Ketamine for Bipolar Disorder
What Is Bipolar Disorder?
Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder that causes periods of extreme high and low moods. There are varying types of Bipolar mood disorder that affect over 46 million people worldwide. Once a person is diagnosed by a medical professional as having Bipolar Disorder, symptoms typically last indefinitely. Although there isn’t a cure for bipolar, there are a variety of effective treatments to help a person maintain a high quality of life.
Generally, a medical professional will diagnose someone with bipolar after a series of evaluations. A mood disorder assessment or bipolar questionnaire may be a good start for someone who suspects they may have bipolar disorder. However, a self-assessment is not a substitute for a clinical evaluation.
Living With Bipolar
Many sufferers experience episodes of high energy followed by heavy depressive states. During periods of high energy, also called mania, a person may feel excited, impulsive, and even agitated. However, during a bipolar depression episode, one may feel guilty, helpless, hopeless, and may even have suicidal thoughts. Both states can affect sleep, either sleeping too much or the inability to sleep.
How We Treat Bipolar With Ketamine
Within the past five decades, Ketamine has been used as an alternative for bipolar treatment, major depression, and other conditions. In addition, it has been known to improve symptoms of treatment-resistant bipolar disorder successfully. Ketamine infusions are administered intravenously in our private office under the supervision of a trained professional.
What to Expect During Ketamine Treatment
- We treat individuals, not just symptoms. Therefore we carefully screen each candidate to ensure the highest probability of success.
- Immediately after a Ketamine treatment for Bipolar thinking may be cloudy and walking may be unsteady for the first two hours. Some have also reported feeling tired. However, most have reported an improvement in the following days.
- Each patient is monitored carefully for side effects, and if necessary, we will administer further treatments to reduce the occurrence of side effects.
- Patients receive 6-10 infusions depending on the individual response to the first few treatments.
- Bipolar relief after ketamine treatment may be felt weeks or even months after a series of treatments. Therefore, many patients occasionally follow up for booster infusions to maintain a level of relief from symptoms related to bipolar.
- The goal of Ketamine infusion therapy is to significantly reduce the level of depression and improve mood balance, leading to overall improved quality of life.
Is Ketamine for Bipolar Disorder Effective?
At Kentuckiana Medicine, we strive to treat individuals, not just illnesses. Some of the most successful treatments include a whole-body approach to mental health treatment. Therefore, we carefully screen each patient before administering Ketamine to treat depression or bipolar. The article “Ketamine for Depression & Mood Disorders” explains the ideal candidate for Ketamine treatment for bipolar disorder.
