What is Ketamine Treatment? What You Need To Know

Our remarkable 3-day RESTORE infusion program can lead to rapid change and dramatic improvement by quickly "restoring" your neurochemical balance and rapidly "rebooting" neural connections, allowing you to enjoy life again.  But more than that, it also rapidly reduces inflammation associated with chronic stress, depression, and pain, while helping to restore immune and hormonal functions to normal. And the unique transformational experiences that are often encountered during the sessions provide you with the opportunity to experience a new, vital, and expanded perspective of life.

The advantage of RESTORE is that it works much faster and lasts longer than any ketamine infusion. Our initial 3 RESTORE Essential infusions are the therapeutic equivalent of at least 9 ketamine infusions. The entire program takes just 3 days — compared to 2 weeks with ketamine — and it lasts 3-6x longer than a ketamine infusion, so you feel better much longer and makes RESTORE significantly more cost-effective than ketamine.

We understand that living with chronic stress, depression, anxiety, or chronic pain can be difficult, but considering RESTORE Infusion Therapy® is a step in the right direction.  And you're not alone, we have been there too, and we understand what it's like.   

The RESTORE program is intensive, highly individualized, and strictly confidential. We don't treat patients.  We help people, one person at a time.

 Your first step...Find a Trained and Certified Ketamine Physician

The first step in your journey should be finding a trained and qualified physician to administer ketamine infusions safely and effectively according to the American Psychiatric Association and the American Society of Anesthesiologists guidelines.

"Ketamine Clinics" are becoming more common in some communities and unfortunately can vary widely in terms of quality, experience, and expertise. Some physicians providing ketamine infusion therapy may be well-meaning but have little knowledge or formal training in ketamine infusion therapy. They frequently heard about the remarkable benefits of ketamine for depression and anxiety, read one or two papers published on the subject, and then think that they are qualified to begin performing infusions. Because of this, results can vary widely, and many patients do not achieve the full benefits of ketamine therapy.

Ketamine therapy is an exact and meticulous therapy that requires experience and expertise. Unfortunately, some physicians may see ketamine infusion therapy as a simple office procedure that requires little or no direct involvement on their part and can produce some additional revenue for their practice. They often see other patients while a nurse starts your infusion in an isolated exam room and occasionally "check in on you."  

In our view, and the opinion of the American Psychiatric Association, this is not a safe practice. Let's not forget that ketamine is a potent medication, and it is an anesthetic drug. You should be very cautious if the doctor is only with you for 5 minutes before the infusion or a fully trained member of the healthcare team is not with you at all times during your infusion.

Ketamine Institute Training Program for Physicians

Current research suggests that many of the centers and clinics offering ketamine infusion therapy have extremely high "dropout" rates, relatively poor outcomes in which only 20-50% of their patients benefit from the treatment, and seem to have an unusually high incidence of "adverse effects."  Our training program seeks to provide the knowledge, tools and skill sets necessary for our graduates to achieve the same "remarkable" levels of improvement (70-75% improvement following ketamine infusion treatment), high rates of completion and few, if any, "adverse effects" as those reported by the most sophisticated, high-level research programs.

 5 Important Things to Ask and Warning Signs to Look Out For...

1. Be very skeptical of any "ketamine clinic" that uses a "call-in" answering service to give you information. Often you will be speaking to someone in a remote location with no personal knowledge of ketamine therapy which can only answer simple questions from a script. They may only be concerned with offering you an appointment in the clinic as soon as possible.  It would help if you spoke to someone with direct knowledge and experience in ketamine infusion therapy who can answer all of your questions from the start.

2. Ask where they were trained in the use of ketamine. Your physician should be thoroughly trained and experienced in administering ketamine for mood disorders and related conditions. Ask if they are certified in ketamine therapy. The Ketamine Research Institute trains physicians from around the US and Internationally to administer ketamine safely, under strict protocols and guidelines set forth by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Society of Anesthesiologist recommendations.

3. Be very careful if they do not assure you that a fully qualified member of the health care team will be you at all times during the infusion session. It is not advisable to have someone from the office "check in on you" every once in a while. You are being given a very potent medication and should be observed and monitored continually during your treatment.

4. Be suspicious of any provider that prescribes supplemental ketamine in a nasal spray or oral formulation. There are many unintended consequences to using such agents, including the possibility of having adverse side effects, becoming dependent, or developing tolerance to the medication quickly and thereby losing its effect rapidly.

5. Be concerned if they do not require your medical records. All legitimate physicians providing ketamine to a patient will request medical records and labs from your doctor. If they do not ask for these documents or say that they are unnecessary, that may be a warning sign that they may not be reputable and are operating a "mill" type of operation.

*Now that you know the advantages of RESTORE, if you still feel that regular ketamine
infusion therapy is an option for you, then please read our guide on
How to Choose The Best Ketamine Infusion Center - 2021.

Before we look at RESTORE, let's first look at regular ketamine infusion therapy.

Did you know that only 50% of people may respond to ketamine infusion therapy?

Although ketamine infusion therapy can be remarkably rapid and effective for patients with treatment-resistant depression under research conditions, that is not always the case in actual practice. Research studies report that up to 70% of patients in a clinical research setting improve following ketamine infusion treatment. Unfortunately, while many ketamine clinics will quote that number, far fewer people undergoing ketamine infusion therapy in a ketamine clinic are likely to do as well.

Is a 50/50 chance of improvement really the best that can be expected?

In reality, your chances of experiencing improvement when a ketamine infusion takes place in a local ketamine clinic could be significantly different - and much lower (1). Some believe a more realistic expectation is that only about 50-60% of people respond to ketamine infusions when given in a ketamine clinic setting. According to one recent report, just 44% of patients with treatment-resistant depression responded favorably after six infusion sessions in a community hospital setting (2). In fact, the results can be so variable that in a study conducted last year at the world-renown Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University Department of Psychiatry in Boston only 15 of 85 (18.3%) of their patients improved following a "standard" ketamine infusion!(3)

There are many reasons for the lower response rate you may experience. Often, this includes a number of factors that can contribute to you success or lack of it. For example, many clinicians providing ketamine therapy lack adequate training or experience administering ketamine, or they may not adhere to appropriate patient selection and treatment standards. Equally as important, they may not appropriately adjust ketamine dosing based on critical factors such as your medications, metabolism, or genetic profile.

Be aware of how time consuming and expensive ketamine can be.

Regular ketamine infusions, when performed by qualified and experienced clinicians who have strict standards and following treatment protocols, can unquestionably be effective for many people — they have some significant limitations and drawbacks that you need to be aware of.

The first limitation for some people is that regular ketamine infusion, while helpful in mood disorders such as depression or anxiety, is not very helpful or effective for treating chronic pain. Next, it will require at least six infusions over two weeks to complete the initial treatment series, and you may not know if it's even working until around the third session. As a result, determining whether it is effective for you may take some time.

Ketamine infusion can be very time-consuming.

Many people may find it difficult or impossible to take every other day off from work, school, or their household responsibilities for two weeks to have the therapy. More than that, it is important to remember that you will need someone to drive to and from each of those infusion sessions.

Then, there is the overall expense involved.

When you ask, most local ketamine clinics will tell you the single infusion cost, but that can be misleading and is not reflective of the overall costs involved. It is essential to remember that you must multiply the single infusion cost by six or more sessions just to finish the initial treatment series.

More than that, if it is helpful in improving your mood and well-being it may only last for about 4-6 weeks before you need another infusion to help feeling well. So, to maintain the benefit, you will need to continue having infusions every 4-6 weeks after that for an unknown amount of time.

Regular ketamine infusions can become very costly over just the first year – depending upon your location and the clinic, it can amount to over $8,500.00 in many cases.

 How is the RESTORE different from other treatments?

First, let's look at what you can expect from a "typical ketamine infusion" used in many centers:

Each person is different and will respond differently to any "standard" dose of medication. But, a typical responder to ketamine-based Therapy can expect to see at least a 50% improvement in their mood for approximately four weeks following an infusion. The progress may be a little longer in some and shorter in others.

Responders to standard ketamine-based Therapy generally fall into what is known as a normal distribution curve in which 15% have extended benefits longer than four weeks, while 70% will require maintenance every four weeks (21-28 days) to maintain the improvement. The remaining 15% need them even more frequently.

Although the benefits of ketamine-based Therapy far exceed those of conventional antidepressants, some have compared ketamine to a "band-aid" type of approach to treatment.  You may see improvement for a short time but never entirely obtain long-term benefits—substituting taking antidepressants every day in exchange for ketamine infusions every month.

We knew ketamine could be made better and more effective!

As a former Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology of Yale School of Medicine, where the ketamine infusion for depression was first developed, I have had years of experience with ketamine and developed RESTORE infusion to improve upon the essential ketamine infusion. Using RESTORE, we have successfully treated some of the most challenging cases that have not been helped with any other conventional, alternative medical therapy or even multiple regular ketamine infusions. It may also be helpful to know that our patients come to us from across the country and worldwide and are considered the "gold standard" in ketamine-based Therapy.

Most people who come to us do so because RESTORE can be completed in just 3 days compared to 2 weeks with ketamine. The improvements seen with RESTORE last much longer than ketamine infusion therapy. Rather than needing ongoing maintenance infusions, after two RESTORE maintenance sessions, most of our patients find they only need a "reboot" infusion once or twice a year to stay well.  Many experienced long-term remission (1-2 years or more) following just several maintenance infusions.

The advantages of RESTORE are simple: it works much faster, lasts a great deal longer, requires far fewer maintenance infusions than a ketamine infusion, and costs 30-40% less than continued ketamine treatments.

Another benefit is that many of our patients find that they can then begin to reduce or eliminate many of the medications they took before RESTORE and avoid all of the unwanted side effects of antidepressants.

Our protocol has been developed over many years of clinical investigation and application. In addition to the metabolic and genetic optimization of each patient we see, the RESTORE infusion process is a unique combination of ketamine and magnesium to make it much more effective. that it is then administered by our physicians using a unique, proprietary 3-stage infusion protocol to provide each person with the optimal RESTORE serum concentration necessary to obtain the best response. That is why just 3 RESTORE infusions work better than 9 ketamine infusions. And you can begin to notice the improvement in just minutes to hours after the very first infusion.

So, now you know a few of the differences between RESTORE and other ketamine infusions. RESTORE is faster-acting, longer-lasting, and treats more conditions effectively while being less expensive than any additional ketamine infusion. Learn more about the RESTORE Infusion Center and our transformational program.

 See the RESTORE Difference:.

We have spent almost 20 years researching and developing ways to enhance the effects of ketamine and to make it last much longer. By utilizing Precision Medicine and Targeted Therapy combined with cutting-edge research and innovations in Anesthesiology, neuropharmacology, and neurocognition, we have significantly improved ketamine's ability to treat depression, anxiety, PTSD. 

We are the only center in the United States offering the RESTORE Ultra-Rapid Infusion and the RESTORE Ketamine PLUS protocols. Each has its advantages, and it is important to recognize the difference between them to determine which might be best for your individual needs.

Visit our RESTORE Infusion Center for even more information about our program.

The RESTORE Ultra-Rapid Infusions are different from the "standard infusion" and are the most advanced formulation of ketamine therapy available.  It is faster and more effective than any other ketamine infusion and, when combined with Precision Medicine and Targeted Therapy, can last 3-6 times longer than the standard infusion.

The beneficial results can begin in just a few minutes to hours after the very first infusion!

 What conditions can the RESTORE Advanced Ultra-Rapid Infusion treat?

We are just beginning to learn and appreciate the full range of conditions that ketamine can help. It has been known for years to treat all forms of chronic neuropathic pain and depression.

In chronic pain, for instance, the number of neuropathic pain conditions is vast and includes such conditions as:

Depression                                                                              Migraine Headaches
Generalized Anxiety                                                               Fibromyalgia
Bipolar Disorder                                                                      Peripheral Neuropathy
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder                                          Chronic Neuropathic Pain
"Burnout" Syndrome                                                              Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
Pelvic Pain                                                                               Vulvodynia and pudendal neuralgia

But even more than that, we now see that it has broader applications and is successful in treating pelvic pain and vulvodynia/pudendal neuralgia.   There is also research to support the beneficial effects of RESTORE in the treatment of Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders. It should come as no surprise because we also have recently discovered that all of these conditions share many of the same neural pathways that ketamine targets.

 What is Ketamine?

Ketamine has been described as the most important breakthrough in treating depression, anxiety, and chronic pain in the last fifty years.  It is an FDA-approved anesthetic drug that has been used safely and effectively in hospitals worldwide since the 1960s. In the last few years, numerous articles in medical journals have shown efficacy in using ketamine in sub-anesthetic doses to treat depression and some chronic pain syndromes. Major drug companies are now taking note of its remarkable effects and rushing into developing medications based upon its results. 

Ketamine's anesthetic effects are mediated by interactions with the NMDA receptor member of the glutamate receptor family. It also interacts with other receptors, including opioid receptors, dopamine receptors, and a receptor known as the AMPA receptor thought to be an essential component of its antidepressant effects.

For the past 20 years, researchers have known that tiny doses of ketamine can rapidly relieve depression symptoms when delivered via slow intravenous infusion. Yale University School of Medicine published the first scholarly paper describing this discovery in 2000. Since then, Yale and other major institutions have conducted dozens of more studies, including the National Institutes of Health, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Mount Sinai Medical School, Oxford University, and more. The original findings have been reconfirmed many times.

Although medical professionals are going "off-label" when using ketamine to treat patients with chronic pain and depression, as many of 40% of all prescriptions written for patients in the US are used "off-label".  Examples of this include such things as the use of antidepressants for pain, anticonvulsant medication to treat Fibromyalgia and even blood pressure drugs to regrow hair. Fortunately for ketamine there are many clinical trials supporting the evidence that this drug successfully treats those who suffer from chronic pain and depression when nothing else can.

Doctors and scientists report that their deeply depressed patients who are treated with ketamine respond within just a few hours! No other drug used for depression has the ability to bring relief in anywhere near this short amount of time. And with infusions administered in sequential fashion fundamental brain healing can occur.