For anyone struggling with treatment-resistant depression (TRD), starting ketamine therapy represents a major investment of time, money, and emotional hope. In this episode, we tackle the ultimate question: is there a way to predict if ketamine will actually work for you before you commit? We explore the groundbreaking research of Omer Ahmed Syed from the University of Toronto, which pairs a systematic review of 112 clinical studies spanning two decades with a real-world retrospective analysis of 77 patients receiving repeated intravenous (IV) ketamine infusions. The baseline results are highly encouraging, showing that over half (50.6%) of these difficult-to-treat patients achieved a full response, with another 22.1% experiencing a partial response.

Spotting the early signs of success turns out to be surprisingly simple. By tracking sympto ...