Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD is one of the devastating neurological disorder that impacts the person on personal, professional, and social levels. Ketamine is an anesthetic drug that is getting widely popular all across the globe. Its low cost, low risk, and effectiveness in treating several types of mood disorders like OCD have made it popular.
Let us understand more about the therapeutic impact of Ketamine therapy on OCD.
What is OCD?
OCD is a type of mental disorder where the person becomes obsessed with cleanliness. He or she feels an overwhelming need to clean them again and again to not infect by germs.
It becomes very hard for family members with no specialized knowledge to deal with such type of people. There are traditional treatments such as SSRIs, cognitive behavior therapy, etc. that are reported to control this problem to some extent.
Mind Peace Clinic is a reputed Ketamine clinic that has offices in Richmond, Arlington, and Norfolk. The expert team of psychiatrists at the center provides specialized ketamine OCD treatments to patients.
What are the five subtypes of OCD?
- Contamination or Obsessions regarding Cleaning
- Harm Obsessions related to Checking Compulsions
- Obsessions Devoid of Visible Compulsion
- Symmetry Obsessions related to Arranging, Counting, and Ordering Compulsions, and
- Hoarding
What are the signs of OCD?
Obsessions are undesirable, and insistent feelings, images, and thoughts that cause anxiety, or anguish in the mind of the person.
- Fear to get contaminated after touching objects that are touched by others
- Intense stress when things are not arranged as per their order
- Images or invasive thoughts to hurt yourself or somebody else
- Thoughts of obscenities or acting improperly
- Avoiding situations that can cause obsessions
- Distress about disagreeable sexual pictures that keeps on repeating in the mind
How does Ketamine work in the treatment of OCD?
Ketamine is one of the innovative developments in the area of mental health treatments. Multiple studies have been conducted in regards to the effectiveness of ketamine in the cure of depression. Ketamine is viewed to assist in breaking the grasp of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Ketamine works by impacting the neurotransmitter in the brain called glutamate by binding to it. This results in improving the synthesis of this neurotransmitter in the brain that eventually starts a series of responses in the brain that impacts emotional, and thinking regulation. The response of the brain towards Ketamine triggers hormones to create more favorable emotions.
In this way, this novel treatment helps to gradually alleviate signs of OCD. As depression is closely related to OCD, looking at the successful treatment of depression, doctors view Ketamine as a promising medical treatment for the treatment of OCD too.
Conclusion
Obsessive compulsive disorder is one of the severe mental disorders that, if not treated on time, can damage the entire life of the person. Where traditional treatments do not provide complete elimination of this disease, Ketamine treatment has emerged as a promising treatment that has successfully dealt with countless OCD cases.