109 The Amazing Benefits of Ketamine IV Therapy

How I feel with that practitioner, if they hear me and if they believe me. It just is. Because I've gotten further with a nurse practitioner who sees me and hears me than I have with a psychiatrist who dismisses me before I even walk out the door.

Well, that's a big part of it, is they're looking at their watch. They got so many, you know, so many, so much meat to move, you know, 52 patients a day. I got 7 minutes for you, and I'm not listening to anything you're saying, I'm waiting to cut you off because I got something that I need to say. So, um, and I can understand the other side of it, you know. What provider has 2 or 3 hours to sit with you? A good one, usually. I, I know a, uh, a local—

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Hey friends, thank you so much for being here with me today. I am Sarah Slickty Sanchez and I am your host for today. I hope that you guys listened to last week's episode with Suzanne Burden and Lauren Lovejoy because it was just a fantastic episode and Suzanne is going to be doing other episodes for us in the future. So thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. If you haven't done it already, subscribe to our podcast, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Instagram. We're hanging out on Instagram quite a bit more. You can follow Lion Voice or you can follow Sarah Slickty Sanchez. Before we get into today's episode about ketamine, I want to thank our two sponsors. We have Invita Medical, which you guys have heard me talk about endlessly. They saved my life back in 2013 and then restored it in 2019 when I needed to go back through treatment. This podcast wouldn't exist if it wasn't for their support and long-term support for the Lyme community. And also Tick Warriors. Tick Warriors is a phenomenal company. Founded again by someone who has faced all the hardness of Lyme, and tickwarriors.com offers safe, effective, all-natural, eco-friendly protection against ticks, mosquitoes, and other insects. Their products all around our house, we have their products on our pets, and we spray it on ourselves regularly. So if you are interested, the source code LymeVoice will give you 10% off. So that's always fantastic. I want to tell you kind of about an epiphany that I ended up having recently. And Greg Kirk, who is the author of The Gratitude Curve, him and I, I interviewed him. He's episode 63. I interviewed him a couple years ago, and his book is called Using the Gratitude Curve: Using the Lessons of Chronic Illness to Reach Personal Empowerment., and him and I were in a Facebook group this week, and there was a text thread where someone was saying, like, what gifts have you gotten out of this? Like, we've all had losses and Lyme takes, but what has been the opposite side of this as you're coming out? What have you gained? And Greg had posted on there like, oh yeah, it completely changed my spirituality, and that's why I wrote this book, The Gratitude Curve. And so him and I were in a discussion and I was like, yes, that's a great book. And he said, Sarah, he said, your gift is your podcast. Lion Voice is your gift. And it totally caught me off guard. Like I stopped in my tracks and I was like, what? And I have been pondering and meditating on it for a couple of days because it did stop me in my tracks. And I think because I've been doing LionVoice for 5 years now and it's been hard at times to talk about everything that is going on while also still living in it and dealing with it. And then it's also a job to where as an entrepreneur, a podcast is kind of like an endless to-do list. It just completely changed my perception of what we're offering on the mic to people. You know, we're reaching several thousand people a month. We have a couple new listeners who just sent some messages this week that I'll read to you. But it made me just realize it is such a gift because even one of our new listeners, Angie, and she, her and her whole family are dealing with Lyme and they have had to let go of their professional jobs. They've had to take lower paying positions. And they're all struggling through it. For her, she feels less alone when she gets to turn on Line Voice and know that even if you have to fight really hard for years and years, that it's worth it and that people are healing. And so I just want to thank you listeners for tuning in because it really is a gift to me, to Aaron, to the, to my company, to know that what we're doing is impacting your lives. And it was also just this really good perspective shift for me to, instead of thinking of it as an endless to-do list and I need to do better on social media and all the intricacies that go into marketing the podcast, it's this beautiful gift that has been born out of really immense suffering and hardship and lack. And yet there are people healing in such a wide variety of ways. And so my gift coming out of Lyme is Lyme Voice, but you guys listening and tuning in and giving me feedback is a gift to me. So thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. I'm sorry that you're having to live this hard journey I'm sorry, but there is, there is hope and healing around the corner, and in some ways. So if you need help, I have made myself available for coaching people in the past. If you need help, my phone number, send me a text, 505-681-3364. If you need a brainstorming session to say, what do I do next? How do I do this? How do I navigate the financial side? How do I navigate the logistical side of these treatment options? I am here to offer that to you. Let's sit, we'll schedule a time, we will problem solve to the best of our abilities and come, hopefully come out with a game plan, with a strategy, with what do I do next? 'Cause sometimes that is what is hard is putting one foot in front of the other. So shout out to Angie, new listener in Canada, and Molly, who just sent a text message. She said, hey, I'm still listening to your podcast when I need encouragement. Lion Voice helps me to not feel as alone. So shout out to Molly. Thank you guys for being here. Enjoy this episode with Jonathan. We're talking all about ketamine, and ketamine, for those of you who aren't familiar, is normally used, or is used, as an anesthesia. And but what they're finding in the chronic pain world and dealing with depression is that it's actually a very good treatment, um, for people with neurological issues, for people who have gone through trauma, which is pretty much all of us. So enjoy this episode. If you didn't listen to Suzanne's episode last week, tune in, and I will see you on social media. Hi guys, I want to let you know about a book I wrote called Little Bite, Big Trouble, and I'm going to read a review that recently came in. This is from Carolyn, and she says, thank you so much for writing your book. It has become the means by which I have explained Lyme to my 4-year-olds. They ask for it to be read as a bedtime story over and over again and love that the mama birdie does yoga and juicing like their mommy. I can't thank you enough for writing this book. It has helped my family so much. You can find it today at amazon.com, Little Bite, Big Trouble. Welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of Lyme Voice. With me today is Jonathan Evertson, founder of Urbane Medical. Jonathan, while working towards his Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from the University of Arizona, became extremely ill contracting bacterial meningitis, causing a medical withdrawal from school for nearly 2 years. After healing, Jonathan returned to Tucson to study emergency medicine in the capacity of a paramedic before founding Urbane Medical, a boutique ketamine infusion clinic. Treating patients with ketamine for 5 years now, and 2 at his own clinic, Jonathan and the staff of Urbane Medical are dedicated to serving the Lyme community and have seen some of the most amazing stories of healing, fortitude, love, and strength, and have also seen miraculous improvements from IV ketamine therapy. Jonathan, thank you so much for being here with us.

Thank you so much for having me. Good morning.

Good morning. So we'll pull back the curtain a little bit. Jonathan and I, this is our third time re-recording this episode.

Third time's a charm.

Third time's a charm. Yes. So Jonathan, we're gonna dive into ketamine, and I've already talked about ketamine in countless other podcast episodes because it made a really big impact on me last year. But before we get into the nitty-gritty of what ketamine benefits are, tell us what you're seeing in your clinic as far as what it's doing for the quality of life for your patients.

I really see the improvement of quality of life in more than one way. We definitely have therapy and relief for treatment-resistant pain. As you know, most of our Lyme disease population or vector-borne inflicted have significant amount of pain. The pain is definitely something that is significantly relieved through ketamine, but also the mental wellness. You know, going through the regimes, the significant treatment regimes that the population goes through, the Lyme population goes through, it just has such a toll on mental wellness and not feeling well. Again, just has such a, such a weight on your shoulders when you're not only in physical pain but having the mental anguish as well. And we've seen a lot of improvements. From the mental aspect with ketamine therapy.

Wow. So I did a series when I went back through Invita Medical last year after getting reinfected. I also did a series of 8 ketamine treatments. I was totally, I was totally new to ketamine as an adjunct therapy. And so I'm very new to this. I've only been looking into it for the last year, but I, continually heard from patients who are going to your clinic that not only have the ketamine treatments helped, but the style in which you guys offer your services has also really helped.

I think that feedback is hugely important. As you mentioned, as you introduced me— lovely introduction, by the way, thank you— that we're very boutique. I think now with, especially with Lyme, our aim was not to be a cattle call in a mill. Our population's probably 1 to 2 patients a day and we're quite fine with that. Obviously we're gonna grow, but we're learning to do one thing well and that's provide therapy through ketamine. Very one-on-one, very personable, very personal experience. Your family has full run of the place. It's rare that we have 2 patients on property at one time. We do have 2 treatment rooms, but most of the time we're giving 110% to that one patient that's in. Um, if we do have to bounce back and forth, um, we kind of do it a little bit differently. We really believe in being bedside. Our providers, they're bedside. We just brought an anesthesiologist on board who's fantastic, who sits with the patients where they're going through their infusion. We do monitor vital signs and we are right there just to see along that ride, just because it's a dissociative, we find that the therapy is most appropriate at higher doses, obviously safe, but higher doses. And so we do provide that boutique experience with a little bit more handholding than your average, than your average clinic and kind of extra accoutrements for the family just to kind of have the run of the place while they're there.

Yeah, and you know, you spend so much of your life as a Lyme patient and/or family members, you spend so much of your life in waiting rooms that to have to be able to walk into a treatment and have it be refreshing and welcoming is so valuable because it puts you in a different state of mind or a state of being that allows you to even accept the treatments you're going through.

Absolutely. And like I said, especially with COVID especially with people being hyper-cognizant of infection and airborne different transmissions, it's really easy to keep clean. It's really easy to allow patients to have that private experience without having to worry about touching surfaces, without having to worry about just having other people cough on them. Sharing a waiting room, for example. It's very, very rare, like I said, that we'll have a couple families in there, but there's enough room that obviously you're able to be in the treatment room or in the foyer. So quite lovely little place.

So dive into what ketamine treatments really do for you and how they've changed in the last number of years.

Ketamine's been very— I guess it's kind of had some stigma since the '70s, but it's been used quite a bit. We see that it helps with mental wellness. We see that it helps with physical pain and things like chronic regional pain syndrome, things like brain fog. It works kind of differently than, say, PCP, but has similar results of dissociative. It's very interesting because they're doing a lot of studies on it, Parkinsonian They're doing a lot of studies on it, but they don't know the absolutes. They know it helps with people and their mental wellness, kind of giving them a sense of vim and vigor. They know it helps with their pain that's been resistant to other therapies, specifically opioid therapies. They are using it for addiction, to help with addiction, and obviously, you know, It's very hard going through these treatment regimes and staying off anything that would help you generally for the pain. So I would assume, and it's documented, that there's a significant of the population, of the Lyme population, that does have, you know, not addiction problems, so to say, but gets titrated to a higher level of medications because— Dependency issues, for sure. Yeah, definitely. Definitely, depending on those things. So a lot of studies, um, I've just seen incredible, incredible results with the mental wellness, with the pain, with the co-infections of Lyme. Um, so when you say dive in, I mean, it's just— there's, there's so much information. It's so exciting to me.

Okay, how does it help patients who are— from what I understand, let me just run down this list of benefits and then we can dive into a couple of them, but it helps with anxiety. It helps with depression, advanced psychiatric care. It helps with panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder, PTSD. It elevates mood, increases concentration, a renewed self-esteem. That one kind of blew my mind. That's so interesting. Um, it helps with sleep, sexual desire, and restoring your sense of balance in the world. That's enormous.

Huge. I think it's huge. And I think a huge part of it also is not only what it does at the receptor level, but it does to the patient. Again, all the treatment regimes that our patients are going through from day to day, 8 hours a day, it offers relief, it offers a vacation. We believe in a longer infusion. So start to finish, you do come in, you have a run of the place, but we get you going. Pretty quickly. It's a 3-hour infusion, and it's— I mean, your pleasure centers are going off. It is therapeutic, and it's a nice 3-hour rest. We believe in doing our infusions in the evening because everything's just quieter— the building, life itself. It also helps in case you have to go through part of your treatment regime with one of our integrative medical docs, or somewhere like Invita, one of your major sponsors, during the day. We feel it's just most therapeutic to go home and rest afterwards. If you have a list of 10 things to do and come in at 9 for a 3-hour infusion, get out at 12:30 in a wheelchair, last thing you want to be doing is looking into the Arizona sun as you're traveling around town.

Well, and I think that's huge, Jonathan, because You know, you know this, but I've been through treatment 2 times and it's exhausting to try to get to all the appointments, to go through all the different procedures and then adjust and try to cram that schedule in. And the fact that you guys are open in the evening is just huge because it's applicable for people who are working full-time or people who are in treatment full-time. Yeah.

Yeah.

It just gives you a lot of options and to be able to go through that type of a treatment, a 3-hour for me, I didn't have any bad side effects or hard dreams. You know, some people say that they have weird or scary dreams and I just took a nap. And so to be able to go do that and then go home would be very beautiful.

I agree. It's, it's, it's, it's a thing of beauty. When we get the feedback that we do from patients that they were able to go home, get a good night's rest, they slept. And they woke up, you know, feeling better. And I notice it most in the gait of our patients.

Interesting. Tell me more.

Well, I guess there's so many ways to measure different things. And I guess one that really rings clear to me is just the gait in a lot of our patients where they come in in kind of a shuffle. I remember about 3 years ago, I saw, through the window, sweet little Amelia. She's one of our fantastic testimonials shuffling across the parking lot, probably 6 inches at a time. 17-year-old young lady. Beautiful story on Invita's website as well about her testimonial. And she's on our website as well and saw through the window. She's never— she's never going to make it into this office. It's going to be 15 minutes before she you know, makes it the, the 40 yards she needs to. Um, and it's nice to see her. I saw her yesterday, as a matter of fact, and it's nice to see her stride and her gait and her shoulders, you know, back and, and taking a nice, a nice good gait, a nice good stride, and just feeling, um, feeling that much better.

That's enormous.

I mean, I see a lot of other things other than gait, but it's interesting. Um, watching the gait improvement. It's extremely measurable.

Well, and I think one of the interesting things about the ketamine infusions is that you see those measurable, measurable results sometimes within a couple of hours.

We'll see it within a couple hours. Often it's hard because they're still in a dissociated state, but we can get— if they're able to give By the time they're leaving some feedback, it's very, very valuable. Obviously they're somewhat stoned, so you're gonna probably get the better feedback. Hand them their patient satisfaction survey right then. No. But they're a little bit, but we do notice that, oh my gosh, my headaches. Or one significant patient that we had recently, those were her, that was her major complaints, the brain fog and the headache. She was, you know, from Topamax to so many different things you take for headaches. I mean, it's just, it's not fun when you're, when that's one of the, one of your co-ailments. And it really, really helped with her headaches. So that was kind of new to us significantly because, you know, the referring body thought it would be extremely appropriate. And we, we treated her Sunday afternoon. So weekends, if we need to, we're not, We don't keep traditional 8 to 5 hours, but we basically base it on patients and when patients really need to get in. We got called for a treatment Sunday afternoon for a patient that was flying in, and we treated her yesterday.

So what some of the things that I'm so fascinated about ketamine with, for me, I told you this off air, but when I went through my first treatment, I called my husband and I was like, I'm not drunk and I'm not high, but I am not sober.

Right. You're in a very interesting place, at least from what I've seen. I have never personally done ketamine or had a ketamine infusion. Really? I never have.

You have not practiced on yourself?

I have not practiced on myself. I think— I don't know if the need is necessarily there. I think it's important to see what patients are going through firsthand, but I don't necessarily think that the need for myself is there. Makes sense. They do stay pretty— it depends. We have a small— pardon me. We have a small emergence, more so seen in children, but there's a small emergence reaction with ketamine where it's not as pleasurable. Some people get a little freaked out, that's 10 to 13%, but that's also at higher doses. So they usually leave pretty happy. We will use some Valium or some benzodiazepines just to kind of, to ease people, kind of get them in a more comfortable state if they end up kind of, if we need to bring them back down over that ledge, if they started to get a little bit of, show a little bit of irritability, show a little bit of anxiety. And that can definitely happen exacerbate that stoniness for a couple hours longer depending on which benzodiazepine we choose. And we don't usually provide that unless it's needed. Ultimately, we want to get as much ketamine as we possibly can on board in a safe manner that's shown to increase the amount of neuroelasticity and hopefully neurogenesis as people have discussed. That they believe it does. And, uh, and we find that we can do that in a very therapeutic level without having that emergence reaction and getting you home in an extremely comfortable manner. And yeah, you're usually kind of stoned for, for a little while. Usually you wake up the next day and you're feeling pretty good without the grogginess or whatnot.

But with, uh, with the benzodiazepines, sometimes you can be a little groggy the next day if we provide those I actually found by the end of my 8th treatment, like partway through, because I had a lot going on, I was still working, I was at Invita, you know, most, or Monday through Friday for 6 hours typically. And so I was just trying to cram stuff in. So I actually realized that I often went in the morning and then went to treatment in the afternoon. And so one of the things I figured out is if I drank beet juice, which is one of my like go-to amazing superfoods for me. I just— gives me a ton more energy. If I would drink beet juice afterwards, I would cognitively come back really quick. Like I could get rid of feeling high because I needed to think and do other things during the day. I could get rid of that feeling by drinking a couple things of beet juice.

Beet juice. Interesting.

Like, I just got it at Sprouts or whatever. But yeah, it really helped. And I tried it several times. I think I did it the last 4 times after I went through treatment, really, because I had stuff to do or interviews to conduct and work to do in the evening. So I was like, I got to get some clarity.

Did we have dinner last night?

Yeah, for sure.

I don't remember.

So I think I remember my doctor talking about the ketamine treatments. Is that one of the things that it does is it really just cleans out the synapses connection?

They believe it does. It's an NDMA antagonist, so it has a lot to do with glutamate, the glutamate receptors basically. It's very— similar to your dopaminergic and your serotonergic receptors. So basically works primarily, the excitation molecule involved would be glutamate and allows that to, allows that to be more clear channel of transmission and let those signals be a lot clearer, firing quicker, firing better. And just kind of cleans up, cleans house. Hmm.

So, so I've also heard that it's really helpful for severe depression, like depression that cannot be treated with meds and/or isn't sufficiently being treated with meds. But I've also heard there was a Yale study that I was looking at that said that one of the And because PTSD is so huge in this community, and it's been so huge for me, I talk about it way too much because it is so traumatic to have your life being destroyed. And/or, but the neurological implications to me are just the thing that take, take the suffering to a whole new level. And so the Yale study that I had read, it said it reestablishes interrupted nerve connections that are necessary to process and over traumatic memories?

They do believe it does. Some of our patients will have kind of a breakthrough, and they'll be— and it's, it's very funny when they explain it because it'll be— sometimes it's described as pleasurable, and sometimes it's described as traumatic, but they know it's a breakthrough in the right direction. So, wow, something happened in my infusion, and I'm kind of uncomfortable with it, but I Man, it's almost like the separation of a stage of a rocket. Huh. If that makes sense. Yeah, it does. It's very neat. It's a breakthrough. And most of the time, not always is it pleasurable, but the ones that are able to— and being the Lyme population is incredibly intuitive with the treatments that they're not only receiving, but everything that they're going through and have been through. And it's amazing to get that feedback. I could say in a fair amount of our patients, I've received probably 25 to 30%, I've received that significant, wow, on the second treatment or the third treatment, I just, I had a breakthrough.

Something happened.

Something happened, absolutely. And they're like, and sometimes we're able to see those results after the second treatment and sometimes it takes a third or a fourth.. But if it's not helping by the second treatment, we really don't think you should continue to be spending the money. We'll bounce you back possibly to one of your providers, and sometimes your providers are like, no, this is doing something for you. And they'll come back and second or third time after their original two is usually some type of breakthrough. And, and that's not with all our patients. We have a significant ability to find it to be very therapeutic after, after the third. Sometimes we'll do a fourth and a fifth, and sometimes we'll stick with a third and just do a monthly or a bimonthly booster in the same ranges of the dosages that we gave you during your treatment. So we like to titrate up because you do have the ability to get kind of used to it. So we will titrate up, increase those doses. If you've lived a very wholesome lifestyle—

oh yeah, let's talk about this.

If you've lived a wholesome lifestyle, for example, it's kind of very interesting. We, you know, if you're taught to, you know, stay within your own body, don't do any dissociatives, don't get drunk, don't smoke, don't do things It's very interesting because a lot of people will need that little bit of coaching beforehand. Hey, this is gonna be weird. You might feel that you're up in the corner looking down on yourself, or you're just not really here. Most people find it extremely pleasurable. I think we've had one or two patients that just really were just kind of uneasy with that, with that feeling, because they lived such a wholesome lifestyle. And one specifically, there was trouble on the oil fields, um, and the wife got a phone call and she said there's something going on, it's fixed. But he was unable to— even though she told him it's fixed— for the next 2 and a half hours, every 10 minutes, he was very stuck on the oil field and what's, what's going on with this pump, or what's going on, even though she talked to him about it. So we really try to keep the distractions down keep the disturbances down. The rooms are very dim. Um, we do like binaural beats or, um, or silence. Um, try not to really converse or make a whole lot of, uh— it's like listening to YouTube and then having that commercial come on in between songs. And yeah, so, so we do have the, you know, we, we do try to avoid any type of distractions during those therapies because it can, it can take you a lot of different ways, just different stimulus. It seems like there's a hypersensitivity to sensations, to smells, vision gets— there's visual disturbances, but to auditory, you'll often either hear things that aren't there or you will hear things hypersensitive. So we try to keep it really quiet in the room.

Very therapeutic. For nearly 2 decades, Invita Medical Center has been leading the way with the latest in personalized treatment options. Designed for patients dealing with Lyme disease complex. At Invita Medical Center, they offer a team-style approach and the latest technology regarding treatment and testing at an unmatched radical love and care environment for their patients. Call to speak to one of the patient care coordinators today to learn why hundreds of patients choose Invita Medical Center each year. You can find them online at invita.com.

We try to keep it really quiet in the room.

Very therapeutic.

Yeah.

One of the things, Jonathan, some of his patients come from Invita, and some of my coaching clients come through Invita. And so, um, we know some of the same people. And one of the things that I was hearing from some of the mutual clients that we have is, I mean, everyone knows that Lyme treatments are— almost all of them that are effective are very expensive. That's kind of just the reality of where we're at because they're not covered by insurance. Really, that's the bigger part of it. Someday ketamine might be covered by insurance once it gets FDA approved, but for now it's not, like a lot of alternative effective treatments aren't covered. So that's one big component. But the thing that I was hearing from your patients was that they were leaving. It was— so Lyme is so expensive, but when you find something that works, like you said, people are intuitive and they know and they're dealing with their symptoms. And so when you do find something, and the theme I kept hearing from your patients is that the ketamine treatments adjuncts were just as beneficial as actual treatment was. It wasn't like, oh, I went to treatment and I have these 6 adjunct therapies that I'm doing in addition. And Invita has a very comprehensive program, so you don't have to piecemeal a lot of it together. But the fact that in their minds their treatment at Invita was comparable to the benefits they got just through ketamine is huge.

Again, it's really hard to measure. Um, yeah, it really is. It really is. Um, and Vita is doing so much, and I think a lot of it is just that, that 3-hour vacation, getting away from it all and being able to, being able to just be like, ah, like Calgon, take me away. Um, but it definitely, it definitely does something. It's really hard to quantify because they're doing so much. We do one thing well, and that's ketamine, and they are doing blood tests, they're doing, you know, apheresis, they're doing the cream corn therapy, they're doing so much in regards to overall wellness. Overall wellness. It's, it's just, it's extremely hard because it's just, yeah, it's, it's very tough. I like it to— I like to think that we're doing significant and I can sell it and be like, yeah, this is a cure-all, but it's an adjunct therapy. Like, you know, the whole mental wellness aspect of it. I mean, there's 10 different, 12 different, everybody needs to be their own advocate. And there's so many therapies. Some people believe in colonics. Some people think colonics are just silly. You know, so you have to look at the overall global treatment regime. And I really think that this is a significant piece of the pie.

Yeah, I do too. In that treatment regime. I do too. For me, and you know, again, you're going through so many treatments, so it's hard to figure out what is doing what, except my own, I had, I went through Invita's program back in 2008. So I know exactly what that was. And really the only significant change for the first 7 weeks treatment was the addition of ketamine. That was the only thing, like, only big change that I saw in the treatment that I went through. And so for me, going back through treatment a second time was deeply traumatic emotionally. And I remember being at the clinic on one of the very first days and seeing a patient who was in a wheelchair. And when I went to treatment the first time, I was in a wheelchair. I was I was totally dependent on someone to take care of me, cook for me. I could not do anything. And she was needing help getting to the bathroom and they were struggling to get her in, out of the treatment room and all this stuff. And she was just crying because she needed to go to the bathroom so bad. And they were all doing everything they could to get her there, but she was completely immobile. And it was so traumatic for me to see her crying in the hallway. That I had this— I just like was just weeping and had to step in the other room and just— I just cried because the trauma is so immense with this illness and it doesn't end. It keeps going. And so the fact— so this was— I had that— I felt like it was equally as traumatic, if not more traumatic in different ways, to go back through treatment. And yet I feel like by the time I got to the end of treatment, I was way better off, way, way better off than I was the first time around. And emotionally, even with PTSD and depression, I feel like I bounced back to my true self way faster. And I think it was the ketamine that was doing it.

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. I've heard about it a few times too. Some of your podcasts. By the way, you have some amazing, amazing podcasts with some amazing, amazing guests. It really is what grabs my heart because I'm well, as far as I know, not afflicted with any vector-borne illnesses. But seeing our patient population suffer like they have is just— is It's devastating. Financially, it's just, it's horrible. And I'm glad we're able to offer that type of relief. We had a patient yesterday that actually had mentioned in the past paying it forward for another patient. And so yesterday she actually paid it forward for another patient in the future to have to have a therapy, um, a treatment, because she understands. She's been through it, went through Invita, and she understands that, you know, this is really taxing on the average person. And the fact that it was— you said it was harder the second time versus going back the first, correct?

Yeah.

I mean, which is surprising because you already know what to expect. You already know the gun— you'd have— you have to run. You already know. So I mean, it's just amazing because you would think it would be easier the second time, and this is so not easy at all for anybody that has to relocate their family, that has to come here and stay for 2 or 3 months to go through the daily treatment regime, changing the diet, and having to find their own information. And places like Lyme Voice, incredible. There's so much information. I've learned so much about colostrum and colonics and electromagnetic frequencies, so many different things that you have to seek it. And if people don't know about Line Voice or people don't know about these other avenues, they're just going to be spinning their tail. Like, you watch Under Our Skin, and I think it's at like, um, 29 minutes, 30 seconds, there's that list that goes up the page and it's all the symptoms. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And it's just, it's devastating. I love to use Amelia as our success story because watching her barely be able to walk versus, you know, she was diagnosed with Epstein-Barr at 16 and then came here for Lyme treatment. And it's just amazing to watch her grow and flourish. And, you know, you're a young girl. You should be out living your life. Really, Doc? I'd like to be living my life. So it's just very moving. I'm very fortunate to be able to do this and to see the small miracles that we've been able to see.

That's really neat. And you know, it's true. I think the suffering is so enormous. I mean, it's been for me that Lyme voice has been hard on some aspects because you're kind of re-engaging in the trauma, but so, so rewarding because we said it in our first episode, like, we have to stop the suffering. The suffering is just so extreme and so constant and tons of misinformation. And one of the things, when I told you that story about seeing that woman not be able to get to the bathroom, um, one of the things that like hurt my heart the most was I knew that she was in in my own opinion, in my own experience, was she's in one of the best facilities that exists, and it's still hard. It's still so, so hard. Like, you can be in the right place and you can have great doctors, and so many of my coaching clients are in this same conundrum where you're doing and you're seeing the right people, and it's— you're still years into the journey before a lot of health and healing comes. So a therapy that actually feels good and makes you feel good and doesn't hurt or suck to go through is enormous.

I wish I could give these therapies for free. I really do. And hopefully we're working on insurance coverage in the future. Ultimately, it's just a shame that Lyme still hasn't had the attention it nearly deserves. We just put a bill through— we tried to put a bill through Arizona Senate, Bill 1057, mimicking a state of Connecticut House Bill 6200, basically changing the definition of a provider, making that not just a physician, but making it an advanced provider, changing it from a 4-week antimicrobial therapy to allow the provider to have more autonomy for the treatment regime and for changing the term Lyme disease to vector-borne. And it got shot down in the 11th hour. Oh, bummer. Unfortunately, we had to name that the Ryan Montgomery Bill. Right. You know, Ryan, he's— he was afflicted for years after 150 docs, like, like most of the people listening. It's like, I'm done. I'm done with this. I You know, oh, you have Lyme disease? Really? Because 80 docs couldn't tell me, or 90 docs. Uh, it's just horrible. So we're so fortunate to see significant therapy, significant relief for those ailments. Um, the mental health really does help, um, and the pain, and those two things together, I mean, it's, it's incredibly huge globally for your overall improvement as part of your treatment regime, I really do think ketamine's advantageous. And not for everyone. It's fairly safe. It's been used for years. It's very safe. You maintain an airway. You don't have any type of physiological changes significantly with our— with our doses that we give. And there's really not a— really not a whole lot of harm. We don't see that there's a lot of studies negatively showing ill effects from receiving ketamine treatments. So we receive a lot more positives than negatives even to our patients.

I believe that, and I experienced that as well. But they also mentioned that in that Yale study, they said that for people— I mean, we talked about it a little bit earlier— for people who have been on a lot of antidepressants and it's not working, They actually said now that the studies are showing that one treatment of ketamine is far more effective than being on an antidepressant for months.

I would believe it. Again, I think that that's— I mean, it's so hard to quantify. Everybody's going to be a little bit different if you're on MAOIs or SSRIs. I know that that whole regime as well, just trying to find the right medication for your mental wellness. Hey, take this. If it doesn't work, if you don't jump off a cliff, we'll get you back in 2 weeks. Yeah, I mean, it's just you're, you're so chasing your tail that there is significant improvement. Um, that's just really hard for me to say, yes, stop taking medications and come and get ketamine treatment because it'll, it'll— right, of course, that's amazing. I mean, I trust, uh, you know, the Yale studies.

I'd like to see that. Yeah, I'll put it at a link I'll put the link here on the show notes of this episode. But another thing you brought up is so many people— I mean, I was— I, like so many Lyme patients, had— I suffered. It didn't matter what I tried, I suffered from every side effect that could possibly have happened. And it started early on. I didn't know what was going on. I just thought, oh, okay, I get every side effect. But the number of people who have Lyme who go on SSRIs and have a bad experience or an experience that takes months or years to undo is endless. I can't even count the number of people I know who have been on a whirlwind of chaos trying to go on an SSRI to deal with what they're dealing with. And that's not their— that's not their underlying issue. So they don't respond to treatment. And in fact, they respond to the side effects. And so I'm like, oh man. And my— one of my physicians, she told me, she said, Sarah, the most you can ever expect from an antidepressant at its best is a 30% boost up and help. And that doesn't include whatever the cost, whatever the side effects could happen, whatever the whatevers. And so for me, it just seems like a huge tool for dealing with with the deep, deep depression and for dealing with the PTSD and the trauma?

Yeah, I mean, there's just so much, there's so much that you can say about the whole mental health treatment regime. I mean, it's really unfortunate that you just get a bunch of things thrown at you and see if this works, see if that doesn't work. Pardon. And seeing the long-term effects that can possibly happen over practicing medicine. And I understand that that's hard. It's really hard to say, hey, you're low, let's, let's put a needle in your brain and you're low on dopamine, you're low on serotonin, you're low on— very difficult science in itself to sit there and determine you know, in 5 to 10 minutes what medication might be most advantageous for a patient and what, you know, if it's an SSRI, if it's an MAOI, if it's an old medicine, new medicine. Doctors are influenced by their environment and obviously the knowledge that they have, the studies, or, you know, even the drug rep who came in and gave them a bunch of extra. There's so many factors that ultimately you have to be your own doctor. And by the time most of your patients get to me, they could have gone through medical school with what they've learned about their own care, what works for them, what doesn't work for them. And it's, you know, practically, you know, get your PhD through, through reading and researching and finding the ultimate cure for yourself. You know, there's places that accompany— will accompany you with that journey. And, and Invita does an incredible, incredible job. But you, you have to be not only in the Lyme and the Vector Board illness population, but you have to be absolutely aware of the therapies you're receiving and what works for you and what doesn't.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I was on massive amounts of pain meds before going through treatment the first time. I had, I mean, thousands of dollars a month, and they helped enough to keep me partially functioning for a lot of years as I searched for answers. So my experience with opioids is different than, you know, the opioid epidemic that's going on. But what was fascinating to me is when I went to my doctor and said, hey, I've been on all these pain meds, they're not working, they make me feel horrible, I really want to try medical cannabis. My doctor, who I left very quickly after this incident, she sat there and I had had— I'd been seeing her for years. And she sat there and lectured me for 10 to 15 minutes on how irresponsible it was, how she would never sign a piece of paper allowing me access to cannabis, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that. And I was just sitting there stunned because at this point I'm also in a wheelchair. And when I, I was falling constantly, there were days that my legs work. It was weird to need a wheelchair when you weren't disabled because there— but there were days, I mean, I had been sitting for years, but they were days that my legs just did not work, or one of them worked, or they worked for half the day and then quit working. And so it was this random mix, and I'm trying to explain this to this specific doctor, and I said, I really need a wheelchair. Like, I'd already bought one used off of Craigslist, but I said, I need a real wheelchair because I am not functioning, and at least in a wheelchair I can go— someone can wheel me across the soccer field so I can watch my kids' game. At point, I don't have the stamina to walk across the field. And she looks at me and she says, if you get in a wheelchair now, you'll never get out. Because I was so young, and I was just like, are you freaking kidding me? I said instantly, I said, I know that I'm too young for a wheelchair. Oh my God, that's the whole reason I'm here. Are you kidding me? Like the lunacy that you have to go through to find adequate care with this illness, the amount of courage you have to have to continue to self-advocate, the amount of resources, time, energy, and money that you have to be willing to commit to your healing journey is off the charts.

Yeah, it's, it's unreasonable. Um, there was a Stephen, uh, I want to say Stephen Phillips, I think, called the whole Lyme thing, uh, egregious, ridiculous. I think those are, those are two great terms for it. Just, it is, it's, it's egregious and ridiculous. Let me see if I can find that note. Um, it was fascinating.

Um, that's, that's a good word.

Words. Wow. And it's just, it's just unreasonable. Um, Stephen Phillips, yes, it was. I was, um, listening to something on his, and, and it was just fascinating, the, you know, the hoops people have to jump through for this. It's just so sweet that, that our patient yesterday was willing to pay it forward for another patient. That's so neat. Scholarship, because that's just, that's one less thing you can worry about, like how much, you know, that And that's huge. That's huge. I mean, as amazing as Dr. Mathias and Dr. Poteat and the team up at Invita are, it's just, it'd be nice to be able to come in and have that one less thing to worry about when you were to come into our clinic and know that you got it for free. So hopefully that's our ultimate goal is to get more money in that scholarship fund for future patients.

Yeah, well, it's interesting because I started talking about opioids. I don't know why that word is getting stuck in my brain, but, um, the— I was on so many pain meds when they were available, and now because of the opioid epidemic that's unfolding, and doctors are all of a sudden— not all of a sudden, it's been for the last few years— pulling back on writing pain meds and handing out Oxy To me, I'm— Aaron and I have talked about this endlessly. I'm like, I would have been in a world of hurt. I mean, I was already seeing a pain clinic, so I had already signed a contract, so my doctors weren't going to be held liable if I overdosed. Like, that's really what happened is I signed this pain contract. And but what was fascinating is when the tide started to turn with doctors not prescribing opioids, I remember just thinking, so my phone started to ring because all of a sudden patients who were existing on pain meds knew those pain meds were gonna get taken away and they had to find the next level of care and treatment to try to treat their chronic pain. And so the thing that I love about ketamine is that it, the opioid epidemic exists because of the way we're treating patients and managing medicine, which is not good, and it's not really for the patient's full benefit. And a doctor is seeing you for 10 or 15 minutes, but they're not offering you anything else. Never once in my years and years, like, I was begging and scrounging for information, like, even about cannabis. I didn't know cannabis was— had a medicinal side to it. I just was oblivious to it because of my wholesome upbringing. And, and so that's the thing, like, okay, don't offer opioids, but offer some type of an effective pain management solution. And they don't have that. They don't have a good solution for people who are in that chronic pain loop.

That's traditional Western medicine though, as well. If that doesn't have a pill, doesn't solve it, then I'm sorry, there's nothing, there's nothing I can do for you. I mean, you know, I got nothing. And now I can't even prescribe you that magic pill because, or pain pill, because there's so much scrutiny on the physicians. Ultimately, it's a relationship between the provider and the patient, and that's usually where it fails. It's just that, is you have 10 minutes. Doc, have you ever felt true pain? I'm in true pain. Ah, you're fibromyalgia, you're this, you're that. Labeling things. I mean, my nerves are on fire from head to toe. How can you tell me that my pain's not a 10? Well, I think this, or, well, what you think is wrong. I need— so a lot of the physicians and providers' hands are tied because they've seen that there aren't a lot of options. Yeah, you're right. I'll get you— I'll get in trouble if I give you too much of this, and, and I got nothing. And that's what's horribly sad about it is I think the patient often, you know, just doesn't have any other options.

Yeah. Well, yeah, that's the thing. It's like, okay, take the pain meds away, but offer something. What's the next step? What's the next solution? And for what I see, ketamine infusions seem to really fill that gap in people who are needing to recover on the emotional side, the PTSD side, but people who are still in treatment and dealing with chronic pain, man, it's one of the best gifts you can give someone ever in their entire lives is to eliminate pain.

Just does. Yeah. And it's— we have some amazing stories, we really do, where people could— can get back to their quality of life and get back to doing daily things, and sometimes we have to coach him to slow down. You know, we had a patient that had 3 infusions, and we chose to let her have a little more of a rest period between her second and third infusion. She came back, I walked 6 miles on Sunday morning. Like, no, slow down. I haven't walked like that in over a year. It's like, no, like a couple I was like, she was, she was so, so excited, um, to actually be able to, to get out of the house. And I mean, when all is said and done, I, you mean, after the treatment, I would be, I would be an agoraphobe. I would hate to go outside. I wouldn't go to a doctor's office again. I would, I mean, just the whole gauntlet from the start to finish with this. I just, I'm so moved by the population. I'm so moved by what what I do. My career is, is as a paramedic, and I've seen just tragedy and trauma for over 20 years. But this is a gift to actually be able to help people, um, and this is, this is true medicine, like seeing the results, um, you know, and being able to stay here and be reachable 24/7. My patients can call me anytime 24/7. I know that's a big stretch, but sometimes it's extremely horrible. I had to send out a company recently to access a port at 11 o'clock at night. So we're always reachable. We'll try to do the right thing absolutely every time and do absolutely what we can for our patients, be it go get them ice cream, or, you know, another sugar is kind of— you want to stay away from the sugar, but I don't know. Yeah, you know, we do— we really like to personalize the care at our clinic, and it's hard. It's hard because I can understand being a provider and being able to provide care. You want to try to keep that distance somewhat, and it's safe, but I can The relationship we have with our patients is extremely moving. We like to keep it personal and like to be reachable.

Well, and Jonathan, as a patient, former, ongoing, I don't know what category I'm in, changes all the time, but that is literally the most important thing to me. I've seen dozens of practitioners and their level of education is insignificant to me at this point in my journey. Um, I know it's relative, but the thing— the most important thing is how I feel with that practitioner, if they hear me and if they believe me. It just is. I— because I've gotten further with a nurse practitioner who sees me and hears me than I have with a psychiatrist who dismisses before I even walk out the door.

Well, that's a big part of it, is they're looking at their watch. They got so many, you know, so many, so much meat to move, you know, 52 patients a day. I got 7 minutes for you, and I'm not listening to anything you're saying. I'm waiting to cut you off because I got something that I need to say. So, um, and I can understand the other side of it, you know, what provider has 2 or 3 hours to sit with you A good one, usually. I, I know a, uh, a local nurse practitioner who did her doctorates in Lyme and associated illnesses, um, has her own practice, and she gives each of her patients a half hour, an hour if needed. But I mean, you're sitting there in silence, like, going, okay, what do we talk about? Um, it's a half hour. Who gives their patients a half hour? Like, and that's not even enough time when you're listing off what you're going through, what you've been through, what— and at least, you know, she as a provider can empathize. Most Western medicine providers still, like Lyme disease, what's Lyme disease? Isn't that from, you know, okay. And just the definition of vector-borne versus tick-borne. I mean, we're finding, we're just learning so much every day and that it's hard if you're stuck looking, you know, in a submarine looking out of periscope you can be very, very narrow-minded. But I mean, I had a patient text me, and I believe she might have sent it to you as well, um, her biopsy of a tooth. Yeah, like with, uh, what was in it?

15 different pathogens and bacterias.

Yeah, like unreal. So We're getting closer. We're just really fortunate to be an adjunct therapy to this journey. Um, we predominantly deal with Lyme patients. We have done a couple infusions for the other indications, simply just somebody for mental wellness, simply some people with chronic regional pain syndrome. But I would say 90% of our population is the Lyme disease vector-borne population. And I believe we really do it, we really do it well. And I really think it's the population that I'd like to continue to serve. I'm learning so much and just every time we have patients, I'm just moved by this culture, by this community. It's not easy and we have people giving each other rides to appointments, people paying for other people's therapies ahead of time. So it's, it's wonderful. We're definitely blessed to be able to provide a service.

And, and, uh, let us know. Yeah. Okay, Jonathan, so in conclusion, how do people find you, reach you? I know you're in Phoenix, Arizona, which— what are you guys at, like 108 today?

Uh, a little closer to 111. It's nice and cool. It's a, you know, it's not bad. It's not. I was just walking around a minute ago and it— I'm so— we were up. Um, you can get a hold of us at my direct number, 480-327-7160. My 1-800 number, 833-8-Urbane. That'd be 833-888- 72263 or 480-269-7677 if the first two numbers weren't enough, or Jonathan@UrbaneMedical, or just go to UrbaneMedical.com, fill out a little information, and I'll get back to you shortly.

Yeah, and I— you guys, Jonathan's a wealth of information, so if you have questions about using ketamine as part of your overall treatment plan, get in touch with him because is a wealth of information and has been dealing with the Lyme population for a number of years. So awesome. Thank you so much for being here, Jonathan. I really appreciate your time and what you're doing for this community.

Thank you for having me. Um, just want to give my love to, to this population and, uh, bless them on their journey to wellness.

Well, you're playing a huge role in that, so thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Hi guys, I want to let you know about a book I wrote called Little Bite, Big Trouble, and I'm going to read a review that recently came in. This is from Carolyn, and she says, thank you so much for writing your book. It has become the means by which I have explained Lyme to my 4-year-olds. They asked for it to be read as a bedtime story over and over again and love that the mama birdie does yoga and juicing like their mommy. I can't thank you enough for writing this book. It has helped my family so much. You can find it today at Amazon.com, Little Bite, Big Trouble. Disease is contrary to life. Therefore, wherever disease exists, life must also fight to exist.

Good job fighting, Lyme fighters. Keep it up. We'll see you next time. LymeVoice contains general information about medical conditions and treatments. The information is not advice and should not be treated as such.

Okay, Lincoln?

Okay. The medical information on LymeVoice is provided as is without any representations, warranties, expressed or implied. Okay? Okay. LymeVoice makes no representations or warranties in relation to the medical information on this podcast. You must not rely on the information on this podcast as an alternative to medical advice from your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you have any specific questions about your medical matter, you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. And for you, you consult your parents, okay?

Okay.

If you think you may be suffering from any medical condition, you should seek immediate medical attention. You should never delay seeking medical advice, disregard medical advice, or discontinue medical treatment because of information on this podcast. Got it, Lincoln?

Got it.