Ketamine Treatment in Tampa, FL

What is Ketamine?

Ketamine is a controlled substance used for decades in anesthesia, and since the 2010's in Psychiatry to provide rapid improvement in Depression, OCD, PTSD, and anxiety without the slow onset and side-effects of trial-and-error antidepressants.  Most of Dr. Dudney’s patients have already used many SSRI's and are ready to try a newer method. He has found home use of oral Troches ("tro-kees", like mints, but held between the cheek and gum until dissolved, not swallowed or chewed) so user friendly, inexpensive and effective, he rarely has to refer for IV infusions or other methods of treatment. Find out more about Dr. Dudney here.

What is the cost?

At our clinic, for three office visits and 30-60 doses of Ketamine, the cost is around $1300-$1800 (pharmacy charges vary but are approximately $5 a dose, and all costs are subject to inflationary adjustments.) The first visit, which must be face-to-face, is $445. Follow up visits, at least two required, are $302 each. Currently, we do not accept any insurance of any type. Other methods of treating resistant depression are much more expensive and require more office visits and down-time. For example, IV infusions require a half-day in a clinic, cost between $500 and $1000 each, twice a week for at least 6 infusions and booster infusions are typical. Another method of using Ketamine is brand-name nose drops, again twice a week for 6-8 weeks administered in an office and the cost is $12,000-$15,000.

Other methods of treatment can also be effective, but again require much more time and expense. For example, TMS, placing magnets over the head, requires daily office visits for a minimum of six weeks, 30-40 sessions, and again boosters may be needed, and costs between $12-15,000. The most treatment-resistant depressions may respond to ECT (electroshock therapy). This is a hospital based series of 12-24 seizures two or three days apart. A series of ECT can cost $15-30,000 plus anesthesia, lab, and miscellaneous hospital charges, plus office follow-up visits. Both TMS and ECT are usually partially covered by insurance however, bringing the actual patient costs down. All these examples are quite variable and you should research the fees on your own. We do have peers in the community who provide excellent TMS, ECT, and IV Ketamine infusions and referrals can be made. Most of our patients find our oral Ketamine method safe, effective and preferred due to the cost and speed of response.  

How does ketamine work?

Imagine that brain circuits are like busy highway intersections, with looping exits and entrances carrying information traffic at rush hour. With stress, the traffic increases and the wear-and-tear repair crews that fill potholes can’t keep up. Traffic piles up and slows down, in the brain this can produce mood slow down, and worsen OCD and PTSD symptoms. Ketamine waves traffic around the bottle necks, jump starts the natural repair processes and within days, sometimes within hours, the brain impulse traffic breaks through and starts flowing again.

What Is A RESPONSE?

Patients who respond to our Ketamine oral home method report within the first few days they feel three things: more confident, more optimistic, and able to make it through the day.  While these are not psychiatric terms, the response is rapid and patients are usually very pleased and less depressed and ruminate less. Total remissions have occurred but rapid relapse is possible. That is why we typically recommend 2-3 months of daily or every other day Ketamine. Most patients adjust the dose after that to once or twice a week, then once or twice a month, or only when they have really bad days. Intermittent Ketamine, after the initial response, can be a useful long term "as-needed" tool, and psych meds can be reduced or even eliminated with medical approval. Although we accept self-referrals and referrals from other doctors and therapists, we will gladly continue to follow patients, instead of sending the patient away after the initial treatment.  

How do I get started?

Make a face-to-face appointment here. 

Scholarly references (not advertisements)

  1. Efficacy of Ketamine therapy in depression, www.ncbi.gov, 2019

  2. Cleveland Clinic Newsletter, Oct. 2016, Ketamine, a game changer in psychiatry

  3. Ketamine gains traction as treatment for depression. NPR, Sept 2014

  4. Role of Ketamine in treatment resistant depression. NeuroPharm, Sept 2014