Ketamine Treatment near Suffield CT.
The Quirky Beginnings of a Charming Community
A town of over 15000 in northern Connecticut, that sits up against the Massachusetts border, was originally itself part of the Massachusetts Commonwealth. For those not in the New England area, NECTA stands for “New England city and town area” …. So Suffield, as it lies so snug against the Massachusetts border, is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts NECTA, even though it’s in Connecticut now.
And there’s more.
Suffield was originally called Southfield, as the town that formed the southernmost community in Massachusetts in 1670. So in a way of speaking, along with a charming dialect, Southfield became Suthfield…and if you try to say it fast with a bite of an apple in your mouth…Suthfield became Suffield.
Surely, you didn’t think it was named after someone named Mr. Suffield..? Where’s the fun in that? Just another town named after a wealthy person. But, a town named after the evolving dialect of the time…now that’s distinctive…and pretty charming, to boot.
By the time the little town was incorporated, Suffield it was.
Suffield, MA became Suffield, CT
But then, in 1749, something embarrassing happened. Seventy-nine years after the settlers organized the town, someone discovered that the land had been surveyed improperly in 1642 and that Suffield was actually part of the Connecticut Charter. Oh dear.
The more sophisticated surveying equipment of the mid-1700’s did a far more accurate job than the surveyors could have managed 79 years earlier.
There was nothing to do but change the paperwork, and convince the community members of Suffield they were actually Connecticut residents. You can imagine that idea didn’t catch on overnight.
Yet Another Change – And the People Just Kept Working
Even so, the people continued their preferred activities that their families had prospered from for 80 years…such as fishing in the abundant Connecticut River, and growing tobacco.
Family-owned farms have sustained the strength and economy of Suffield since the beginning, and those ties continue to this day.
Posted on the Suffield, CT government website now:
“Suffield’s beautiful, historic Main Street welcomes neighbors and visitors alike into the heart of its community. But it’s the family-owned farms that quilt the pastoral country roads together, forming the backbone of a town that has never forgotten its agricultural roots. Suffield is a quintessential New England town.” – http://www.suffieldct.gov
Such a lovely sentiment. And any refugee of a concrete metropolitan, exhaust-filled mega city in North America would happily succumb to the fresh air and charm of a quiet town like Suffield.
Suffield produces contributors. People who helped define democracy from the beginning, and righted wrongs. Slave owners who eventually saw the error of their ways and freed their slaves. Slaves who provided labor for much of the early buildings in the town, then later became free and worked to help others gain freedom, too. Who supported and became active in the underground railroad, Congress, local, state, and federal government.
And…another thing. There was an early medical student who graduated in the second class at Yale Medical School sometime after 1810. He then moved to Suffield to provide medical care for the people of his parents’ hometown. Dr. Asaph Leavitt Bissel rode on horseback to make house calls, carrying in his saddlebags the instruments and remedies of his healing art.
Those same saddlebags can be seen in Yale’s Historical Society museum collection.
Which brings up another subject.
The Best and Brightest Researchers and Physicians
Yale has been educating and training the best and the brightest for centuries, as has Harvard. And both institutions continue their medical research now, in the 21st century.
And in spite of their extensive research in neuroscience, so many questions beg for answers about the disorders of the human mind.
Brilliant, dedicated neuroscientists and deeply skilled and talented psychiatrists, work tirelessly to uncover the causes and treatments for devastating conditions of the brain.
And even though there is so much to learn, new breakthroughs are bringing hope and relief now more than ever before.
Ketamine Treatment Brings the Dawn of a New Era
The most robust medicine on the horizon for psychiatric disorders has emerged in the form of an anesthesia-turned-club-drug-turned-mood-disorder-tamer. Ketamine Treatment near Suffield CT, and across the country… even the world… has improved the outlook for those suffering from psychiatric disorders.
Ketamine burst on the psychiatric treatment scene with extraordinary results over the last 15 years. It produces its healing and restorative effects in hours and days rather than the old model of antidepressants that took weeks or months to work…or come up empty.
And any medicine that has the power to do so much so fast, fairly remodeling and restoring synapse structures in the brain so rapidly the change is experienced in minutes, or hours…or days… is also a medicine that must be handled with great care.
Innovative Psychiatry Offers Ketamine Treatment near Suffield CT.
One doctor in South Windsor, Connecticut has demonstrated her expertise in administering this powerful medicine, ketamine, with outstanding results consistently for years.
Lori Calabrese, M.D., is Harvard educated, Hopkins- and Mass General-trained, she’s the psychiatrist other psychiatrists go to when they need treatment for themselves and their family.
She dedicates her practice to the most severely ill patients, and she knows that since everyone’s brain is different, one size doesn’t fit all in dosing, either. So she approaches treatment with the attitude that if she can find the nutrient, the vitamin, or mineral that will best carry the medicine into the cell, she can affect improved outcomes for her patients. And she researches tirelessly to find more – and better – solutions for her patients.
She approaches ketamine treatment the same way. The optimum dose at the optimum rate for the most effective results for each patient works much much better than one size – or dose -fits all.
One Size Doesn’t Fit ALL
And therein lies the challenge. To delicately and precisely adjust the dose and rate of infusion for her patients who receive ketamine, requires that she draw upon her outstanding education and training, as well as her experience with a host of severely ill patients.
Since ketamine treatment has become so well-known, depressed and anxious people, those with bipolar disorder, PTSD, and OCD, and individuals with suicidal thinking everywhere are demanding their own treatment with this medicine anyway they can find it.
Psychiatric Treatment isn’t a Supply and Demand Business
And a supply and demand economy raises the flag of opportunity for those looking to invest and profit.
It also raises another kind of flag. A RED flag.
And the result is that not all ketamine providers have the expertise of Dr. Calabrese. In fact, not all the clinics providing ketamine treatment are run by medical doctors at all.
Sometimes it’s a businessman who hires nurses to start the IVs. Sometimes businessmen with MD degrees run the clinic.
Skilled and intuitive psychiatrists provide this extraordinary treatment and help their patients heal. But unfortunately, they’re in the minority.
Anesthesiologists actually operate the majority of ketamine clinics. And this is where it gets risky.
The Trouble with Psychiatric Treatment Provided by Anesthesiologists
Because anesthesiologists don’t have the training to treat psychiatric patients in crisis. The fallacy has prevailed that since anesthesiologists have been using ketamine in surgery settings for nearly half a century, that they are the most qualified to provide it for anyone who needs it.
But their experience is in inducing and maintaining sedation. And no specialist is more adept at that. When anesthesiologists use ketamine for sedation or pain, they’re in their element.
But when the doctor providing ketamine for psychiatric disorders is an anesthesiologist, he goes about his usual routine of placing the IV catheter and turning on the medication drip.
What’s he watching for at that point? He might ask every 15 minutes how the patient is doing…. And when the drip is complete, he removes the IV. But what about the patient’s response during the infusion? Does he know how to precisely adjust the rate for the patient’s most therapeutic benefit?
How does he decide on the dose…? His approach to dose has always been related to the degree of sedation. He cannot adjust the dose to ensure the patient is receiving enough to get better…but not so much that the patient is overwhelmed with side effects.
This is very different from the process of inducing sedation.
More than likely he chooses the “one size fits all” approach. 0.5mg/kg given over 40 minutes…roughly.
Neuroscience has come too far for such a ‘rough estimate’ approach to treating the delicate systems of the brain.
If even one patient experiences a psychotic break or panics and commits suicide as a result of a poorly managed infusion, the price would be too high. Hopefully, legislation would intervene to stop the use of ketamine for depression by anesthesiologists.
Psychiatrists are not trained to provide anesthesia during surgery. And by the same token, anesthesiologists are not trained to provide treatment for psychiatric patients.
So what do you do when you believe you need ketamine treatment?
Ketamine Treatment near Suffield CT
You drive a little farther to get the best possible outcome. Sticking with local clinics for ketamine is different than sticking with the local cleaners. This is your brain that’s at risk…not some shirt or jacket. Treat your brain to exceptional care from the most experienced psychiatrist with the deepest expertise, compassion, and skill you can find.
Dr. Calabrese of Innovative Psychiatry is only 26 minutes down US 5 in South Windsor, CT. Take the best possible care of your own brain and the brains of your family members. You’ll end up with expertly managed infusions, the best outcome, and the most lasting results.
If you’d like more information about Dr. Calabrese, or Innovative Psychiatry, where the most advanced options are provided to help you get better and live well again, call 860.648.9755 or email info@loricalabresemd.com.