GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. — A Greenwood Village mental health clinic is offering affordable ketamine therapy for EMTs and paramedics.
As part of Colorado’s Path4EMS program, which subsidizes mental health treatments for first responders, Mind Spa co-founder Sam Peterson says the usual $400 per infusion is reduced to $150 when processed through the state program, Denver 7 ABC reports.
Ketamine therapy involves low doses of a dissociative anesthetic to treat conditions like treatment-resistant depression, anxiety disorders and PTSD, Denver 7 ABC reports.
“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,” Platte Valley Ambulance Service Paramedic Lieutenant Dillon Reid said. “All of a sudden, I ran a call that just completely tipped the scales.”
The therapy is benefiting paramedics like Reid. After seven years, he understood the job’s exposure to tragedy but found the emotional toll mounting, straining his mental health and relationships, according to Denver 7 ABC. A wake-up call from his fiancée led him to Peterson’s clinic for help.
Though the long-term effectiveness of ketamine remains uncertain, its use in therapy has surged in recent years. Ketamine has complex effects on brain chemistry — stimulating the release of monoamines like serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine; as well as blocking NDMA receptors, thought to give ketamine its unique anesthetic properties, such as amnesia as well as its psychedelic effects.
Peterson explained that patients receive a small dose, starting at 0.5 mg/kg.
“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 statement from the Food & Drug Administration in 2024.
In 2019, the FDA approved a prescription nasal spray version for treatment-resistant depression, leading to the rapid rise of ketamine clinics nationwide.
A 2024 Harvard study highlights this growth and advises those considering ketamine therapy to consult a healthcare professional before deciding.
