Ketamine Therapy in Fairfax, Virginia : Rapid Mental Health Treatment Available Now

What is the process to receive Ketamine Therapy?

If you have a treatable mental health or pain condition without severe medical conditions, you can call us at 703-844-0184 or go to our website, NOVA Health Recovery,  to start the process.

We require an in-office consultation to establish care with you. In this consultation, we discuss your mental health journey, look at integrative solutions and consider additional treatments you may have missed, and discuss ketamine therapy with you. How ketamine therapy works and how to maintain its effects are discussed during this evaluation. We develop your personalized care plan during this process.

You can initiate the ketamine treatment that day if it is appropriate for you. This treatment can be at-home oral and nasal spray ketamine or the more rapid and effective ketamine infusion series. You will need a driver or Uber to go home afterward.

Each infusion lasts for 45 minutes. It requires a small, neonatal-sized IV placed by expert staff. Ketamine is dripped while you are monitored by state-of-the-art equipment in a home-like atmosphere.

The dosing is generally 0.5 mg to 1 mg/kg and medication to prevent nausea, the main side-effect, is given as well. You do not have to dissociate to make this work, meaning that the initial doses are therapeutic and lighter. You will be awake the whole time. Doses are increased with each subsequent infusion and adjusted to clinical outcomes to minimize side effects.

If during the infusion you feel anxious, we can use medication support to help or slow down the drip. The amazing thing about IV ketamine is that any feelings or journey you are having will immediately resolve when the drip is stopped.

Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy sessions can be arranged with collaborating, experienced therapists we currently work with. KAP  sessions are generally done with oral and nasal spray ketamine in the therapist’s office. This allows one to lubricate difficult therapy sessions to enhance better therapy outcomes. The ketamine infusions allow the repair of neural networks so that KAP sessions will work better.  Generally, talk therapy is not done during an IV session. Therapy sessions can be done between infusions as integration sessions as the person journals thoughts and beliefs during or after an infusion.

How many sessions of infusions are needed? Generally, 6 infusions over 2-3 weeks are required. Ketamine infusions twice or three times a week are effective in producing remission or significant improvement in up to 70% of patients in depression.

Results of the ketamine infusion are generally seen around the third or fourth infusion, and for many, improvement is noticed as improved mood, less negativity, clarity of thought, and fewer looping thoughts as early as the first infusion. 

This treatment will help fix the biology underlying your mood disorder or pain condition. It will not change your personality or maladaptive habits developed due to the mood disorder. Habits, behaviors, and preferences are best treated through therapy or ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP).

Ketamine therapy works by altering glutamate balance, enhancement of neuroplasticity, and allowing for the repair of neural networks so that you can control the deeper layers of your brain, which is the limbic, lizard brain so you feel less anxious, less negative, and more mentally balanced. This treatment repairs damaged neural networks and enhances appropriate brain connectivity that is altered in depressed mood states. Glutamate is the most common neurotransmitter in the brain (60% of the total) and is involved in learning, cognition, and pain processing. Glutamate sculpts the tone of your brain’s serotonin and dopamine so these other neurotransmitters can work better.