Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, ketamine is legal and has been used as an anesthetic for many years in surgery and combat. It is also safe for children. Traditionally it is used in the emergency room for small procedures such as stitches, MRIs in children, and very short duration surgeries. It is called a conscious sedation because unlike other forms of anesthesia, it does not require you to be intubated. It is short acting so it is very safe when properly used. Hampton Insight uses ketamine as a psychedelic and as an antidepressant drug.

In the short–term, it can cause you to feel drowsy. You can't drive yourself home after a session. Patients experience short-term memory loss during the day of the session, but not many additional side effects occur. It can also cause an increase in blood pressure in the short term, and in this case we might give a patient who experiences high blood pressure a prescriptive medication prior to their session.

There is no better agent for suicide prevention than ketamine, as a patient can process it very quickly. It is a great alternative to using SSRIs and other medications for mental health conditions, as those can take three to four weeks to start working. The negative short-term effects are you cannot drive after a ketamine session. There are a very small subset of patients who have displayed signs of addiction, but overall it is far less addictive than most other medicines such as benzodiazepines.

The changes a patient can make are lifelong. It involves a very intense form of therapy that can really unearth and unravel long-term trauma and depression in a way that weekly therapy alone would take years to have the same effect. The most exciting long-term effect occurs when it is combined with psychedelic psychotherapy. There are not many reported negative effects. However, there is some research to say it can cause bladder issues in abusers of ketamine, but certainly not in the context of psychedelic psychotherapy.