PTSD

Stellate Ganglion Block (SGB) & IV Ketamine for PTSD: Treating the Source

Dr. Kaveh’s holistic chronic pain treatment addresses the root causes of PTSD, including both physical and psychological. Sources of PTSD include:

• Childhood trauma, often referred to as adverse childhood experiences (ACE): child abuse (emotional, physical, or sexual), child neglect (emotional or physical), and household dysfunction (domestic violence, substance abuse, mental illness or criminal activity, or parental absence)
• Small to large scale conflicts, such as economic adversity, bullying, school violence, community violence, displacement, and war.
• Combat-related
• Medical illness: after heart attacks, strokes, and intensive care unit (ICU) stays
• Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA): there is significant correlation between OSA and PTSD

Treating PTSD is an Urgent Priority

Untreated PTSD can have serious consequences, including cognitive decline (possibly increasing risk for dementia). When accompanied by depression, the risk of death in increased from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and suicide.

Given these risks, PTSD must be addressed. Sometimes, however, traditional treatments for PTSD, such as talk therapy and medication, may be ineffective or have intolerable side effects. IV ketamine infusion therapy can be a powerful, safe, and rapid treatment for PTSD.

Dual Sympathetic Reset with Stellate Ganglion Block: a Powerful PTSD Treatment

Your body's fight-flight response is overactivated with PTSD. This leads to a hyperactive nervous system, causing hypervigilance and hyperarousal:

• Hypervigilance refers to being on-guard 24/7
• Hyperarousal is rapid activation of your fight-flight mode, even to non-threatening triggers

There is a bundle of nerves in your body that regulates your sympathetic nervous system that causes the hypervigilance and hyperarousal. That bundle is called the Stellate Ganglion. Numbing (or "blocking") the nerves of the Stellate Ganglion reduces this hyperreactivity and can give profound symptom relief. An advanced technique of the Stellate Ganglion Block (SGB) is called the Dual Sympathetic Reset (DSR).

DSR blocks 2 levels of your Stellate Ganglion to provide rapid relief from symptoms of irritability, anxiety, hypervigilance, nightmares, hyperarousal, and other complications of PTSD. You can read more about SGB and DSR here.

Ketamine Breaks Flashback Cycles in PTSD

Flashbacks and vivid nightmares are serious symptoms of PTSD. One reason for these flashbacks is because traumatic experiences prevent the experiences from becoming normal memories. Instead, these memories are vividly relived with sensory overload (hearing, smelling, feeling, etc.).

Ketamine breaks these cycles of trigger-memory-flashback. Ketamine does this by reducing the fear response and by inducing neuroplasticity to form new cycles in the brain and body. These new cycles form from new neural connections from the neuroplasticity.

IV Ketamine: Positive Stress vs Toxic Stress

IV Ketamine also fundamentally changes how our nervous system receives information. This includes both physically and psychologically painful signals. This allows for differentiating different stressors, which is critical because not all stresses are traumatic. Ketamine therapy allows for differentiating different stressors as part of the healing process.

IV Ketamine Infusions for PTSD

Unlike traditional antidepressants and talk therapy, IV Ketamine therapy acts within hours. Ketamine is particularly effective when PTSD is accompanied by depression and suicidality. Anxiety also affects PTSD severity, and can be improved with Ketamine therapy.

Safety of IV Ketamine for PTSD

IV ketamine therapy for PTSD is very safe with Clarus Health doctors. The side effects of IV ketamine therapy, notably hallucinations and confusion, can be prevented and safely managed with specialized medical supervision. Furthermore, the risks of ketamine therapy are typically significantly less than the risks of other medications or inadequate treatment.

IV ketamine therapy is not meant to be a standalone treatment. It is important to also work with a mental health professional to address the underlying causes of PTSD to produce a sustainable cure.