BONITA SPRINGS, Fla. — As the CDC reports a rise in young adult depression and anxiety, a unique clinic in Bonita Springs is changing lives.
My Self Wellness is a ketamine clinic where patients like Hector Arocho are getting treatment they can't find elsewhere.
"I used to be very short, a little bit aggressive," Arocho said.
Those parts of his former personality are things he calls a trauma response to his years as an EMT and firefighter. He says he battled depression and PTSD.
"The things that I saw... everything from the worst in people, death, to car accidents, to things involving children, the brain and the mind is not made to handle that kind of trauma consistently," he said.
"We specialize in psychedelic ketamine therapy at our clinic," chief brand officer at My Self Wellness, Charles Patti, said.
While some forms of administering ketamine are controversial, muscularly injected ketamine is FDA approved in a healthcare facility and under supervision.
Hector Arocho says he came in nervous for his first treatment, but had seen it positively impact a friend. He was also hopeful ahead of his treatment that sends people into a meditative state.
"Sometimes people will go back to a past traumatic experience that they've been through and watch it play out from a third party perspective where there's no feelings or emotions attached, so they can process it, release it, and let it go," Patti said.
The clinic has patients as young as 15 years old. Patti says the thousands of clients are creating new neural pathways in their brains, undergoing the treatments.
"We're getting people off street drugs like fentanyl, cocaine addictions, and alcohol problems," Patti said.
Now the clinic is taking home the Best of Bonita Springs for Alternative Medicine award, for the second year.
"I went through life for many, many years lost, and I'm feeling things now I haven't in a long time and it's incredible," Arocho said.
Read here on benefits and FDA approved uses of ketamine.
