Ketamine is a dissociative drug commonly used as a rapid antidepressant for patients with persistent mental health symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Although the benefits of ketamine are fast-acting they may not last long without other lifestyle changes. With the possible limited duration of its benefits, some ketamine patients...
Taking care of a child is an amazing journey to embark on, but it can also be stressful, confusing, and even lonely. So much attention and energy are given to the baby, and rightfully so, but many moms and parents can often find themselves feeling stressed, depressed, or even neglected. ...
Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Chronic pain is a persistent syndrome that affects about a third of the population in all Western countries, or around 17-44%¹. A health condition can cause chronic pain, but in some cases, the cause isn't always known. Chronic pain typically interrupts people’s daily lives, making it...
What is Traditional Therapy? Traditional therapy, otherwise known as cognitive behavioral therapy or psychotherapy, is a form of counseling that often centers around talk therapy to address mental health symptoms. This type of therapy typically focuses on feelings, behaviors, present thoughts, as well as current and past situations¹. This...
In honor of Women’s Month, we at Avesta Ketamine and Wellness hope to shine a light on women’s mental health and possible treatment options including ketamine treatments and IV vitamin infusions. Depression in Females vs Males As with any health condition, mental illnesses, such as depression or anxiety, affect...
Although ketamine treatments are typically administered to individual patients, some couples are discovering that a ketamine infusion during their couples therapy sessions improves the quality of these sessions and in turn their relationship. Some coupled patients believe the combination of ketamine and therapy sessions has saved their marriages. Therapy...
Formerly used as an anesthetic, ketamine is a dissociative drug that can induce a feeling of being detached from reality and your own body. Today it is commonly used to treat anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and depression¹. Every person will have different experiences with ketamine; in low doses, ketamine...
“How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” – Rupi Kaur As Valentine’s Day approaches, it is imperative to remember the most important person you can show love to is yourself. When narrowing down how you can show care and love to yourself, focusing on...
New Year’s Day can often spark reflection on the current state, and trajectory of a person's life. Naturally, this makes people more inclined to celebrate their accomplishments and make resolutions after reflecting on what they could improve or resolve in the new year. The History of New Year’s Day...
The holiday season is right around the corner. While many enjoy the celebration of this time of year, others silently struggle with their mental health. Studies have shown that around 64% of people experience an increase in their feelings of anxiety and depression during the holiday season¹. Many people...
Major Depressive Disorder Major Depressive Disorder is a serious mental health condition that can negatively affect your everyday emotions and actions. Despite how common depression is in the United States and globally, the public often overlooks the seriousness of this disorder. Around three million new cases are reported each year...
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment (PTSD) In recent years, the understanding, and treatment of mental illnesses have drastically improved. While the symptoms of PTSD have been described since “mankind’s earliest literature,” it was not till 1980 that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) (DSM-III) added it to the...
The History of Veterans Day On November 11, 1918, at 11 a.m. the U.S. celebrated the end of World War I, and on the same day in 1921 the first unknown U.S. soldier from World War I was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The day became known as Armistice Day...
Working and the workplace look different these days. While hybrid and remote work options have granted some employees flexibility and freedom, it has also contributed to vague boundaries that would otherwise establish a healthy work-life balance for others. Furthermore, in a vast number of employees, it has also created a...
The definition of suicidal ideation varies across the medical field, posing diagnostic and research challenges to health professionals. It is often referred to as suicidal thoughts or ideas and sometimes includes suicidal planning. Due to the varying definitions, the spectrum of suicidal ideation could be anything from wishing to fall...
For those struggling with addiction, every day can feel like an uphill battle. Addiction can have irreversible damage to one's well-being, as well as impact the lives of their loved ones. Almost 21 million Americans have at least 1 addiction, but only 10% receive treatment for their addiction.1 The most...
Scientifically speaking, ketamine is a mixture of two compounds that are mirror images of each other but not exactly alike. It’s like your hands – mirror images, but they’re not the same. One such compound is esketamine (also called (S)-ketamine), and the other is racemic ketamine (also called (R)-ketamine, or...
People suffering from severe alcohol use disorder can, at times, feel like there is little hope for ending their addiction. Alcohol Use Disorder, or AUD, is characterized by the inability to control drinking habits because of either physical and/or emotional dependence on alcohol. Additionally, those with AUD have also been...
Music has a profound effect on one's mood and mental state. It can impact our emotions and change how we think and has proven to be beneficial in supporting the treatment of certain mental illnesses. This has brought a rise to music therapy, which is described as 'an evidence-based treatment...
Ketamine can treat a variety of illnesses. There is potential for it to treat psychiatric disorders like depression, anxiety, addiction, and PTSD (Keeler, 2021). For major depressive disorder, it typically takes three weeks for antidepressants like serotonin selective reuptake inhibitors to begin working (Peng, 2020). As a kind of anesthetic,...
When it comes to managing cancer pain, no one treatment plan looks alike. As reported in the Seminars in Oncology Nursing, Sandra Kurtin et al. wrote, “Pain remains a primary concern throughout the cancer trajectory across all age groups and diagnoses” (2019). They claim that communication is critical among health...
Anxiety can make everyday activities difficult to complete and can worsen over time. Anxiety manifests in a variety of ways, including panic disorder, social anxiety, and phobia-related disorders. While progress has been made in bringing attention to anxiety, it still carries some social stigma. In fact, anxiety is one of...
“The most violent element in society is ignorance.” - Emma Goldman. As May, Mental Health Awareness Month comes to an end, Avesta Ketamine & Wellness is focused on celebrating and supporting the greater conversation on mental health: stripping the stigma from this chronic health condition affecting millions of Americans. ...
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and there are fewer organizations more dedicated to helping raise awareness regarding mental health than the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). As the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization, NAMI dedicates itself to transforming the way in which we talk about mental health...
After running her first half marathon in 2015, Life and Career Coach Kim Bielak founded National Fitness Day; the first National Fitness Day was officially celebrated in 2017 - this year, Saturday, May 7th, is National Fitness Day. Last year, the tenth anniversary celebrated the day with the theme “Fitness...
How Much Is Too Much? Screentime's Impact on Mental Health “Worldwide, the average person spends a total of 6 hours and 57 minutes looking at a screen each day (for internet-connected activities). And the majority of this (3 hours and 43 minutes) is spent on mobiles. This includes 2 hours...
Spring can be stressful, especially with April 18, 2022, tax day around the corner. While certified public accountants may carry the weight of tax season, most people feel the season's stress. Every year, the American Psychological Association conducts a survey called “Stress in America.” This year, “Stress about money is...
“Ketamine’s history begins with Phencyclidine, which was first synthesized in 1956 by chemists at Parke Davis Company who discovered Ketamine’s unique and fascinating pharmacology”(Maddox et al., 1965, as cited in Li and Vlisides, 2016). Ten years later, it was approved as a human anesthetic (Li and Vlisides, 2016) and is...
For millennia, medicine has functioned on the assumption that male bodies represent humanity as a whole. As a result, we have a huge historical data gap when it comes to female bodies, and this data gap is continuing to grow as researchers continue to exclude female cells, animals, and humans,...
The Many Faces of Postpartum Depression Formerly referred to as postpartum depression, peripartum depression “refers to depression occurring during pregnancy or after childbirth”; the term peripartum is more inclusive as it recognizes that “depression associated with having a baby often begins during pregnancy” (American Psychiatric Association, 2020). It is first...
Impact of the Opioid Crisis in the U.S. The opioid crisis has gripped the U.S. since the 1990s when pharmaceutical companies brazenly assured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers; today’s reality, however, paints a very different picture. According to the Center for...
One of our patients shares some tips to help others get the most out of their ketamine infusions: Making the Most Out of Your Treatment Session During the infusion, it can be helpful to start with the intent to reflect on something. Here are some patient suggested ideas: Recall what...
Famed poet Charles Bukowski once said, "If you have the ability to love, love yourself first." Self-love is a journey of self-discovery; as with any uncharted quest, the process of loving oneself can often be daunting, overwhelming, or seemingly impossible. More than that, it can seem pointless…until the moment you...
Lyme disease is common in the United States. About 30,000 Lyme Disease cases are reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) every year; however, the actual number of annual cases is probably closer to nearly half a million people (1). Individuals with Lyme Disease have been infected...
Mindfulness is a widely accepted practice used by many mental health professionals for a variety of mental health issues including depression, mood disorders, PTSD and others (1). In treatment, it is used as a process that allows emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations to be experienced with acceptance and without judgment. ...
Ketamine Therapy Many individuals seek out, or are recommended, ketamine therapy with hopes of relieving symptoms of their mood disorder. Ketamine can help individuals with Anxiety, Treatment Resistant Depression, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by creating new neural pathways and allowing individuals to reach a dissociative state where they can...
Depression and Diet According to the World Health Organization, roughly 15 million (about 6.7%) of adults in the United States have depression, and depression is the main cause of disability among Americans aged 15 to 44 (1). As the Thanksgiving Holiday is approaching, we are reminded of winter, and...
Ketamine as an Antidepressant Ketamine, originally and currently used as an anesthetic, is on the rise as a safe and effective treatment option for individuals with mood disorders. In subanesthetic doses, ketamine can significantly reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for many individuals. Numerous clinical...
Anxiety and the Amygdala A part of the brain called the amygdala controls our body’s response to stress and threatening stimuli (1). Within the amygdala, there are receptors that tell us to fight or take flight when there is danger in front of us. When the fight or flight...
Why Ketamine? Recently, you might have read the front-page New York Times article titled, “The Psychedelic Revolution Is Coming. Psychiatry May Never Be the Same.” The title says it all, and Ketamine plays a big role in this revolution. At Avesta Ketamine and Wellness, with clinics in Bethesda, MD and...
From intrusive thoughts to severe mood changes, PTSD wracks your mental and emotional well-being. But no matter how many treatment plans you try or specialists you see, it can often feel like relief from your symptoms is impossible. The availability of ketamine therapy offers hope for PTSD relief at Avesta...
Ketamine and the Glutamate System At Avesta, we place our trust in science and therefore, base our clinical approach on research-backed theses. After years of teaching about ketamine to graduate students at Georgetown University, our lead clinician, Dr. Ladan Eshkevari, opened Avesta because recent scientific research has shown that ketamine...
With a flick of your finger, you can find information on virtually any topic. And while the sheer volume of available information has expanded horizons, it also has been tainted with misinformation. This is especially true when it comes to breakthrough treatments like ketamine infusions. At Avesta Ketamine and Wellness...
At Avesta, we believe a holistic approach, with a team of mental health practitioners, that includes psychiatrists, psychologists and other trained professionals, is the best method for addressing mood disorders. We advocate for healthy diets and exercise to enhance the results of the Ketamine infusions. The human body needs the...
Chronic pain is a growing problem in our country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 20% of the population has chronic pain, and 7% of those individuals have such severe chronic pain that it limits their life and work activities. From surgery to injections, there...
Every year in the United States, more than 16 million people suffer from at least one major depressive episode, and many of those people deal with chronic, ongoing symptoms that can be difficult to manage, even with medicine and therapy. These people have what’s sometimes referred to as treatment-resistant depression,...
Avesta is pleased to announce that we are an Advocacy Consortium Clinic. What does that mean? It means we are participating in the mission to ensure access for pain and mental health patients to safe ketamine treatments through insurance coverage. The Ketamine Taskforce Advocacy Clinic Consortium Recently, on February 1,...
At Avesta Ketamine and Wellness, we fully support efforts to #BreaktheStigma about mental health. At its core, the Break the Stigma effort is rooted in suicide prevention because that is the absolute worst outcome of mental health suffering. The goal of this effort is to help prevent those that suffer...
Are you searching for information about Ketamine and OCD? Does Ketamine work for OCD? Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and anxiety are inextricably linked. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder that is very common and generally a chronic condition. OCD is marked by uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts (obsessions) and/or behaviors (compulsions) that...
When it comes to understanding depression, there is no shortage of theories as to why we become depressed. Currently, the guiding directive in scientific depression studies encourages researchers to seek to identify a biochemical origin of the disease, as opposed to theories that emphasize psychological or situational causes. From a...
Understanding Ketamine and Disassociation As a trained practitioner and researcher in the field of anesthesia and pain management, I have long understood the benefits of IV ketamine for the treatment of depression, anxiety, PTSD, chronic pain, and other mood disorders. Notwithstanding, I am equally aware that ketamine has created something...
Are you wondering how Ketamine offers new hope for treatment resistant PTSD? If you are suffering from PTSD, you have likely heard that you are not alone and while that is true, it probably does not change the fact that you feel alone. You may also feel helpless, isolated, ashamed,...
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), “Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year.” However, with the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the...
Are you struggling with treatment-resistant depression and/or anxiety? It can be a debilitating battle leaving you feeling hopeless and lost. It can take years to be diagnosed with depression or anxiety, and once diagnosed, it can take many more years to find a prescription drug treatment that works. What many...
We here at Avesta Ketamine and Wellness are excited to share our big news! We are opening a second location in McLean Virginia beginning November 2020. In opening our second location, we are also actively working to continue our mission to create awareness about the safety and benefits of ketamine....
It is October and this time of year we centralize around the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ (NAMI) efforts to raise awareness about mental illness. NAMI is “the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness.” NAMI leads...
Should Ketamine be used during police arrests? Should ketamine be used in police arrests? It is a good question. Ketamine has a long and proven history for various medical uses and is safe when administered by a licensed clinical practitioner. I have written more extensively on its safety and use...
Are you wondering which is better: Ketamine or Spravato? You are not alone. Spravato (Esketamine) is a new drug produced Janssen Pharmaceutical and is the first new method to treat depression in over 25 years. On March 05, 2019, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that Spravato was...
There are three primary ways we are susceptible to dehydration: Sports, Socializing, and Sickness. Did you know that hydration is critically important to your overall health for many reasons to include regulating body temperature, keeping joints lubricated, preventing infections, delivering nutrients to cells, and keeping organs functioning properly? But, did...
Are you wondering if Ketamine IV Infusion treatments for depression, anxiety, PTSD, and chronic pain are safe? It is a valid question and if you are seeking to learn more, it is smart that you are searching for more information. As a Georgetown professor of over 20 years, and long-time...
Wondering what exactly Ketamine is and how it works? You may have heard that Ketamine is available for the treatment of major mood disorders such as depression, PTSD, anxiety as well as chronic pain, but beyond that you may not know much more. Certainly there is a bit of a...
Are you wondering if there are ways to cure depression? In my 20 years as a practitioner and professor in anesthesia, pain management, and alternative medicine, the proverbial question, "is it possible to get rid of depression" comes up. If you are suffering from depression, whether it is major or...
Are you thinking to yourself, "how does Ketamine work for Depression?" First off all, if you are suffering from Depression, you are not alone. According to a 2017 study by The National Institute of Health (NIH), “An estimated 17.3 million adults in the United States had at least one major...
Are you looking for a better way to boost your immune system as a preventative measure against COVID-19 Coronavirus disease and Influenza? With the onset of the COVID-19 Coronavirus disease and the most recent wave of Influenza cases striking the United States, you are likely pretty concerned about your health...
Do you suffer from Chronic Pain? Are you wondering how to manage your Chronic Pain with Ketamine IV Infusions? Unfortunately, in decades past, Chronic Pain has been a very challenging pain disorder to treat. For many, common procedures and prescription drugs often fail to relieve Chronic Pain conditions. However, there...
About the Benefits of IV Wellness Infusions Are you wondering about the benefits of IV Wellness Infusions? Are you still learning exactly what a wellness infusion is? This article will help you learn the ins and outs of IV Wellness Infusions. The first thing to know about IV Wellness Infusions...
"Sentenced to life" is a podcast examining the role of ketamine in various patient lives and experiences. Check them out on http://sentencedtolifepodcast.com/ and listen to some ketamine life changing stories.
See the statement made by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (#AANA) and the American Association of Psychiatric Nurses (#AAPN) on Ketamine for Mood Disorders https://www.aana.com/home/aana-updates/2019/08/28/ketamine-infusion-therapy-for-psychiatric-disorders-position-statement-issued-by-american-association-of-nurse-anesthetists-and-american-psychiatric-nurses-association
Dr. Sunjay Gupta, MD, science and physician reporter for CNN just had a very interesting piece on the impact on Ketamine on depression, and suicide. You can watch the video below or on the CNN website. Sub-anesthetic doses (lower than we anesthesia providers would use to put you to sleep)...
On NPR today, there is further research into the mechanism of action of Ketamine, seems as though it also works on the same receptors as the opioids. Check out the story here Link to Story on NPR's Website
Artist Pink was hospitalized yesterday in Australia where she was scheduled for a series of concerts. She is being treated for gastritis and dehydration. The best treatment for any viral (as in Pink's case) or alcohol related dehydration is intravenous (IV) fluids, with a combination of minerals and vitamins as...