GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. — A Greenwood Village mental health clinic said they are the first to provide ketamine therapy that they say is affordable to EMTs and paramedics.
It's part of Colorado's Path4EMS program that helps subsidize the cost of mental health treatments for EMTs and paramedics. Sam Peterson, co-founder of Mind Spa, said what is normally $400 per infusion is reduced to $150 per infusion if processed through the state EMT program.
Ketamine therapy uses low doses of the dissociative anesthetic medication to manage various mental health conditions, such as treatment-resistant depression, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The therapy is helping people like Dillon Reid, a paramedic lieutenant for Platte Valley Ambulance Service. He's been an EMT for 7 years and knows seeing horrible things comes with the job.
"I had years of weird calls, super young people are just dying. I thought I was good with it because I understood death was a thing. Then pretty much went a year without running anything crazy. All of a sudden, I ran a call that just completely tipped the scales," he said.
He said the weight of the tragedies was adding up, taking a toll on him mentally and putting strains on his relationships.
"The biggest problem that I remember was the call that tipped the scale for me, it was at night. So after that call, any time the sun would go down I would start to spiral. I would dissociate. I’d feel like I’d need to isolate. I couldn’t be around anybody," he said.
It took a wake-up call from his fiance, who took him to Peterson's clinic.
"If someone has tried to engage with other mental health therapies and hasn’t been successful, ketamine is a great way to give you some space from your symptoms, and it can also make therapy more effective," Peterson said.
Ketamine is an anesthetic with hallucinogenic effects, according to the DEA. Peterson said patients are given a small dose. It starts with .5 mg/kg.
"It's dosed by body weight," Peterson said. "Then go up by .2 mg/kg each infusion until we get around 1-1.2."
Then, patients go into rooms and can listen to music or watch things projected on a wall.
"It gives you a nice window where you have some separation from your symptoms," Peterson said.
Growing popularity of ketamine therapy: Is it safe?
While much remains unknown about the long-term effectiveness of ketamine, the use of the drug for therapeutic purposes has grown in popularity in recent years.
“Although ketamine is not approved for the treatment of conditions such as depression or chronic pain, there has been increased interest in the use of ketamine for these types of conditions,” read a notice from the Food & Drug Administration last summer.
A prescription nasal spray version of the drug was approved for treatment-resistant depression back in 2019. A Harvard study examining ketamine therapy noted the growing number of ketamine clinics – hundreds or even thousands – that opened after that approval was issued.
It urges people interested in ketamine therapy to consult a primary care doctor, mental health provider or other health care professional in making a final decision.
UCHealth says ketamine should be used in “safe, supervised settings with a medical expert.”
Research appears limited on ketamine therapy specifically in Colorado. Prehospital use of the drug was the subject of a state health department review after paramedics administered ketamine during an encounter with Elijah McClain that turned deadly. That study determined ketamine can be used safely in the field by paramedics but required more training and monitoring. It did not examine ketamine therapy.
Ketamine can be addictive, particularly for those who may be addicted to other substances, according to UCHealth. Peterson said addiction shouldn’t be a concern related to the treatment at Mind Spa.
"If using ketamine in a clinical sense was causing addiction issues, we would see massive addiction issues in bariatric and pediatric patients, and we do not see that," he said.
We asked Reid what happens after the ketamine wears off.
"Neuroplasticity is better in the brain, and so you’re more, I guess, susceptible to new habits and talking about those emotions," said Reid. "That therapy, man, it felt like I was on a train out of the pit. I don’t know how to describe it. It was just so productive every time."
Ried said it's allowed him to stay in a career where he knows he's making a difference. Now, he can better help others because he's caring for himself, too.
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