Here at The Good Drop, in addition to providing life-changing IV ketamine and Spravato therapy, we’re also educators in all things related to ketamine here in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Our integrative ketamine clinic serving Pennsylvania and beyond is a first for our Wilkes-Barre and Scranton area. We realize our local population probably has many questions relating to the efficacy and safety of ketamine therapy.
One question we’ve been asked many times is: does ketamine therapy get you high?
The answer isn’t a simple yes or no, and some details are needed to explain what that means!
So, what does ketamine therapy actually feel like? And does ketamine therapy get you high? Learn about it here.
What Does Ketamine Therapy Feel Like?
At The Good Drop, we always tell our IV ketamine and Spravato nasal spray patients that they are likely to experience dissociation, racing thoughts and mental visuals, and feelings of intense peace during their sessions.
This is the ketamine blocking your brain’s N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors that normally send mood and pain signals throughout your body. That process is also responsible for the detachment from reality that many people feel while receiving treatment.
Even after your session, ketamine continues encouraging your brain’s neurons to build new pathways to one another that can help you begin to heal from depression and other disorders.
This is likely responsible for the peaceful feelings that can last for days or even weeks following treatment.
Does Ketamine Therapy Get You High?
The dissociation, peaceful experiences, and mild lightheadedness and dizziness of a ketamine infusion or Spravato session are what patients may refer to as a “high.”
But rest assured that these are normal effects during treatment and are nothing like what people can experience when using ketamine recreationally, without medical supervision.
It’s also important to mention that the ketamine doses that are effective for treating depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, and other mental health conditions are called sub-anesthetic. This means they are so low that they generally don’t induce loss of consciousness or the intense “high” that abusers of the drug seek to experience.
So, is it fair to say that ketamine therapy gets you high?
Ketamine IV infusions and Spravato treatments have certain dissociative and calming effects on your mind that put you into an altered state of consciousness during medically supervised sessions, but you do not experience the “high” of recreational ketamine use.
Does That Mean Ketamine Therapy Is Safe?
Ketamine is perfectly safe for treating mental disorders and chronic pain when administered at therapeutic doses by trained medical staff, such as you’ll receive here at The Good Drop.
It can be easy to turn away from receiving ketamine therapy if you’ve only heard the stories of abuse. Others may reject the use of ketamine after learning about the high-profile 2023 death of actor Matthew Perry at the hands of a ketamine addiction that led to drowning.
As medical experts, we understand the health risks posed by high-dose ketamine abuse. Recreational users of ketamine may experience dizziness, sedation, vomiting, heart problems, slowed breathing, and loss of consciousness.
This is why The Good Drop is always happy to educate our patient population and the general public about how beneficial ketamine can be for you when given in safe, controlled medical settings.
Learn More About Ketamine Therapy in the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Area
Ketamine therapy can change your life if you’re suffering from treatment-resistant depression, any other mental health disorder, or chronic pain such as CRPS.
See for yourself why our Northeastern Pennsylvania population has been responding so strongly to our treatments at The Good Drop.
Contact us today to learn more or schedule a consultation with our medical team!