Aspen Ketamine Center
Our ketamine clinic is located in Aspen, Colorado serving the beautiful and affluent Roaring Fork Valley. Aspen Ketamine Center serves patients all over Colorado including residents of Snowmass Village, Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood Springs.
As Colorado’s premier ketamine clinic, we offer a combination of Ketamine Infusion Therapy and counseling to treat people living with anxiety, depression, and chronic pain. Our mission is to help our clients achieve mental health and wellness in a safe and compassionate environment.
Ketamine for Anxiety Treatment
Anxiety disorders are the most common and pervasive mental disorders in the U.S.
Did you know 18% of the U.S. population suffers from a form of anxiety, affecting nearly 40 million people?
It is perfectly normal to experience occasional anxiety, like test performance anxiety or fear of public speaking. However, when that anxiety is persistent, uncontrollable, and overwhelming - it may lead to panic attacks and interfere with daily activities. Depression is also commonly associated with anxiety disorders.
Ketamine for Anxiety Disorders
"Anxiety disorders" refer to specific disorders that involve extreme worry or fear. The most common include:
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Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
“Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is characterized by persistent and excessive worry about a number of different things. People with GAD may anticipate disaster and may be overly concerned about money, health, family, work, or other issues.” Understanding GAD.
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Panic disorders and panic attacks
“A panic attack is a sudden episode of intense fear that triggers severe physical reactions when there is no real danger or apparent cause. Panic attacks can be very frightening. When panic attacks occur, you might think you're losing control, having a heart attack or even dying.” Panic Attacks and panic disorder.
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Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)
“Signs and symptoms of social anxiety disorder can include persistent: Fear of situations in which you may be judged. Worrying about embarrassing or humiliating yourself. Intense fear of interacting or talking with strangers.” Social Anxiety Disorder.
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Phobias
“Phobias are a persistent, intense, and unrealistic fear of a certain object or situation. Specific phobias are related to certain objects and situations. They typically involve fears related to animals, natural environments, medical issues, or specific situations.” List of Phobias: How Many Are There?
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Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
“Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric disorder that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event such as a natural disaster, a serious accident, a terrorist act, war/combat, or rape or who have been threatened with death, sexual violence or serious injury.” What is PTSD?
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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
“OCD is an anxiety disorder characterized by uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts and ritualized, repetitive behaviors you feel compelled to perform. If you have OCD, you probably recognize that your obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors are irrational—but even so, you feel unable to resist them and break free.” Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
IV Ketamine for Anxiety Treatment
Ketamine Infusion Therapy along with behavioral therapy is most effective in long-term success for treating anxiety disorders.
Intravenous infusions of ketamine helps quell the ruminating thoughts associated with anxiety disorders by regrowing pathways in the brain.
Ketamine News Articles
Ketamine: A Promising Novel Therapy for Anxiety and PTSD
Ketamine was originally approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an anesthetic, but is increasingly being used to treat mood disorders, such as treatment-resistant depression, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Several studies have also found it to be effective for treating suicidal ideation.“Ketamine can play an important role in the treatment of anxiety disorders,” according to Prakash Masand, MD, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Centers of Psychiatric Excellence … and adjunct professor at the Academic Medicine Education Institute, Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School (Duke-NUS). “Nowadays, people with anxiety disorders are treated either with a generic antidepressant, such as an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor), an SNRI (selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor), or a benzodiazepine and if they don’t respond to one of these, they get a trial of another or several more,” Dr Masand said. However, between 30% and 40% of these patients will not achieve remission, despite 3 or 4 different traditional agents, and even with evidence-based nonpharmacologic therapies, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or mentalization-based therapy (MBT), he noted.
Ketamine Is Revealing a New Understanding of Depression and the Brain
Some experts view ketamine as a tool to unravel the biological causes of depression and, perhaps someday, cure it. “Ketamine provided us an unprecedented opportunity to study the brain rapidly switching from severe depression to improved mood within hours,” says Chadi Abdallah, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and chair in the neuropsychiatry of military post-traumatic stress syndrome in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Baylor College of Medicine. Exactly what ketamine does to the brain is still under investigation. But most scientists agree that it has to do with glutamate, the most abundant neurotransmitter in the brain, and the strengthening of connections between neurons in areas implicated in depression. MacMillan likes to think of ketamine as fertilizing a garden. “Ketamine very quickly increases the activity of the neurotransmitter glutamate in the frontal part of the brain that is underactive in depression. This leads to new connections forming between neurons in that area and causing old ones to regrow.”
Read Full Ketamine News Article
Will Ketamine Be A Breakthrough Drug for PTSD?
A fresh generation of fast-acting anti-depressants is in the offing, says John H. Krystal, M.D., chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine—and perhaps also much-needed medications for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).In a webinar broadcast by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation on June 12, 2018, Dr. Krystal explained how basic research on the biology of PTSD and depression led to a trial he is currently leading focusing on veterans and active-duty military with PTSD. His team will study the dose-related safety and effectiveness of 4 weeks of ketamine infusions. Ketamine “acts rapidly, it’s anti-suicidal, [and] it works for people who don’t respond to other kinds of treatment,” he said. Dr. Krystal, a member of BBRF’s Scientific Council and the recipient of BBRF Distinguished Investigator grants in 2006 and 2000 and an Independent Investigator grant in 1997, began research with ketamine in the late 1980s. “Ketamine is the tip of an iceberg for potentially a whole new generation of pharmacologic approaches for mood disorders,” he said.
THE POTENTIAL OF KETAMINE AS AN ADJUNCT TO THERAPY TO FOSTER RESOLUTION OF C-PTSD
"Recent research on the neurobiological effects of Ketamine sheds light on how Ketamine may induce its therapeutic effects. Ketamine promotes neuroplasticity through both ‘synaptogenesis’ (creation of new synapses between neurons) and ‘neurogenesis’ (growth of new neurons).30 Furthermore, Ketamine directly affects receptors of the neurotransmitter glutamate, which seems to change the functional connectivity between several neurological structures (prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, anterior cingulate cortex, and basal ganglia), and thus alters the functional connectivity of large-scale networks in the brain through both respectively “decoupling” and “coupling” certain network hubs.37,38 In a therapeutic setting, this may help ameliorate the altered connectivity within and between neural structures that otherwise may be impaired due to the impact of trauma and curtailed development."
Get the PDF Guide to Ketamine Therapy
How long do the benefits of ketamine infusions last? What is ketamine treatment for anxiety like? Does ketamine work for anxiety? How effective is ketamine for anxiety? Does ketamine work for anxiety? Get all your questions answered by downloading our free comprehensive guide.
