Sun Valley Ketamine Clinic

Sun Valley Ketamine Clinic in Ketchum, Idaho, offers IV ketamine infusions and nothing else. It is run by Shanna Angel, a board-certified registered nurse anaesthesiologist, and says no other clinic in the Wood River Valley gives IV ketamine.

Approach

Angel finished anaesthesia training at UCLA in 1989, worked 11 years at Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles, then ran a solo anaesthesia practice near Mount Rainier. There, after a first infusion in 2016 for a colleague’s patient with severe treatment-resistant depression, she set up what she says was the first hospital-based IV ketamine programme in Washington State. The clinic gives higher, psychedelic doses, adjusted to each patient’s response, and says ketamine-assisted psychotherapy is not possible at those doses. Its preparation and integration rest on presence and stillness rather than talk therapy.

Who it is for

The clinic treats adults and adolescents. Its list covers depression, OCD, anxiety and PTSD, suicidal crisis, alcohol use disorder and eating disorders, grief and end-of-life anxiety, and chronic pain. A diagnosis from the patient’s own provider is preferred, because the clinic employs no therapists or psychiatrists.

Practical details

A consultation with medical review costs $250. The first series, six appointments of about 2 hours spread over two or three weeks, costs $4,170, and a single maintenance infusion $695, needed anywhere from monthly to yearly. Insurance is not billed, but the clinic supplies a superbill for reimbursement claims.

Care and safety

Patients eat nothing solid for 4 hours beforehand and drink only clear liquids until 2 hours before. Heart rate, blood pressure and breathing are monitored throughout, with oxygen, suction and a defibrillator at hand, and a designated driver must sign the patient out. Pregnancy, psychosis, glaucoma, severe liver disease, uncontrolled high blood pressure, unstable heart disease, untreated hyperthyroidism and brain tumours or injury can rule treatment out.