Spravato®

What is Spravato?

Spravato is an innovative treatment for depression that’s often effective even when other therapies have no effect. Taking Spravato is a simple procedure: The esketamine spray goes into your nasal passages, from where it safely enters your bloodstream.

Ketamine; the compound from which Esketamine is derived has been FDA approved for use as an anesthetic agent for many years. Ketamine is an NMDA receptor antagonist that interacts selectively with key brain neurotransmitters. When ketamine binds to NMDA receptors, it increases the amount of glutamate in the brain. By doing so, ketamine can help increase neural communication to improve mood and reduce feelings of depression. Ketamine can also repair damage caused by cortisol and other long-term stress hormones that affect the brain’s communication system. The use of ketamine in lower doses to treat depression is a newer use of the drug.

It’s also an effective pain medication. More recent research shows ketamine benefits the brain in therapeutic doses, significantly improving mood and easing symptoms of psychiatric illnesses like:

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Anxiety disorders
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Alcohol addiction

Patients usually receive ketamine via an intravenous (IV) infusion, where the drug goes directly into your bloodstream through a needle in your arm vein. Esketamine offers an alternative that could be more convenient for some patients.

Ketalink Ketamine Center provides IV ketamine infusions and Spravato intranasal esketamine. 

You must visit Winny for your treatment so she can supervise you afterward and ensure you don’t experience any adverse effects. You spray Spravato into your nose, then relax in a peaceful treatment room for a couple of hours.

Why would I need Spravato?

You might benefit from Spravato if you suffer from treatment-resistant major depressive disorder.

Depression causes chronic misery, self-loathing, and despair, affecting every aspect of life. You can’t change your negative emotions with depression, no matter how hard you try. Without treatment, symptoms can worsen until life is so unbearable that suicide seems the only solution.

For many patients, psychotherapy and antidepressant medication offer a way out of depression, but some patients improve only a little or not at all. Spravato provides hope for patients with treatment-resistant depression.

How does Spravato work?

Spravato works by affecting receptor cells in your brain. These cells stop your brain from producing a neurotransmitter called glutamate — a chemical messenger your brain needs to function.

Patients with depression typically have low glutamate levels. Spravato blocks receptor cell activity, which increases glutamate production in your brain. That improves the connections between neurons (cells) in your brain’s mood center.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and other antidepressant medications also increase neurotransmitter levels, but they focus on serotonin and dopamine. Spravato works when oral antidepressants don’t because it targets glutamate production.

Patients typically get the best results by combining Spravato with an oral antidepressant, so each neurotransmitter affected by depression receives a boost.

Call Ketalink Ketamine Center for further information or arrange a Spravato assessment by booking online today.