The science, the medicine, and the people behind your next step.
You’ve tried the SSRIs. You’ve done the therapy. You’ve waited. Ketamine is a different mechanism, a different timeline, and for most of our patients, the moment things finally start to shift. This page walks you through what ketamine is, why it works, what we do differently, and what your first treatment will actually feel like.
What is ketamine, really?
Forget the headlines. Ketamine is a 60-year-old medicine the FDA has cleared for human use since the 1970s, used millions of times a year for anesthesia, pain control, and now mental-health treatment. In low, monitored doses, it does something no other psychiatric medication can: it physically rebuilds connections in your brain.
Where SSRIs and SNRIs target serotonin and norepinephrine slowly over weeks, ketamine works on a different system altogether, and acts in hours. Research has shown that ketamine re-establishes and strengthens neural connections via dendrites, the microscopic, spine-like structures that send and receive information between brain cells.
Depression, anxiety, PTSD, and chronic pain are now understood, in large part, as failures of those connections. Ketamine helps your brain repair them. That’s the simplest, most accurate way to say what’s happening when it works.
What ketamine can do for you.
At low doses, ketamine helps guide you beyond the surface layers of your everyday mind and heal unhealthy neural pathways. Its healing power activates within hours, providing quick and effective relief for the most stubborn mental challenges.
Depression
Including treatment-resistant depression where SSRIs, SNRIs, and prior medications have failed.
Anxiety
Generalized, social, and chronic anxiety. Often the fastest-responding condition we treat.
PTSD
Trauma-informed protocols. Sometimes paired with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for deeper work.
OCD
Emerging evidence shows single infusions can quiet intrusive thoughts for up to a week.
Chronic pain
Neuropathic pain, CRPS, fibromyalgia, and refractory migraine all respond to longer ketamine infusions.
Suicidal ideation
A single dose can reduce suicidal thoughts within a day, in patients where nothing else has worked fast enough.
A decade of evidence, not just enthusiasm.
Hundreds of peer-reviewed studies now back ketamine for mood and pain conditions. Here are the findings clinicians cite most often, and the ones we’ll happily walk you through during your intake call.
Re-establishes neural connections
Ketamine rapidly restores dendritic spines in the prefrontal cortex, reversing structural deficits associated with chronic stress.
Science · 201985% reduction in depression symptoms
In treatment-resistant depression patients, six infusions over 12 days produced an average 85% reduction in depressive symptoms.
12-day open-label study, n=10Hours, not weeks
Where traditional antidepressants are delayed by weeks, sub-anesthetic ketamine relieves symptoms within hours of a single dose, even in treatment-resistant patients.
Annual Review · Clinical Psych2/3 of patients responded
In a randomized trial against midazolam, two-thirds of PTSD patients responded to six ketamine infusions over two weeks versus one-fifth on the active control.
AJP · RCT, repeated dosingImprovement in treatment-refractory GAD/SAD
Weekly ketamine for three months produced marked improvements in functionality and daily life for patients with treatment-refractory generalized and social anxiety.
3-month maintenance trialReduced within 24 hours
A single dose of intravenous ketamine rapidly reduced suicidal thoughts within one day, with effects lasting up to one week in depressed patients.
IPD meta-analysisMedical-grade care, every single infusion.
Ketamine has an excellent safety record when delivered correctly. Here’s what “correctly” looks like in our clinics:
From battlefield medicine to mental-health breakthrough.
The full arc, in six chapters. Useful context if you’ve ever wondered why a medicine this old is only just now showing up in psychiatric care.
Patient-centered. Data-driven. Expert healers.
As a local, family-run practice of nurse anesthetists, nurse practitioners, and integration therapists, we’re motivated by ketamine’s power to change lives, when it’s administered properly in a safe, therapeutic environment. Every detail of our care plan is built around that conviction.
Your needs first, every time.
Personalized treatment plans, trauma-informed care, and private treatment rooms. We tune set, setting, and dose to you, not the other way around.
Built on 50,000 infusions of evidence.
Our protocols come from a decade of patient response data. We can tell you, with numbers, what your treatment is likely to do.
Doctorally-prepared providers, attentive nurses.
Doctors of Nursing Practice, psychiatric NPs, and a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist on staff. ASKP3 member. LegitScript certified.
Compare our approach to other programs.
Focus on the outcome, not the treatments.
A Healing Pathway is a personalized care plan that combines the right stabilization treatment, ketamine, with support treatments like IV vitamin therapy, integration sessions, and medication management, to help you feel better and stay better.
Most clinics offer just stabilization. For some patients, that brings quick relief that fades fast. Our Healing Pathways are different, built on years of clinical data and the additional supports your body actually needs to make the gains last.
See Healing Pathways & pricing →
A soothing, supportive, safe environment, designed to optimize healing.
You’ll be paired with an experienced nurse in a private treatment room. During every step of your treatment journey, a team member is available to answer questions, discuss accommodations, and assist with next steps. We’re in continuous dialogue with you, what’s working, how we adjust.
Reach out
Every journey begins with a single call. A helpful, informed team member is ready to talk through whether ketamine is the right next step for you.
Discuss options
Our experts suggest the level of treatment most likely to work for your situation. You are never locked in, you can change direction at any time.
Chat with a nurse practitioner
A nurse practitioner reviews your history with you, focused entirely on your individual needs and comfort.
Schedule infusions
Patient care coordinators work with you to craft a schedule. In urgent situations, you can often get started the same or next day.
Integration & transformation
“Integration” is bringing the wisdom of your journey into daily life. It’s the journey after the journey, where insights become lasting change.
A few things to prepare.
Careful prep is key to an enriching experience. It’s natural to feel nervous, do your best to arrive calm, well-rested, and relaxed.
- ✓ Arrive 15 minutes early for your appointment
- ✓ Take medications as prescribed unless instructed otherwise
- ✓ If nausea is a concern, no food for 2 hours prior (6 hours for pain infusions)
- ✓ Wear comfortable clothing with easy access to your arms
- ✓ Bring a pillow, blanket, or sentimental item if it helps
- ✓ Pre-arrange a driver, no driving the day of treatment
- ✓ Consider a 50-minute playlist (no lyrics or heavy rhythms)
- ✓ Plan to be at the clinic 90–120 minutes
An anchor for your journey.
An intention is a goal or anchor you hold for the experience. It can be heavy (“how do I move through this loss”) or light (“more joy in my daily routine”). If you start to feel lost in the journey, return to it.
A unique perspective, allowing new insights and healing.
Ketamine can induce or enhance feelings of creativity, purpose, perspective, serenity, insight, inspiration, gratitude, empathy, and connection. Direct effects last about one hour, most people return to light activities three to four hours after.
Each treatment is a unique experience. Embrace it. Become an observer of the journey. If negative thoughts arise, let them pass. We’re with you the whole time.
One care plan. Two clinics. Every modality under one roof.
NWKC handles the ketamine. Through our partnership with Northwest Healing & Wellness, your plan can also include the supportive treatments that help the gains hold, coordinated by the same team, in the same buildings.
The treatments that complete the picture.
Northwest Healing & Wellness is our sister practice. Same buildings, same clinical leadership, expanded scope. Through the partnership, NWKC patients can fold any of the following into a single coordinated plan, no new intake, no new records request.
Spravato® (esketamine)
FDA-approved nasal esketamine, $99/visit OON.
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy
Integration with a licensed therapist.
IV vitamin & NAD+ therapy
Energy, immunity, recovery infusions.
Medication management
Deprescribing and psychiatric Rx review.
Convenient care across the Pacific Northwest.
One care team, one record, one membership, whichever clinic fits your week.
Request your free consultation today.
Talk to one of our nurse practitioners to identify which program works best for you. We will reach out to you right away. No pressure, just an honest conversation.