There are 17 million people in the US suffering from severe depression and more than 6 million fail to respond to FDA approved oral antidepressants. They don’t know that ketamine infusion therapy works on up to 80% (four out of five) of patients, often providing relief and eliminating suicidal thoughts within hours of treatment. Ketamine infusion often works where other drug therapies have failed. That’s because Ketamine medicine works on very different mechanisms than traditional oral medications. When ketamine infusion works, it works quickly, usually within hours or a couple of days. Ketamine therapy has proven to be highly effective in the treatment of severe depression. When administered correctly with the proper monitoring ketamine infusion can provide dramatic relief of depression.

James Culver, MD, has been in practice since 1983 and started the first pain clinic in Flint in 1991. Ketamine Clinic of Michigan is an upscale, modern, easy access facility with fully monitored ketamine IV infusion therapy. IV ketamine infusion therapy is the most precise delivery of ketamine therapy over a precise period of time, which makes it far superior to any other routes of administration.
Dr. Culver recommends about six ketamine infusions every other day for two weeks.

Ketamine Therapy and Severe Depression

Recent studies have shown that depression is associated with the degeneration and loss of nerve cells, as well as chemical imbalances and structural abnormalities in the brain. The longer the depression lasts, the greater the loss of brain tissue volume.

Ketamine therapy can stop or even reverse this atrophy. It can restore communication between brain neurons through a process called synaptogenesis. The same cannot be said of current oral medications that are FDA-approved for treatment of severe depression. These medications often take weeks or months to become effective. If one type fails, doctors typically try others until something works. When nothing works, the patient has TRD or treatment-resistant depression.

For patients in this category, ketamine may provide clinically significant results in a matter of hours or days, instead of weeks, months or years of trial and error they might experience otherwise. In 2000, researchers at the Yale School of Medicine demonstrated that a single dose of ketamine therapy used on TRD patients led to a significant reduction in depression within just four hours. Another study showed significant improvement within two hours and the antidepressant effect lasted seven days!

One of the Yale researchers called ketamine infusion therapy “arguably the most significant advance in the field of depression treatment in over 50 years.“

Ketamine Therapy and Bipolar Depression Treatment

Patients with bipolar depression are often frustrated by the inability of regular drug therapies to resolve their severe depression and suicidal thoughts. Ketamine therapy has been particularly effective for these patients. A study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry revealed that a single dose of ketamine infusion reduced their symptoms of depression within 40 minutes!
Bipolar Manic State

Most research shows ketamine’s effectiveness for bipolar depression treatment. Some researchers believe that bipolar patients get good results only when their ketamine infusion happens during a depressed state, but not during a manic state. If you are in a manic state on the day of your appointment, tell Dr. Culver. It might be better to postpone ketamine therapy until you cycle back to depression.

Dr. Culver is encouraged and excited about the results he is getting with ketamine infusion therapy for patients with bipolar depression.