The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that more than 301 million people experience anxiety. Sadly, the stigma around mental health disorders and lack of awareness of possible treatment options leaves many of those people going untreated. Fortunately, ketamine infusion therapy is breaking through that stigma and lack of education and awareness by offering people who suffer from mental health disorders like anxiety a potentially effective anxiety treatment. It’s no wonder that an increasing number of mental health professionals and medical researchers are taking notice.
A Treatment for Treatment-Resistance Anxiety
Many people experiencing social anxiety disorders do not experience sufficient relief from the prevailing traditional social anxiety treatment options currently available. In light of this, researchers studied a potential alternative therapy: ketamine for anxiety. In a 2018 study published in Neuropharmacology called “Ketamine for Social Anxiety Disorder: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Crossover Trial,” the researchers found that ketamine reduced anxiety significantly more than a placebo. They also found that participants were more likely to respond to ketamine infusion therapy for anxiety within two weeks than those taking a placebo. The researchers concluded that the study provided initial evidence that ketamine may be an effective anxiety treatment.
How Ketamine Therapy Works
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that blocks certain brain receptors, including those associated with anxiety. Ketamine triggers the production of glutamate, which helps the brain to forge new neural pathways, including “new positive thought patterns.” It is also believed that ketamine helps brain cells that have been harmed by stress, a state associated with mood disorders, to regenerate.
With ketamine infusion therapy, patients receive several sessions of a low dose of ketamine injected into their bloodstream using an IV drip.
Patients are closely monitored throughout the treatment in a safe, supervised, and controlled environment. This is one of the many ways that anxiety doctors in Las Vegas are helping to break the social stigma surrounding the use of ketamine therapy for mental health disorders.
The Social Stigma Around Mental Health Disorders
Seeking help for a mental health disorder is often considered a sign of weakness. This leads many people in need of effective social anxiety treatment to feel too embarrassed or ashamed of their condition to seek treatment as they fear other people’s judgment and ostracism.
As anxiety doctors in Las Vegas who provide ketamine infusion therapy, we offer a safe and effective treatment and a safe and comforting environment where you can shed those concerns and focus on getting better.
The Social Stigma Around Ketamine Treatment for Anxiety
The use of ketamine as a veterinary anesthetic, and most particularly a horse tranquilizer, and as a hallucinogenic party drug has contributed vastly to the social stigma surrounding the use of ketamine as a social anxiety treatment. The abuse potential of ketamine is another cause of much of the stigma surrounding ketamine for anxiety and other mental health disorders.
Finally, both contributing to and resulting from the social stigma against ketamine use for mental health treatment is the conflict between demand and safe access. It would stand to reason, then, that increased access via trained and experienced medical staff will begin to meet the rising demand, thereby stigmatizing the therapeutic use of ketamine with humans all the less.
One of the strongest antidotes to this social stigma is the personal stories of people who have benefited from ketamine therapy for mental health concerns. Hearing such stories can often convince people considering ketamine for anxiety that the treatment may also be safe and effective for them.
Research Into Ketamine Therapy for Anxiety
Another one of the most effective ways to break the social stigma surrounding mental health treatment is with clear, hard evidence. More and more research studies are examining ketamine’s potential effectiveness as an anxiety treatment.
For example, addressing concerns about the safety of ketamine therapy, a study called “Safety and efficacy of maintenance ketamine treatment in patients with treatment-refractory generalized anxiety and social anxiety disorders,” published in 2021 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology found ketamine treatment to be “safe and well-tolerated” among recipients. Moreover, study participants reported significant improvements in their personal lives and overall functionality.
A 2022 BJPsycho Open review of research called “Ketamine for the treatment of mental health and substance use disorders: comprehensive systematic review” examined 83 published reports on the psychotherapeutic potential of ketamine. It concluded that evidence existed to support the fast and powerful effects of ketamine on certain mental health disorders.
Media as a Tool to Break the Stigma Surrounding Ketamine
While research studies are increasingly finding ketamine a potentially valuable treatment option for anxiety and, most particularly, treatment-resistant anxiety, the mainstream public generally doesn’t hear about them. That’s why media attention on the treatment is so vital to spread awareness of its potential. A 2022 article in The New York Times called “A Ketamine Clinic Treads the Line Between Health Care and a ‘Spa Day for Your Brain’” brought the prospect of ketamine for anxiety to a vastly wider audience. In the article, a Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies noted another way to break any stigma of ketamine for anxiety by advocating for ketamine use to be combined with psychotherapy for the most effective results.
Ketamine Therapy Advocacy
In another BJPsycho Open report, this one from 2019 called “Exploring patients’ and carers’ views about the clinical use of ketamine to inform policy and practical decisions: mixed-methods study,” patients reported a lack of sufficient evidence of the safety and efficacy of ketamine therapy as a reason for their resistance to the treatment. That’s why patient advocacy is so essential for getting anxiety sufferers to seek the help they need from a treatment that could potentially work for them.
Patient organizations like the Ketamine Advocacy Network strive to help make ketamine more widely available as a mental health treatment by gathering and spreading this evidence and information as it arises. Other organizations involved in ketamine therapy advocacy include the Association of American Medical Colleges and The Chicago School.
Clinic-Based Administration
Among the conclusions of the previously mentioned 2019 BJPsych Open report was that the best way to mitigate the conflicting concerns of mediating potential risks of ketamine with the potential benefits of ketamine treatment is for patients to receive ketamine therapy in a clinic-based environment.
The Future of Ketamine Therapy for Anxiety
The continued research into ketamine’s safety and efficacy as a treatment for anxiety and other mental health disorders will lead more doctors and patients to consider exploring the treatment. And, as more of them find positive results using ketamine infusion therapy, more research and development will invariably take place, leading to the possible discovery of even greater benefits of ketamine therapy to treat mental health disorders like anxiety and, hopefully, to a steady reduction in the stigma surrounding the use of ketamine as a social anxiety treatment.
Contact Progressive Medical Solutions of Nevada to learn more.
