Benefits of Ketamine Treatment - Dr. Joy Kong - Personal Healing Journey

One of the benefits is that it can, you know, promotes this overall repair capability for the brain because it's increased brain derived neurotropic factor. It, you know, promotes regeneration of the neurons, actually changes your brain waves. So I'm astounded by what ketamine can do because I could be doing psychotherapy with the same person for years and giving them medications and I couldn't put a dentist on their PTSD symptoms because that wiring is set in, it's almost like it's etched in their brain. If ketamine is able to reverse that, sometimes within one session, two sessions, this is revolutionary. It's been FDA approved in treatment resistant depression since 2018 and it's also used in various other conditions off label use including anxiety, bipolar depression, ptsd, addiction, chronic pain or migraines. This medication, one of the benefits is that it can promotes this overall repair capability for the brain because it's increased brain derived neurotropic factor secretion. So it helps to repair the neurogenesis. So this is what's fairly revolutionary comparing to what we're looking at traditional antidepressants. It promotes regeneration of the neurons, dendritic spine formation and has anti inflammatory actions. So, so it's very interesting that has wide range of uses. It actually changes your brain waves. When they compared people under ketamine to people who are long term meditators, like the Tibetan high monks that have been meditating for 30 years in their lives and they look at their brain waves, these high monks have high gamma wave activity and that's what's happening under ketamine as well, gamma waves. I think we, we still are not understanding enough of exactly what's going on there. So I think receptors is one aspect, but the brain waves and what's happening in that state is a whole other story. We still don't understand why meditation can promote such dramatic benefit in a person's wellness and healing. So, so what's going on there? Why are these, this, these brain states causing, you know, leading to that kind of healing. So by the same token, if ketamine can promote something similar, you know, what's going on there? I think we don't know either. So there are a lot of things we don't know. So when we're looking at this medication, it's very, very safe, it's non addictive in clinical settings. There are people abusing it of course. And that's one of the first things that people ask, oh, is this the one that, you know, isn't that a street drug or Isn't a horse tranquilizer? Yes, there are a lot of people who are abusing it, who are snorting it, which is a whole different experience compared to using it in a clinical setting and using the IV infusion. And yes, they do use that to tranquilize animals, wild animals or pediatric little animals, little patients and extraordinary safe. So I actually utilize that to help some of the autistic patients I see when I need to do procedures. For people with major depression, which is a devastating condition, 30% of them actually don't get any healing from the traditional antidepressants. Whereas if you start using ketamine, 50 to 70% of these treatment resistant patients actually are going to have a response after even just a single 40 minute infusion. That's pretty drastic. The antidepressant effect can manifest within two hours and 35% of the patients can maintain response for seven days. And there's more than 50% improvement in symptoms. And there can be instant reversal of the suicidal thoughts, which is really powerful. You know, we don't have anything that can drastically reduce suicidal thoughts. And so the fact that they act so rapidly really put pause and on what's going on. We used to think that it's going to take time for the antidepressants to work to promote changes, but apparently there's more to that story. The fact that there's rapid changes in the synaptic function and the plasticity in the synapses that makes you wonder about the whole model of depression treatment. So we may be missing the boat why I'm interested in ketamine. So, you know, I do have, you know, the background of being trained in psychiatry. So that's my first specialty. I worked for 11 years a psychiatrist, you know, worked with a lot of veterans, worked in a county emergency room, worked in mental health clinics. So I've seen a lot of, you know, difficult cases and definitely ptsd, one of the most difficult, most challenging conditions. And you know, so I'm astounded by what ketamine can do because I could be doing psychotherapy with the same person for years and giving them medications and I couldn't put a dent on their PTSD symptoms because that wiring is set in. It's almost like it's etched in their brain. No matter what we do, no matter what we say, no matter what medications, I give them, that hyper vigilance, that stimulus response, this jacked up response is always there. If ketamine is able to reverse that, sometimes within one session, two sessions, this is revolutionary. Whether or not it's addiction or for mental health treatments. You're not addressing the person from the ground up. You're only trying to target certain receptors in the brain and you're missing the boat of what's going on in the whole body. So that is, it's doing patients injustice. So anti aging medicine, when you can reverse aging, reverse the decline that's associated with aging and all the inflammation, then you can actually get to the root causes of what's causing mental conditions. So inflammation actually is a huge part of what's triggering mental health issues. So about personal challenges, you know, we all have personal challenges. You know, I, you know, I think I grew up in a pretty healthy household, you know, but with an over critical mother. But you know, we've all had challenges. But some people are genetically more prone to some mood issues. Since I was a teenager, I realized, okay, I have a periodic little bit of mild depression, a little bit of anxiety. From the anxiety, I realized, okay, if I eat some food, I'm going to feel a little better. That led to this cascade of basically dysregulated eating. Sometimes I'm fine and sometimes with hormone, you know, in certain time of month, then it gets a lot worse. So these are some of my challenges even during medical school, you know, so it kind of comes and goes. I think it has to do with, you know, my own health. So when I was looking at ketamine, I was like, okay, you know, if it can have this kind of drastic benefit, if it can make me make my brain repair better and if I can be more free or even just be free of the carb cravings, you know, at night if I'm feeling a little anxious, if I eat some carbs, I feel better. But I don't want to do that because then I have to, you know, next day I have to starve myself to try to counteract the damage I did. So, so that was a vicious cycle. So I thought, well, you know, ketamine helps with mood, help with addiction. You know, I think that, you know, there's some kind of dysregulation with eating disorder, maybe it can help me. So that was part of my, my interest to look into ketamine. And what I didn't realize was it was such a, what's the word? Mind blowing experience because usually I'm not very sensitive to medications and substances. I just figured I'm just going to sit there and just be maybe a little bit more relaxed. I didn't think much is going to be that exciting. And then within 30 seconds I was taken to a whole different realm and I've never been able to break through this solid world right in front of me. And so I didn't know if there's anything beyond. So the fact that I was seeing something that's so complex, so profound, so drastic right in front of my eyes and they keep changing and they keep evolving the complexity of the imageries I was seeing. And of course the feeling is pretty, pretty amazing. I've never been that free in my life. But the imagery were so complex. That's when I realized, okay, this is not a hallucination. Hallucination is, I think it's almost disrespectful as a way of describing the experience. Hallucination. As a psychiatrist and board certified in psychiatry neurology, hallucination is when you have this dysfunctional ability to perceive the environment. So you're faultily interpreting the environment, you're hallucinating. It's some kind of distortion. That is what's called entropy. So you're losing a complexity of your world because that's a downward energy shift because you're losing quality. Right? It's is malfunction. But what I'm seeing is gaining complexity. So if I'm. That if, if you're gaining complexity, that means there's energy infused, otherwise you wouldn't have gained complexity. So that's something that's really drastic to me that, what I believe is that I'm seeing something that is not a distortion from my brain, but it's a perception of another reality or another type of existence or existential phenomenon. So you know, I, I used to say that I'm not afraid of death. I've never, well, since I was 7, when I got over the fear. I'm not afraid of death. But after what I've experienced, what I have, what, what I've seen with my own eyes, I realized that I'm actually looking forward to death because it's incredible, it's freeing, it's beautiful, it's powerful. So it's going to be a ride, it's going to be, you know, a blast by the time it comes. So it gives you a whole other perspective. And I think that that one is powerful because I think as a physician it's almost a taboo that we talk about spirituality and that's an abomination because that's part of human existence. And as physicians, you know, you know, we don't want to talk about, you know, any. Almost like you don't want to touch, you know, oh, spiritual. No, that's that's not part of medicine. No new medicine is going to include spirituality because we need to understand why that is part of this. Existence is probably as physical as everything we're observing, but it just. Most people cannot perceive it. You know, I think as physicians we need to be more open minded. And the fact that you are getting a new perspective is changing the way that I'm living this life. Because instead of thinking this is the only life I have, I realize that I'm actually eternal. But this is one time I'm going to have. So this is joy, living as joy. This is one opportunity to live as joy. So I want to kind of impress upon you that this is your one opportunity to live as you. But you are going to go on. But this is a precious opportunity. So, you know, the fact that I was deep into stem cell therapy, you know, got me to start a clinical trial on stem cell therapy in traumatic brain injury to see how effective it can be. And that requires spec brain imaging. So I did that one on myself just to see what process patients go through. And then I had surprise finding which, which is my, this is my brain card. So it just shows you what different areas of the brain, you know, how they're affected. So this, you can't really see much, but here's the reading. First thing you see is that this is an abnormal brain scan. And it showed all these areas of the hypo perfusions, right? Low blood perfusion, so including various cortical areas. So that's outer shell of your brain. Basically every hemisphere, every region is defect. There's defect, frontotemporal, parietal, occipital, cerebellar and then a subcortical region. There are also areas of hypoperfusion and then amygdala. There's hyper perfusion, so too much, which means it's too activated. And so, so the conclusion from the scan reading is that this is a occult traumatic brain injury. So this is a big surprise to me because I have no recollection that I was ever hit on my head or fell. You know, maybe there's a little bit of fall, but nothing, nothing severe. So I think a lot of us carry occult traumatic brain injury, having no idea. So finding this out, I was on a mission to heal myself. So how did I heal? You know, attempt to heal my brain. First of all, you know, I was excited about ketamine and I know it has neuroregenerative properties. Then I also want to combine different modalities and then I want to repeat brain scan in two months, which is never done because the location that did the SPECT scan actually only do repeat scan on average about in six months. But I wanted to do in two months. I just wanted to show you a little bit quickly. The neuroregenerative properties of ketamine first of all induces a sharp increase in BDNF and that has been shown to be necessary for ketamine's antidepressant effect. Then also ketamine can cause synaptic increase of BDNF and that eventually led to increased synaptic efficiency. Ketamine also can activate MTOR pathway which is very famous now for longevity and that leads to a cascade eventually that can increase dendritic spine and synaptic strength in the prefrontal cortex. Here's another article talking about neuroprotective effect of ketamine in traumatic brain injury, in subarachnoid hemorrhage and stroke and other neurological diseases. Because it inhibits these neuronal discharge across all these injury modalities. A single dose of ketamine can mitigate post operative cognitive dysfunction after operation and also can prevent stress induced cognitive inflexibility. It can also provide neuroprotective function by relieving pain and inhibiting inflammation. Of course, inflammation is the basis of most diseases. Some other example of neuroregenerative capabilities including increasing hippocampal cell proliferation by then improving behavioral function after injury and it can induce neural stem cell proliferation after short exposure and it can be a novel mechanism for its antidepressant effect which is by activating IGF2 receptors and that can promote neurogenesis and eventually leading to proliferation of neuronal progenitor cells. So these are just some of the basics. And so what I did was that I used various modalities because I believe in combining different treatments including energy therapy, including heightened blood perfusion and how I can even amplify the benefits of ketamine. So red light helmet, full body light and PEMF inversion table and impress on a so I talked about that in panel discussion. So this is my clinic. This is the room where we have a PMF mat and we have a full body light treatment which gives you a completely different experience. And this is the helmet that we can use to help with brain repair. And this is the infrared sauna which the infrared rate is actually very healing. And of course infrared sauna helps you with detoxification. So we also do that. This is through an intramuscular injection and patient has an incredible experience they're completely different from the other type of light therapy and then inversion table that's a whole other story I incorporated various modalities and then two months later here's the result cortical structures we talked about various areas of hypoperfusion you could see this exactly two months later that in frontal lobe in the other five areas of hypoperfusion the drastically improved or not noticeable and the cortical area also resolved the hypoperfusion was resolved and the increase that the hyper perfusion in amygdala also is not they couldn't really see it on the skin so I do combine these modalities in the clinic because I do believe that we are energy beings and energy and light therapy is a powerful way to to energize yourselves and has much more profound effect than we previously knew so by combining that with ketamine treatment I do think that it accelerated the healing of my brain and so I just want to share that with you this is the first time I ever shared that in public and thank you for listening to my story Sam.