Chronic Pain
Unless you have suffered from chronic pain, you cannot begin to understand how it impacts the lives of those who have this debilitating condition. Chronic pain comes in many forms and from many sources, but managing it is difficult, whatever the circumstances. If you have chronic pain, you understand the frustration of trying to manage it through medications and other therapies. At Vitruvian Health, we also understand the frustration of chronic pain, and we have an effective ketamine treatment option that can help you take back your life.
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Effective Treatment Options for Chronic Pain
The two main types of treatments for chronic pain rely on medications and some form of physical therapy. While physical therapy may offer relief for some, it does not benefit all types of chronic pain. Medications, especially of the narcotic variety, can dull pain but come with a host of other side effects. They can be addictive, debilitate mental/physical function, and be detrimental to overall health. Ketamine infusion treatments offer an alternative to pain medication and can supplement physical therapy for long-term relief from chronic pain without the negative impacts of other medications.
Pain Infusion Protocol
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2-Hour Infusions – 6 infusions, twice a week, over 3 weeks.
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Our protocol is designed to provide long-term relief from chronic pain. If your pain is responsive to ketamine, this series of treatments can help you achieve significant pain relief and improve your quality of life.
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Commonly Asked Questions
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Is the Ketamine protocol/treatment the same for depression and for pain?
While some pain conditions do respond to the Ketamine mood protocol, not all pain conditions will. This is especially true of back pain. Chronic back pain does require a much higher dosage, which would be infused over multiple hours. For depression, it would be one hour at a lower dose.
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If I suffer from depression or anxiety as well as chronic pain, would the pain protocol help with my mood?
The pain protocol can help with depression, but it is not ideal because higher doses of ketamine require some sedation to be tolerated. And there is the possibility that sedation can impede the dissociative aspect of Ketamine, which can have a therapeutic effect. That being said, many patients find their depression lifted with a high-dose pain protocol.
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If I am taking daily opiates for my pain, how does ketamine therapy work in conjunction with opiates?
We ask that opiates not be taken on the morning of an infusion. Eventually, patients whose pain has responded to Ketamine significantly decrease or stop using their opiates. This, in turn, has led many to see a lifting in their depression and greater daily productivity.
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Can ketamine help with opiate withdrawal symptoms?
Ketamine can help with mild to moderate opiate withdrawal. Ketamine can also reduce opiate requirements for pain. However, weaning off opiates should always be done under the guidance of the prescribing physician to avoid dangerous withdrawal symptoms.
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What’s the long-term approach for using ketamine to manage chronic pain? How about chronic back pain?
Ketamine is not considered a permanent cure for any condition, but it is a highly effective alternative with minimal if any side effects. Some patients come back once every four months for continued relief, others once every eight weeks, and some once a month. Everyone is different, and there is no way to predict it until the treatment is tried. However, many patients have done one treatment and felt relief for longer than six months. Others have needed our 5-day pain protocol to feel prolonged pain relief that lasts longer than a few months.
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Can ketamine therapy work well for patients with back pain that may or may not require surgery?
There are no large-scale and good studies to provide a statistically significant answer to this question. However, of the patients we have treated, approximately 75% benefit with significant pain relief, while 25% do not. Generally, if there is a high degree of anatomic pathology or nerve impingement, Ketamine therapy may be limited in providing pain relief. However, if the only other option is open surgery, Ketamine therapy may be worth trying at least once prior to proceeding with surgery. We have often been surprised by how much pain relief ketamine has provided.