What are mood disorders?
Mood disorders are mental health conditions that influence your moods and feelings from day to day. Consequently, mood disorders can have a big impact on your behaviors and decision-making. You might experience long periods of extreme sadness, extreme fear, or even extreme happiness because of your mood disorder.
Avesta Ketamine and Wellness specializes in treating several of the most common mood disorders, which can, in some cases, resist any improvement from more traditional treatment approaches like antidepressant medications, anti-anxiety medications, and psychological counseling. While you should stay on track with your current counseling regimen, you can use ketamine to treat:
Depression
Depression, the most common of all mood disorders, causes persistent feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, sleep problems, and a lack of interest and motivation. In severe cases, it can cause suicidal thoughts. Avesta Ketamine and Wellness focuses on treatment-resistant depression and postpartum depression in addition to conventional cases.
Anxiety disorders
Anxiety disorders cause consistent feelings of fear, worry, and physiological symptoms like trembling and heart palpitations.
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD can develop after you experience a shocking or traumatic event in your life. You might get nightmares or flashbacks at random or in response to objects, sounds, or situations that trigger memories of the event.
How does ketamine treat mood disorders?
Ketamine is a great alternative to other medications for mood disorders and certain pain disorders because it is non-addictive. It works by affecting the chemical communicators in your brain called neurotransmitters. Specifically, it increases glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA).
When these two neurotransmitters are out of balance, you experience increased symptoms associated with your mood disorder like anxiousness and unrealistic thoughts. Among its other roles, glutamate increases neural connections and influences how you feel about and respond to your experiences.
What should I expect during treatment for a mood disorder?
When getting ketamine infusions at Avesta Ketamine and Wellness, you start with a series of six infusions over the course of 2-3 weeks. After that, you continue with your initial treatment plan (including psychological counseling and prescription medications if you have them). You can come back for intermittent booster infusions according to your providers’ advice.
Spravato®, a nasal spray, may also be an option for you if you’re using ketamine to treat a mood disorder like depression. It isn’t ketamine exactly. Instead, it’s a product called esketamine that has similar effects. After using the spray, you stay at Avesta Ketamine and Wellness for two hours for monitoring. Your provider schedules follow-up treatments as needed.
For more information about mood disorders and how they respond to ketamine infusions, call Avesta Ketamine and Wellness, or book a consultation online at either location today.
