Treating major depressive disorder is tricky under the best of circumstances and often requires several attempts to find the right combination of antidepressants and therapy. Still, up to 30% of people with major depression fail to achieve relief from antidepressants, and their depression continues to cast its long shadow.
In 2019, the FDA approved an exciting new treatment that’s helping people with treatment-resistant and severe depression to finally break free.
Here at Prime Psychiatry, our mental health team is pleased to offer this new approach to treating depression. It’s called Spravato®, and here’s a look at some myths and facts about this treatment.
Spravato can work almost immediately
One of the greatest benefits of Spravato is that it can work almost immediately — within hours of taking the medication. If you’ve already struggled through months of waiting for antidepressants to work, only to find that they don’t, you can understand why this benefit is so important.
In fact, the FDA approved Spravato in part due to its speed in halting severe depressive symptoms, namely suicidal thoughts.
Spravato is the same as ketamine
Ketamine has been around for decades and has largely served as a fast-acting painkiller and sedative. During its use, medical providers uncovered an unexpected side effect — the drug worked to greatly reduce symptoms of depression.
As a result of this discovery, mental health providers started offering ketamine infusions for people with major depression and treatment-resistant depression as well as other mental health issues, such as severe anxiety, with great success.
While Spravato is based on ketamine, the two treatments aren’t exactly the same. The active ingredient in Spravato is esketamine, which is derived from a portion of the ketamine molecule. This part of the molecule is the most potent for relieving symptoms of depression, which means we can use less of the overall ketamine drug to achieve the same antidepressant results.
Spravato is addictive
Over the years that ketamine has been in use as a painkiller and sedative, there have been issues with potential addiction.
With Spravato, we address this concern in how we administer the treatment. Spravato is a nasal spray that you self-deliver, but you do so in our offices and under our guidance. Afterward, you may not take the spray home with you.
Spravato is new and untested
In order to gain FDA approval, Spravato went through three short-term clinical trials, as well as one long-term trial. In one of the short-term trials, the agency concluded that, ”Spravato nasal spray demonstrated statistically significant effect compared to placebo on the severity of depression, and some effect was seen within two days.”
The results of the longer-term trial were equally as promising, prompting the FDA to approve the drug for people with treatment-resistant depression or depression with suicidal thoughts or actions.
It’s been more than 60 years since a new treatment for depression has been introduced, and our team is excited to be a part of this new and promising approach. If you’d like to learn more about Spravato and whether the treatment is right for you, please contact our office in Frisco, Texas, to schedule a consultation.