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KETAMINE RESEARCH

Mindbloom Opens First Legal Psychedelics Clinic in the U.S.

MARCH 14, 2020
VIN H.

Mindbloom’s New Spa-Like Psychedelics Clinic is Located in New York City and Offers Guided Ketamine Therapy

Mindbloom, a guided and legal psychedelic therapy centre, has officially opened its doors on New York City’s famed 5th Avenue. The newly opened centre offers clinician-prescribed and science-based guided ketamine therapy in a modern, spa-like environment. Costs range from between $150 – $250 per session.

Once known as a party drug, Ketamine is now being hailed as a potential miracle medication for conditions such as severe depression, anxiety and PTSD. Research efforts have shown Ketamine to have great potential as an antidepressant due to its fast-acting effects, which may reduce depression and suicidal thoughts within hours.

Following hundreds of private sessions conducted over the past few months, Mindbloom is now extending its clinical protocols to the general public. Designed by well-respected psychedelics expert and psychiatric practitioner, Dr. Casey Paleos, Mindbloom will begin by offering treatments to help address the all-too-common symptoms surrounding depression and anxiety. Additionally, Mindbloom will offer remote, technology-enabled therapy sessions.

“We’re essentially One Medical meets Headspace, but for psychedelic therapy,” says Dylan Beynon, CEO, Mindbloom.

What’s the Patient Process?

All Mindbloom patients are required to undergo a thorough screening before they’re eligible to receive Ketamine therapy. The initial test includes a rigorous psychiatric evaluation led by a clinician. Once greenlit for treatment, patients then receive four one-hour sessions in which FDA-approved Ketamine is administered through sublingual tablets or via intramuscular injection.

Patients are supported during the experience by friendly and experienced guides, and each session concludes with a period of quiet reflection.

As Mindbloom’s board-certified psychiatrist and medical director, Dr. Casey Paleos has spent over ten years researching the health implications of psychedelics such as MDMA, Psilocybin (the psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms), and Ketamine. After years of clinical and academic study, Dr. Paleos feels strongly about offering psychedelics to patients who qualify.

“It’s a privilege to help bring these cutting edge medicines to the people who need it most,” says Dr. Paleos. “Mindbloom’s therapeutic protocols are science-backed, medically supervised, and expertly designed to help clients achieve optimal wellness and mental health.”

Dylan Beynon, the clinic’s CEO, echoes Dr. Paleos’ sentiment:

“I’ve experienced profound healing and personal growth with ketamine therapy,” says Beynon. “We founded Mindbloom to bring psychedelic medicine out of the shadows and make it an approachable, accessible option for people battling anxiety and depression. Every detail of our first psychedelic therapy center in New York City has been thoughtfully designed to deliver a comfortable, elevated, and inspired client experience.”

Are Psychedelic Clinics the Next Trend?

Mindbloom may be the first, but don’t expect it to be the last.

Just last week, Field Trip Health — a subsidiary of the Field Trip psychedelics company — opened a psychedelic-enhanced psychotherapy clinic in Toronto, Ontario. Similar to Mindbloom, Field Trip Health will deliver psychedelic-enhanced treatments, including through the administration of Ketamine. In addition to their Toronto location, Field Trip Health has plans to open centres in Los Angeles and New York this year, while Mindbloom has plans for additional centres in Los Angeles, Austin, San Francisco, and San Diego.

“The opening of the first Field Trip centre in Toronto represents a pivotal moment in the treatment of depression, anxiety, and PTSD,” says Ronan Levy, Executive Chairman of Field Trip. “It brings psychedelic medicine to the forefront of mental health care and well-being. Our clinic and patient experiences have been designed from the ground up to deliver the best therapeutic outcomes. We believe that psychedelic medicine will fundamentally alter the way mental health challenges are approached globally, and we are happy to be playing an important part of this movement.”

What You Need to Know About Ketamine’s Effects

By Sonya Collins
FROM THE WEBMD ARCHIVES

If you’ve heard of ketamine, it’s probably for its history of abuse as a club drug. But it could also be one of the biggest breakthroughs in treating severe depression in years.

How can one drug hold such promise and peril? The answer lies in how it affects your brain.

Ketamine works like a flash mob, temporarily taking over a certain chemical “receptor.” In some cases and with expert medical care, that can be a good thing. But cross that line, and it’s big trouble.

Your doctor probably won’t give it to you as an antidepressant yet. Scientists are still testing it for that. But if ketamine does bring people back from the depths of depression, it might be the last thing you expect from a drug that can knock you out.

Putting Out Pain

Ketamine got its start as an anesthesia medicine in the 1960s. It was used on the battlefields of the Vietnam War.

At lower doses, it can help ease pain. Ketamine helps sedatives work and may help people need fewer addictive painkillers, like morphine after surgery or while caring for burns.

When misused, ketamine can change your sense of sight and sound. You can have hallucinations and feel out of touch with your surroundings -- and even from yourself. It can make it hard to speak or move, and it’s been abused as a date-rape drug.

“Outside of the clinic, ketamine can cause tragedies, but in the right hands, it is a miracle,” says John Abenstein, MD, president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

New Life as an Antidepressant?

Turning around severe depression may not literally be a miracle. But if it happens to you, it can feel like one.

Researchers are studying whether ketamine can help treat severe depression, such as in people who have tried other treatments or who are in the hospital and possibly suicidal.

The FDA hasn’t approved it for that use. But some psychiatrists are trying ketamine experimentally with their patients who have this type of depression, says John Krystal, MD, chief of psychiatry at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

In these studies, people with severe depression typically get ketamine either through an IV or a nasal mist about once a week, in a clinic under strict medical supervision. In some people, it can ease symptoms of depression in just a few hours.

Results have varied. In some studies, most people who tried ketamine (up to 85%) got better. But in others, few were helped.

Some people in these studies have had distorted sight or sound. The goal is to find a dose that is large enough to relieve depression but small enough to avoid these side effects, Krystal says.

Will it work and be safe in the long run? Doctors don’t know yet.

If the results show that the drug does ease depression and the FDA approves its use, doctors could start to use it to treat their patients in 3 to 5 years, Krystal says. He developed the nasal ketamine mist that’s being tested.

The ketamine difference starts with how quickly the drug’s effects kick in.

How Does It Work for Depression?

People usually take antidepressants for a few weeks before they start to work. Those medicines need to build up in your system to have an effect.

Ketamine is different. Its effects on depression happen as it leaves your body, Krystal says.

Researchers aren’t sure exactly why that is. One theory is that ketamine prompts connections to regrow between brain cells that are involved in mood. Krystal calls the effect “profound” and says the drug works “far more rapidly” than today’s antidepressant pills.

The director of the National Institute of Mental Health agrees. “Recent data suggest that ketamine, given intravenously, might be the most important breakthrough in antidepressant treatment in decades,” says Thomas Insel, MD.

One day, doctors may use ketamine to help severely depressed people until other antidepressants start to work. But as a cousin of the psychedelic drug PCP, you would never get it at your local pharmacy.

“While the science is promising, ketamine is not ready for broad use in the clinic. We just don’t know enough. But with the excitement generated by early results, we will have more information soon,” Insel says.

Ketamine still has a shadowy side -- its use as a street drug, where the risks can quickly spin out of control.

If It’s Abused

When used recreationally at high doses, people can feel like they’re in what’s called a “K-hole.” This happens when they are on the verge of becoming unconscious.

These other side effects also need emergency medical care:

Bloody or cloudy pee
Trouble peeing, or needing to pee often
Pale or bluish lips, skin, or fingernails
Blurry vision
Chest pain, discomfort, or tightness
Shortness of breath, trouble breathing, or not breathing
Confusion
Convulsions
Problems with swallowing
Dizziness, faintness, lightheadedness, or fainting
Fast, slow, or irregular heartbeat
Hives, itching, rash
Delusions
Puffy or swollen eyelids, face, lips, or tongue
Sweating
Feeling too excited, nervous, or restless
Unusual tiredness or weakness
It’s possible to get addicted or need higher doses to feel the effects. (This is less likely to happen when you get ketamine for medical reasons.) An overdose can be deadly.

“Every drug that causes any change in [the senses] has been and will be abused,” Abenstein says.

Ketamine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ketamine is a medication mainly used for starting and maintaining anesthesia.[19] It induces a trance-like state while providing pain relief, sedation, and memory loss.[20] Other uses include sedation in intensive care and treatment of pain and depression.[21][22][14][23][24] Heart function, breathing, and airway reflexes generally remain functional.[20] Effects typically begin within five minutes when given by injection, and last up to approximately 25 minutes.[19][25]

Common side effects include agitation, confusion, or hallucinations as the medication wears off.[19][26][27] Elevated blood pressure and muscle tremors are relatively common.[19][27] Spasms of the larynx may rarely occur.[19] Ketamine is an NMDA receptor antagonist, but it may also have other actions.[28]

Ketamine was discovered in 1962, first tested in humans in 1964, and approved for use in the United States in 1970.[25][29] It was extensively used for surgical anesthesia in the Vietnam War due to its safety.[29] It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system.[30] It is available as a generic medication.[19] The wholesale price in the developing world is between US$0.84 and US$3.22 per vial.[31] Ketamine is also used as a recreational drug for its hallucinogenic and dissociative effects.[32]