This blog post has been adapted from the transcription of the above video.
There are different types of pain caused by different sources. Ketamine is more useful at treating particular types of pain over others.
What type of pain is ketamine good at treating?
Chronic pain, as anyone who faces it, is challenging. Challenging especially because pain can be caused by different sources. Ketamine can be really useful for specific types of pain, particularly neuropathic pain, meaning nerve-related pain. So for example, if someone has fibromyalgia or post-herpetic neuralgia or trigeminal neuralgia or complex regional pain syndrome, that's where ketamine infusions can be really more effective. Versus if someone has osteoarthritis and bone-on-bone degenerative joint disease, ketamine doesn't really seem to be as effective in those cases. You may be wondering why not?
Through ketamine’s ability to block activity in the NMDA receptor, which results in resetting pain receptors, one can experience less pain.
How does ketamine work to treat pain?
Ketamine works by going into the central nervous system and resetting hypersensitized pain receptors. Sometimes pain receptors can become overactive and even a slight touch could be extremely painful. That's typically related to hypersensitized pain receptors. One of the things that ketamine does is works on the NMDA receptor by blocking activity of that receptor. The end result is a resetting of the pain receptors. With a reset pain receptor, i.e. a receptor is not hypersensitized and therefore not overactive, the patient can experience less pain.
Ketamine has been found to be more effective in treating nerve-related pain, and longer infusions and higher doses make patients more responsive to the treatment.
Considerations in treating pain with ketamine
Know that there are many different types of pain and many different ideologies or reasons why pain is happening. Ketamine is more effective in nerve-related pain as well as chronic pain receptors that have become hypersensitized. Also, we’ve noticed most patients treated for pain respond better the longer the infusion as well as the higher the dose are.
Despite ketamine’s effectiveness in treating certain types of pain, ketamine patients still have a role to play in order to experience true healing during and after the treatment.
Healing Begins With You
Although there are studies to back-up ketamine as a means to treat those with chronic pain, ketamine shouldn’t be treated as a magic potion. If you choose to get treated through ketamine infusions, remember that you also have a role to play. Healing yourself of your chronic pain means healing yourself of any other bad habits and mindsets you’ve cultivated throughout your life. Healing yourself means you have to put in the work, and that’s where the real magic happens!
If you enjoyed this blog, here are a few other blogs you might like to read!
Reset Ketamine Patient Interview - Pain Management, Anxiety, And Trauma
Learn about our patient’s experience being treated for pain and more in this blog interview.
The Difference Between Pain And Suffering
One happens in life, and the other is optional. Explore this thought provoking and mindset shifting topic in this blog post.
Ketamine For Migraine Headaches
Anyone who has experienced a migraine can attest to how awful they can be and how difficult they can be to manage. Is there a role for ketamine in treating migraines and how does it work? Learn more in this blog post.
In this blog, we share ketamine’s mechanism in treating chronic pain and why it’s more effective in treating some types of pain more than others. We also talk about the things you have to consider when treating pain with ketamine and why ketamine isn’t the only “magic potion” you need to fully heal.
