A more technical explanation: Ketamine is an NMDA receptor antagonist, which modulates glutamate (the excitatory neurotransmitter) in various parts of the brain, thereby increasing neuroplasticity (the ability to create new neural networks). This pathway is very different from that used by other psychiatric drugs (e.g., SSRIs, SNRIS, lamotrigine, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines), which is part of what makes ketamine’s psychological effects so unlike any other form of treatment. Ketamine also suppresses the brain’s default mode network, which is often the culprit of negative and ruminating thought patterns.

The effects of ketamine are cumulative. While a single dose may provide brief insight and relief, deep and lasting change comes with repeat doses. The optimal number of sessions varies by person, but we’ll start with 6 sessions and re-evaluate from there.

Read more cool science stuff here!

The effects begin 5-10 minutes after administration, and the peak experience lasts approximately 30-45 minutes thereafter. Individuals typically return to baseline mental status 60 minutes after dosing with some minimal physical grogginess that usually resolves by 90min.

Oral ketamine is a gentle experience. Clients often reporting mild to moderate dissociative effects, increased relaxation, reduced mind chatter, love, empathy, and their awareness of themselves and their experiences expanding and taking on new meaning and value. Depending on the dose and a person’s unique biochemistry, closed-eye visuals may also present. These are typically beautiful and/or informative.

Ketamine has been shown to alleviate symptoms across a variety of mental health issues. For people who have responded to ketamine in clinical studies, the initial antidepressant effects are often detectable within hours of administration, with peak antidepressant effects typically occurring approximately 24-48 hours after administration. The duration of ketamine’s neuroplastic effects (creating the potential for lasting change) varies from person to person and can range from a few days to two weeks or longer following a single treatment. The most transformative work happens with multiple ketamine sessions.

Oral ketamine, when taken as prescribed, is very safe and very well-tolerated. The largest-ever peer-reviewed study of ketamine therapy showed that at-home ketamine therapy was not only effective but safe, with minimal side effects or adverse events reported by participants. Specifically:

~ Only 4 patients (0.3%) dropped out of treatment due to adverse events or intolerable side effects.

~ Fewer than 1% of the study’s participants’ experienced worsening of symptoms over the course of the study.

~ Fewer than 5% of participants reported any side effects.

The most common (though still infrequent) side effects reported with at-home ketamine are mild nausea, mild headache, and a mild increase in blood pressure and heart rate, all of which tend to resolve spontaneously as the acute effects of the ketamine wear off. In heavy daily users (>1,000mg/day), it’s possible to develop bladder damage and cognitive impairment. These doses are 20-30x greater and used in far greater frequency than you will encounter with Mindbloom’s trusted approach. You can read more about safety practices here.

Drugs are classified into 5 levels of dependency potential. Schedule 1 is the strongest potential for dependency and schedule 5 is the lowest. Ketamine is a DEA schedule 3 drug. This means that it has a low to moderate potential for dependence. Other drugs in this category include codeine (90mg or less), anabolic steroids, and testosterone. Common anti-anxiety medications, such as Ativan or Xanax, are schedule 2 and considered to be more addictive than ketamine. Even alcohol and tobacco are generally considered to have greater risk for addiction, not to mention adverse health effects.