Avon doctor opens ketamine clinic

Dr. Glen Rosenfeld recently opened the Ketamine Center of Greater Hartford in Avon, and is treating people with the drug for depression, anxiety, and other issues.

Some may be familiar with the drug only in a negative context, as it is does has a history of being recreationally abused, but ketamine has been predominantly used for decades in anesthesia. More recently, ketamine, in much smaller doses, has been found to help treat depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and chronic pain.

“Like any medication, it has its positive value,” Rosenfeld, an anesthesiologist for more than 30 years, said. “Used negatively, inappropriately, it can have negative effects.”

The help in other areas was discovered after it was found that people treated with ketamine as anesthesia (during an operation, for example) also saw improvement in the areas such as depression.

“This was looked at in the psychiatric field,” he said. “It was determined that, used in sub-anesthetic does, we can affect mood and chronic pain.”

Rosenfeld said that ketamine treatment isn’t for everyone with depression, and they must have tried other treatments and failed before he’ll take them on as clients.

“It’s a matter of choosing patients appropriately, like anything else,” he said, adding that he refuses approximately 80 percent of people who call the clinic, after a screening process.

“You need to try other therapies, you need to get involved with a therapist, you need to try an anti-depressant drug, and see if that benefits you, before you come to ketamine,” he said. “Ketamine is not a front-line therapy. It’s for treatment-resistant depression.”

Ketamine, he said, has been found to have neuro-regenerative properties.

“It allows neurons to re-grow,” he said. “It allows for an increase in glutamate, which is a neurotransmitter in the brain that effects mood, excitability, and pain.”

The drug has been especially effective for people with suicidal ideologies.

“It’s been shown to have significant and fast impact on patients who have suicidal thoughts,” he said.

The treatment plan, Rosenfeld said, is that he administers .5mg per kilogram (of the patient’s weight), via intravenous drip. Each session takes about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes, and four to six treatments are done over the course of two weeks. Maintenance infusions are done at approximately monthly intervals afterward.

The plan is different for chronic pain, Rosenfeld said, and risks and side effects are minimal, but each patient must be driven home, as the after effects of the infusions are similar to that of alcohol. Typically, it takes two to three of the sessions to see an improvement, and it works in 70 to 80 percent of patients.

“To say that there is minimal risk is very fair. Ketamine has very little side effects, especially in the dosages that we’re giving it,” he said. “Ketamine, as an anesthetic dosage, puts people to sleep. In the doses that I’m using it, I’m actually talking to the patients as their getting their infusion.”

The Ketamine Center of Greater Hartford opened in September, and Rosenfeld said business has steadily increased since then.

“It’s going nicely. A little slow, as any new business would be, especially is in this COVID period,” he said. “Multiple patients I’ve had so far have had good results.”

For more information, visit www.GreaterHartfordKetamine.com.

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