Ketamine-Assisted Therapy in Valparaiso
Experience lasting, full-body healing.
Whether you realize it or not, you’ve most likely experienced some degree of trauma at some point in your life. While one person’s trauma may be physical, another’s could be mental or emotional.
Trauma simply refers to the physical, mental or emotional response left in the body or mind after an impactful experience.
Though many types of trauma exist, the end result is typically the same; a negative impact on long term mental or physical health.
Left unaddressed, trauma may lead to unhealthy behavior patterns, low self-esteem, and symptoms of depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and more.
There is hope.
An integrative approach to transform your mental health with ketamine-assisted therapy.
Speak to our provider and schedule your first Ketamine-Assisted Therapy session.
First, what is Ketamine?
Ketamine is a safe, legal medication originally used as a dissociative anesthetic. As a dissociative, it alters sensory perception, physical senses like sight and sound, and creates feelings of being in an observing point of view of yourself and your environment. As an anesthetic, it temporarily dulls sensation, including pain, by temporarily softening nervous system responses.
When used therapeutically, ketamine creates an altered state of consciousness that promotes a sense of calm, openness and vulnerability, and temporarily softens the ego.
Is Ketamine-Assisted Therapy right for you?
When paired with therapy, ketamine expedites the healing process, leading to freedom from limiting emotions, perceived trauma, and unhealthy coping mechanisms. This is where mind-body healing takes place.
Ketamine-assisted therapy is a valuable tool for anyone looking to optimize their level of functioning, and mental and physical health. Depending on your health history, results will vary as a matter of degree.
Watch the video below to learn more about Ketamine-Assisted Therapy from two of Forum Health's expert providers.
Ketamine-Assisted Therapy is especially useful if you feel that you:
- Are not functioning optimally mentally and emotionally
- Are stuck in a negative loop or cycle you can’t escape
- Are repeating unproductive patterns of behavior
- Recognize unhealthy coping mechanisms:
- Avoidance, procrastination or low motivation
- Excessive sleep or overworking
- Unhealthy relationship to drugs, alcohol or other substances
- Excessive exercise or sex
- Impulsive behavior, unhealthy risk-taking
- Changes in eating habits
Ketamine Therapy vs Ketamine-Assisted Therapy
Ketamine Therapy
Ketamine therapy refers to administration of the medication ketamine by either IV, IM or intranasal routes to achieve the desired dissociative and anesthetic effects. This method alone typically lacks the integration of experience that has demonstrated to be necessary in order to provide long-term healing. Ketamine-only therapy provides short-term results and typically requires expensive “booster” or “follow-up sessions.”
Ketamine-Assisted Therapy
Ketamine-assisted therapy combines the administration of ketamine with therapy. This method is effective in expediting the healing process by softening the filter between subconscious and conscious. Ketamine-assisted therapy allows you to work through subconscious, repressed feelings and issues that can be the underlying causes of depression, anxiety, addiction, PTSD, OCD, and even chronic pain or other undesired physical symptoms, which research has shown can be a manifestation of trauma.
How To Get Started?
How a Session Works:
- Administration of Ketamine IV: During a KAT session, a licensed medical tech administers a prescribed low dose of ketamine. A sense of “one-ness” emerges and a kind of third-party objectivity sets in.
- Therapy Experience: In this state, ketamine-assisted therapy allows you to work on subconscious negative mindsets. As these negative mindsets arise, a therapist is present to help you recall and work through them in real time and facilitate healing.
- Post-Session Integration: As the session ends, you’ll be guided by the therapist to slowly transition to a baseline state of consciousness. It is this integration of experience that fosters long term healing.
Ketamine-Assisted Therapy with Forum Health
At Forum Health, we believe in an individual’s innate ability to self – heal and our goal is long-term healing of your symptoms. Here’s what makes ketamine-assisted therapy with Forum Health different.
1. Expert-Led Program: As a proponent of psychedelic medicine and ketamine-infusion therapy, our Ketamine-Assisted Therapy program supervisor Julie Hamilton, NP, specializes in the treatment of mood disorders and chronic pain. Julie has overseen more than 2,500 intravenous ketamine-assisted Therapy sessions and oversees Forum Health’s Nationwide ketamine-assisted Therapy program.
2. IV Administration: While there are several ways to administer ketamine, at Forum Health we administer ketamine intravenously. This is important to note because a trained technician will prepare and supervise your infusion to ensure safety and comfort throughout the entire session.
3. Therapy Support: We have a trained guide therapist in the room, either physically or virtually, at all times to guide you through your talk-therapy session and slowly guide you in a post session integration.
4. Integrative Approach: Forum Health providers incorporate the mind-body connection and whole-person approach to healing. As compared to conventional methods, we address the physical concerns but also the connections in the mind, body, and spirit as desired.
5. Reduce Side Effects: Forum Health providers use functional medicine to reduce the side effects and ensure a comfortable experience. We effectively prevent nausea, as few as 1 in 60 of our patients experience nausea, using functional medicine principles whereas other clinics consider it the norm.
Speak to our provider and schedule your first Ketamine-Assisted Therapy session.
Frequently Asked Questions
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Contact clinic for pricing details and package options
Many find ketamine infusions relaxing and peaceful with visuals of colors, geometric patterns, and synesthesia between music and your senses. It is also not uncommon for patients to describe having an out-of-body experience during their session.
At Forum Health, we use the lowest possible therapeutic doses which typically allows recall of the entire session
After a Ketamine session, patients typically emerge with a newfound sense of wholeness, calm, and empowerment to live life to its fullest. Old habits, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and limiting thought patterns are left behind.
Current pharmaceutical options for depression and anxiety tend to lose their efficacy over time and require either an increase in dosage or the addition of another adjunct medication which can come with adverse side effects.
We do not accept insurance at this time. However, we can provide a super bill, including procedure codes, that you may submit to your insurance company for possible reimbursement. We are unable to guarantee reimbursement for services rendered.
We offer a comprehensive, one hour intake appointment with our nurse practitioner prior to starting ketamine therapy. This appointment includes a comprehensive medical history and physical exam to identify and address any potential health issues prior to starting ketamine therapy. Strict contraindications: allergy to ketamine, recent TBI, history of psychosis, bipolar disorder with active mania. Relative contraindications: severe respiratory compromise, personality disorders, severe kidney disease, severe liver disease.
Ketamine therapy has demonstrated to be effective for treatment resistant depression, anxiety, OCD and PTSD. Ketamine therapy is often effective when SSRIs (antidepressants) have failed because ketamine works differently in the body. Antidepressants work on neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine. Conversely, Ketamine binds to a receptor in the brain called a NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate). This binding blocks a part of the glutaminergic system called glutamate. Glutamate dysfunction has been correlated to mood disorders in clinical studies.
Every individual is unique and will therefore have a unique ketamine experience. However, you will likely experience a sensation of heaviness, or even decreased awareness of your body. Ketamine experiences are often filled with colors and geometric shapes, as well as a heightened awareness of sound and music. Additionally, time is experienced differently under the effects of ketamine. A 40-minute session may feel much longer. Your guide is present to help you interpret your experience. Several common descriptors of the ketamine experience include; “calm”, “one-ness”, and “peaceful”.
Here at Forum Health, we go above and beyond the industry standard to ensure your safety during infusion. We use the lowest possible therapeutic doses, which serves to nearly eliminate uncomfortable side effects. Also, you will be monitored throughout the entire session, using state-of-the-art medical equipment to ensure your well-being during infusion. Additionally, we provide a thorough, one-hour medical intake prior to initiating therapy in order to identify and address any potential health risks before your first infusion.
Our trained technicians ensure your comfort, place your IV, and remain in the room for monitoring. The therapist remains chairside, either personally or remotely, during the therapy portion. As the infusion of medication comes to an end, your therapist will transition you through post-session integration.
Treatments take place at Forum Health Valparaiso, an integrative and functional medicine practice in Valparaiso, Indiana, led by Katie Wandasiewicz, BS, CH, DTR, and Kate O’Connor, FNP-C, MSN.
Need Ketamine-Assisted Therapy In Valpo?
Fill out the form to schedule an appointment or schedule a 15 minute health advisor call with our Health Advisors today.