Bipolar Disorder Treatment
Bipolar Disorder Treatment in Philadelphia, PA
Bipolar disorder can be an extremely challenging mental health condition. 5,700,000 Americans are affected by bipolar disorder. If you’re among the 2.8% of Americans suffering, ketamine infusion therapy may be your answer.
What Are The Symptoms Of Bipolar Disorder?
- Lacking energy
- Loss of interest in everyday activities
- feelings of emptiness or worthlessness
- Feelings of guilt and despair
- Feeling pessimistic about everything
- Self-doubt
- Being delusional, having hallucinations, and disturbed or illogical thinking
- Lack of appetite
- Difficulty sleeping
- Waking up early
- Suicidal thoughts
What Are The Types Of Bipolar Disorder?
There are a few different types of bipolar disorder, but all have typical symptoms of manic and depressive episodes. Verifying which type you are suffering from is essential because treatments vary.
Bipolar I Disorder - Mania and Depression
Bipolar I disorder is the most common form of bipolar disorder, and it is also the most severe. You must have had at least one manic episode, but most people with bipolar I disorder have also gone through at least one major depressive episode.
Bipolar II Disorder - Hypomania and Depression
If you have bipolar II disorder, you will have recurring episodes of major depression and hypomania (a less severe form of mania). If you ever go through a manic episode, your diagnosis will change to bipolar I disorder.
Cyclothymia - Hypomania and Mild Depression
This is a milder form of bipolar disorder, where the mood swings are not severe enough to be classified as mania or major depression.
How Does Ketamine Help Treat Bipolar Disorder?
Scientists believe that ketamine helps with bipolar disorder by rapidly boosting the activity of glutamate, a neurotransmitter inside the frontal cortex of the human brain, while also allowing new pathways to form in the same area.
The promptness of ketamine in yielding an antidepressant effect occurs because this drug bypasses the conventional serotonin path and goes straight to switching on glutamate. Recent evidence points to ketamine’s inhibitory effects on the NMDA receptor in the lateral habenula. The lateral habenula is a brain region primarily responsible for encoding negative rewards or anti-reward cause-and-effect relationships. Those with anxiety show an overactivity of burst firing in the lateral habenula. As a non-competitive NMDA antagonist, ketamine prevents glutamate from activating the NMDA receptor.
This action differs from conventional antidepressants, which initially boost serotonin activity levels in several brain areas to alter glutamate regulation. This process usually takes weeks, sometimes months, while ketamine produces almost rapid relief from bipolar disorder symptoms.
Are There Any Adverse Effects of Ketamine?
As a new treatment option for bipolar disorder, ketamine has minor side effects. These can include a dream-like feeling, double or blurred vision, lightheadedness, nausea or vomiting, and slight anxiety after being given a dose. This treatment method is not in development because this is an FDA-approved drug utilized for “off-label” or less typical use.
An “off-label” use indicates a treatment the FDA did not initially authorize. The FDA approves prescription medications only for specific uses, but most medicines at some point develop off-label uses due to the clinical experience that develops over time.
As a good example, the medication Prazosin’s purpose was to treat hypertension in 1976. Eventually, scientists and clinicians discovered it had other uses. Now Prazosin treats nightmares in individuals with PTSD, a use that the FDA did not initially approve.
Getting Treatment
Are you ready to take back control of your life? Are you tired of trying one medication after the other only to be left with those same feelings brought on by your bipolar disorder? Then ketamine infusions might be an excellent treatment option for you.
Voyage Healing is psychiatrist-run with expertly trained therapists on hand. We have extensive experience helping those with bipolar disorder find relief.
Contact us today to learn more!
