More Complementary & Integrative Healthcare Articles
Ketamine Therapy For Chronic Low Mood and Anhedonia
Depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide. It frequently accompanies anxiety, PTSD, and pain. The loss of interest in what would be normally pleasurable activities can destroy a person’s quality of life. When intrusive thoughts of death, grief, and sadness torment someone, it leaves them very little energy to focus on the more important tasks of life. Even after recovery from a depressive episode, many people spend their energy worrying about when the next depressive or anxious period is going to occur.
This cycle can go on for years or even a life time. Some people are chronically suffering from low mood and find minimal pleasure in anything that life has to offer. Many of these same people find that alcohol, drugs, and high risk activities provide an emotional boost to make them feel alive.
The problems with antidepressants and some other current therapies are the slow onset with which they work. In over a third of the cases they don’t work at all, leaving the person hopelessly depressed. In fact, there are no available treatments for anhedonia and traditional antidepressants have minimal effect on this problem. That is where ketamine treatment can be helpful.
It was recently found in the journal Neuron (December 2018) that ketamine can positively affect an area of the brain that causes anhedonia. By turning off excess activity in specific regions of the brain, ketamine therapy can rapidly boost a low mood that otherwise may be driving continued depression and anxiety. Individuals whose mood is described by the emoticon “meh” are able to become much more excited about the little things in life. Likewise, this decreases the sense of suffering from basic problems that confront us all each day. Using a protocol of infusions, successful recovery from despair can be possible.
After consolidating an IV ketamine treatment, some patients can be maintained on a regimen of intranasal ketamine support as we investigate other options of continued therapies. Counseling is important, but we also need to consider the evaluation and treatment of biochemical deficiencies with genetic testing to be important. This can determine if your medication is optimal and also if the food you are eating is contributing to your depression.
The bottom line is there are options available to treat chronic low mood and anhedonia.
