How to Explain Ketamine Treatments to Family and Friends

What is Ketamine therapy?

Exactly what Ketamine is, how it works, and what it helps can’t be summed up in a couple of sentences. Your family may need to do a bit of reading or listening to understand the basics. You can also encourage them to read IV Ketamine Infusions for Depression: Why I Tried It, What It’s Like, and If It Worked. It will give them quick, easy-to-understand answers to most questions.

They Ask Me Why I Want Intravenous Ketamine Treatment

Close family and friends probably know about your diagnosis and how it impacts your life. They have seen you suffer, cry, hide, and go to doctor after doctor.

Hopefully, they’ll understand that if infusions of Ketamine can help you, you are willing to investigate. There is no harm in figuring out your options with licensed medical personnel guiding you. In fact, proactive patients can get better outcomes in general.

Let’s dig in further and talk about why you might try Ketamine specifically. In this post let’s focus on an emotional health condition like treatment-resistant depression. Of course, Ketamine’s other benefits will lead to these same conversations.

Why Try Ketamine for Mental Health Disorders?

Most people have heard of common psychiatric drugs like SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). Drugs like Prozac, Paxil, and Lexapro’s presence in advertising and frequent prescribing make them well-known. But, many people don’t know about the other groups of medicines that are used: SNRIs, MAOIs, 1st and 2nd gen antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, anticonvulsants. That’s not mentioning treatment procedures like ECT, EMDR, Hypnotherapy, Biofeedback, EFT, and meditation.

With all of these options, people in your life may ask: with all of this “normal” stuff available, why are you trying this “weird” Ketamine option?

The answer is that Ketamine may help where these others have failed. And, you’ve been researching it or your doctor has suggested it. But that doesn’t mean most people know about it, even people close to you. Most of us know a lot more about our medical options for our ills than those of others. It’s a natural situation.

Why Might Ketamine Be a Good Treatment Option?

Once you’ve explained to your circle your need for options, they may want to know you are interested in Ketamine in particular.

From what I’ve seen: patients come to Ketamine when they’re out of options. They’ve been bouncing around the medical “system,” and without results. They’ve probably taken many medications and undergone various therapies. Patients get concerned about whether their current medications are safe in the long term.

When you’re out of options and new ideas, the possibility of Ketamine working could make it a hopeful option for treatment.

It’s no surprise when a sufferer of depression or other mental health challenge confers with their doctor to ask about IV Ketamine Infusion Therapy. If a physician determines that Ketamine is safe for you and it may help, calling it a “good treatment option” is reasonable.

My family doesn’t understand why I want to try Ketamine

I understand. It can be hard to explain your condition. Some conditions are common and easy to relate to, like say a headache or a bruise. Other conditions involve limitations, pain, and anxieties that are rarely experienced by the general public.

When an illness is hard to explain, your desperation for finding relief can be too. How many times has someone told you to just “take a pill” or “get your mind off of it?” Clearly, they don’t realize that you would take a quick fix if you could.

If a medical affliction is bad enough it can leave you all but screaming for a cure. If and when people around you understand that they will realize the need for you to try anything your doctor thinks is reasonable. If that choice is difficult to understand or seems drastic or ill-advised, you can permit your doctor to explain the situation by taking your family/friend/advocate with you on your next visit.

What do I do if my family doesn’t approve of Ketamine?

Ultimately, the answer to that question comes down to you. If you are a minor or unable to pay for treatment, your options of how to overcome these roadblocks may be more challenging. But, never give up. Talk to your doctors or other loved ones, friends, and sources of support. Find safe people like school counselors, support groups, or people in your church. Most importantly, stay safe. Tell people if you are thinking of hurting yourself or others. Keep the suicide hotline on you just in case. You also have 911 and most areas have specific hotlines for potentially suicidal interventions.

For patients that are able to coordinate treatment with their provider because they have legal permission as an adult along with the financial wherewithal, you may have to make an uncomfortable decision. I can’t tell you what to do. All I can say is that at the end of the day you’re the one with this disease. And unless your decision-making is impaired, you and your medical team need to do what’s best for you.

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