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Two men share their experience with ketamine; a growing treatment for PTSD, depression

There are many different options people have when treating depression and suicidal thoughts, and ketamine is a choice growing in popularity.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla — There’s no magic pill to feel normal.

Lord knows, if there were, the two men in this story would have taken it already.

“This rage just enveloped me,” Army veteran Jerome Jacques said. 

“My experience led to me being homebound, led to agoraphobia,” Abdullah Saeed said. 

Saeed is a screenwriter, actor and television producer living in Los Angeles. 

This is a story about two very different men, their fight with post-traumatic stress disorder, and their coping options. 

“There was a rocket attack at the PX one day," Jacques remembers the ambush while he was serving in Iraq. "People were hurt, people were killed. For whatever reason when this happened, I just froze. And I didn’t know what to do. I had just basically fallen apart.”

He says this was a critical traumatic moment that shaped his life, and his mental health. 

Saeed is a civilian, but he still had a very traumatic experience that changed him.  

“When I was 22, out of college, I got jumped by a bunch of teenagers and one stabbed me in the throat,” he said. 

Both have PTSD, depression and anxiety.

Jacques tried just about everything to treat it.

He tried talk therapy, pills, even specialized light and sound therapy called EMDR. 

He says in the short term, these treatments helped.

“But I could feel myself slipping," he said. "I knew I wasn’t right.”

As for Saeed, work he was doing for a documentary led him to a new treatment.

Which led us on a road trip to a clinic in Gainesville, Florida Mind Health Center. 

It's where we met Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist Zohar Levites.

He runs the clinic and has been so busy because he just opened another one in Tallahassee, where he treats patients with ketamine.

“It an anesthetic, well known for the last 40 years,” Levites said. 

 “Originally it was used in veterinary work, big animals," he said. 

Most commonly it was a horse tranquilizer. 

But it's also a very safe, effective anesthetic used in human surgeries. 

It shuts down the parts of the brain that feel pain, but still keep critical organs like the heart and lungs functioning.  

But ketamine has been used recreationally as a club drug, and in that environment is quite deadly.

It's known for separating mind and body in a trip to the “K-hole.”

“We try not to reach the k-hole," Levites said. "People would feel like they’re dying.”

It’s FDA approved as an anesthetic. 

But in the 1990s, researchers found it has great success treating PTSD in Vietnam vets.

And while it is not FDA approved to treat mental health issues, health professionals can administer it for this purpose. 

It's called an "off label" usage, it's legal, but it must be done under close supervision.

And Levites swears by it.

“I find that PTSD is one of the easiest, one of the most sustainable for the treatment,” he said.

Ketamine is different than typical drugs that treat depression.

These drugs, he says, typically only focus on the chemical release of "happy chemicals" in your brain.

For millions of people who suffer from depression and anxiety, these are extremely effective medications. 

However, while the microdose ketamine infusions will trigger these neurotransmitters in your brain, Levites says it also gives patients a chance to separate their traumatic experience from the fear and pain it can generate. 

"It leads to something called disassociation," he said.

This disassociation experience is different for everyone. 

But he says most agree it can be disorienting, and you'll have the feeling at first of losing control.

That's why patients receive the treatment in big, comfortable recliners, and are offered weighted blankets. 

Saeed took this treatment and experienced it for himself. 

“It allows you to examine your thoughts without having a strong emotional response,” he said. 

“Ketamine probably the most effective drug right now on the market to treat severe depression, PTSD, suicidal thoughts,” Levites said. 

The emphasis here is that it's the most effective drug on the market.

For Jacques, it may not be a viable option.

His PTSD led him to a battle with substance abuse, and clinicians say that isn't a good mix for ketamine treatment. 

But Jacques had another, incredibly successful option for hope.

“K9s for Warriors is literally 2 miles from my house, I got dropped off in a golf cart literally," he said.

That's where he went through the training with his service dog Roger.

“I have no road rage anymore because Roger sits right behind me and will put his head on my shoulder when I’m driving.”

While completely different treatments, the two men talk about a very important similarity.

Both the ketamine treatment and service dog put a stop to the out of control slide PTSD begins.

“He’s the break in the cycle of the instant anger," Jacques said. 

"[The ketamine treatment] was a huge benefit to look at what happened to me without instantly going into fear, anxiety and anger," Saeed said.

Not everyone is able to get a service dog, and not everyone is eligible for ketamine treatment.

So the important thing both men say is that there are options, and there is always hope.

“Just the potential that this could work for somebody who’s tried everything else is really wonderful and could be a lifesaving thing,” Saeed said.

Ketamine treatments start at $400 per session, though it can be more expensive at other providers around the country. It's still a struggle to get insurance to cover it as well. 

Levites explains that the screening process is very thorough, and you need to bring a family member with you during the consultation as well. 

He says he has to make sure people are good candidates and are not drug dependent. There can be major complications if someone who has other drugs in their system gets the ketamine infusion.

K9s for Warriors is such an incredible program saving lives every day. Click here if you would like to help them out in their work. 

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