Is Ketamine Therapy Right for You?

Charles Miller 0:00
Now ketamine because of its history of abuse, it was in 1999 became DEA regulated. It is class three non narcotic in the same DEA classes say testosterone supplementation and for the same reason for misuse, abuse.

Ed Jones 0:20
But these were people basically, illegally.

Charles Miller 0:24
Yeah, they were illegally getting it Yeah, it’s because before it was DEA controlled, it was just on the shelf at the hospital people can take it and because it’s such a safe anesthetic, you know, anything that makes people feel weird, they’ll, they’ll abuse and that was and it became a popular drug in the party scene. And that’s where, unfortunately, a lot of people have heard about it, you hear the term Special K or it was one of those other names.

Brian Strickland 0:48
You’re listening to the nutrition world podcast, a show about navigating the intricacies of holistic wellness. We’re a natural health food store located in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and we believe that optimal health and peak performance should be accessible to everyone.

Ed Jones 1:10
Welcome to another episode of nutrition world’s podcast. I am stoked today to have Charles Miller from Scenic City neurotherapy with this for nutrition world, special edition of ketamine we’re going to speak about welcome Charles,

Charles Miller 1:24
thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be here. You know,

Ed Jones 1:27
I’m feel like I’m an explorer in certain ways. And I had been my whole life on one single topic. And that topic is health, recovery from illness, nutrition, foods, supplements, even some in the medical field of you know, proper medications, whatever I can do to empower people with kind of outside the box thinking. I’ve been listening to a great book by Dr. Peter Atea. I think it’s called outlive and he talks about, he frames things in medicine 1.0, medicine, 2.0, and medicine 3.0. And in medicine, 2.0 is the traditional model that we are kind of stuck in in most cases, which is there’s a toolbox, there’s a there’s a there’s a certain protocols, and that’s it, we’re going to put a code to your disease, this is what you’re supposed to do and go home and we’ll see in a few months. He’s talking about medicine 3.0, I kind of live in the health 3.0 or 4.0 My whole life, which is searching for options when we can’t find really good solutions and what’s already available. Many of us have heard about ketamine therapy, it’s certainly been around and you’re going to talk about the history of it and the benefits. And I will say and I don’t really talk too much about this, but I’m going to on this podcast, I guess I would call myself an experienced person within IV ketamine therapy. And I have a lot of feelings about it positive, a lot of different, I think help for people if they wanted to ask me about how does it work? What does it do? What does it feel like I could personally I think it’d be able to help and I’m happy to. But first off, tell the people who don’t really know. And before I even mentioned that, we’re going to talk about something that has applications for PTSD, anxiety, depression, bipolar, long COVID kind of inner seeking, peace giving type of therapies for the right person. And I’d really, really respect you, Charles, because this was not a journey I took lightly. It was something because of the power of it. And I’m so into it, you know, natural and nutrients and foods. And this doesn’t fit into that box by any means, but it fits into a box that I’m putting big stars on. So tell people what is ketamine and then we can go into some of the applications.

Charles Miller 3:42
All right, well, ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic. It’s been around since 1970. When it was initially FDA approved as an as an anesthetic analgesic has been utilized. Pretty pretty much continuously over, you know, ever since in the surgical setting. It’s our primary anesthetic for children six months and older. It’s the safest anesthetic that we have. It’s non opioid non narcotic, and one of the World Health Organization’s 100 essential medications. Now ketamine, because of its history of abuse, it was in 1999 became DEA regulated. It is class three non narcotic in the same DEA classes say testosterone supplementation and for the same reason for misuse and abuse. But now

Ed Jones 4:30
these were people basically, illegally

Charles Miller 4:34
Yeah, they were illegally getting it Yeah, it’s because before it was DEA controlled, it was just on the shelf at the hospital people can take it and because it’s such a safe anesthetic, you know, anything that makes people feel weird, they’ll, they’ll abuse and that was and it became a popular drug in the party scene. And that’s where, unfortunately a lot of people have heard about it. You hear the term Special K or it was one of its other names that have been circulating out there. but it is actually an anesthetic that produces a powerful dissociative Anastasia, which a dissociative anesthesia is not a sedating anesthesia. It doesn’t put you to sleep it puts your brain separating conscious and subconscious areas of the brain. And we usually don’t use it by itself. It’s usually a complement in surgery to income in combination with other anesthetics. But the use that we use it for is to stimulate a process using a very unnatural medication, ketamine, we stimulate a very, very natural process of neuro protection in the brain that stimulates large scale neuronal regrowth. And that’s the goal of this process. And what we’ve learned is that there’s many facets to what that looks like, from a patient’s perspective all the way to what we can image with a functional MRI or SPECT scan.

Ed Jones 5:54
So neuron neuronal growth, that would equate to clearer thinking, less fogginess, better memory,

Charles Miller 6:02
maybe sharpness. Yeah, it’s like an upgrade of the brain upgrade. Yes. It’s by enhancing connections. It’s like if you have a computer that’s running 10 programs all day long. over the lifespan, your processor your brain, there’s actual physical wear and tear. With stressors periods of heightened stress, initial traumas, long bouts of depression. multiple things can cause over the lifespan hit even virally or illnesses like what we see with COVID cause a measured level of neurodegeneration. And depending on where these areas break down, it determines how they manifest we could we’ve seen patients develop new onset pain disorders, where there’s no injury, after a COVID infection, or after periods of heightened stress. Fibromyalgia is a common diagnosis that we see out there. And it’s a hybrid of the brain sending a hyper inflammatory response to the body when there’s no actual injury. It’s like an overreaction. Doesn’t happen to everybody that’s experiences stress, but there’s a portion of the population that are prone to develop a pain disorder, then excessive anxiety with something that should produce anxiety crossing the street should produce anxiety, it’s what makes us look left and right when we cross the street, but the brain can sometimes have an overreaction to it, especially if we’re not processing things correctly. So your computer that runs it’s 10 programs, once that processor takes a hit through just the normal wear and tear of life, the brain is there. Now the processor is not able to run the 10 programs effectively. The 10 programs take the same amount of energy all the time. But now it can only effectively run eight. So you end up getting behind, life starts getting harder, small things start to feel bigger. By enhancing connectivity in the brain, upgrading the processing power of your computer, we are still running the same 10 programs, they all still take the same amount of energy. That’s it before but the system doesn’t get bogged down.

Ed Jones 7:58
I love that. And I know it until me if this is true. I mean, well, I think most of us as we age, we start saying things that are obvious to our decline of health, we lose muscle, or we’re not as we can’t have the endurance, we don’t have the sense of well being. We have less stamina, but we don’t really we can’t look at our brain and the looking in the brain wood. Part of it is it’s rings true, doesn’t it? It does and didn’t the other part is is becoming less efficient. Now there’s a point where we know that’s happening. But we’ve wasted 10 to 20 years by the time that it’s that obvious. And of course I’m so connected with the impact of the right foods. I think food is the best and strongest medicine there is, but also the lifestyle of sleep. And then thirdly is nutritional supplementation. But that still as good as it is, I want to access everything else that’s possible when I weigh out risk against benefit. And in me, that’s very important for me to give people advice and also from my own personal life. And when I looked at ketamine, because it kept coming into my view over and over and over and I really believe in synchronicity. And so there was a moment and it was partially because I had hip pain, not fully. But because that hip pain and I saw something about maybe we reduce that because we have to know and most people don’t, you really don’t have pain in the body the pain is up here the brain is producing the pain signal. Yes, this could be hurting or broke or damaged. But really and truly, it’s this is where it’s really established and it can get locked into a pattern. Dr. John Sarno is one of my big heroes talking about that leg getting locked in patterns of pain. And so I went to you and you know, I have to say that before I did my first IV treatment, which was took about an hour to complete that morning and you had done a great consultation the week before on that. I was a little bit uptight. I mean, I had no clue. I am a SERIOUS meditator. I am a person who believes that I can have a lot of thoughts that I take is real, but they’re really only relatively real because it’s has to do with my programming my, my position in life, just what I’ve been taught, is that really authentically real, most of the time is not well, I wanted something that would kind of take me down the journey of kind of me able to stand back and look at this inner conversation that Edward Jones has, and kind of decipher it is, you know, the importance of what am I telling myself every day? Is it really black and white and concrete? Or is it gray. And so all of that in my head said, Well, my hips are hurting. So I want to see if it can help that pain. But I also want to see if I can go on an inner journey. And I’m also an explorer, because I want to know, what it does for my occasional anxiety and my thinking patterns. And so it was the perfect fit for me at the time. And this was about a year ago when I started. So all of that said, that’s kind of my personal story. I’m still do the hobbies, because I’m like you I want to be what was the term you said be my very best? Yeah, the best version of myself, and that plus my lifestyle. And you know, we went these bodies, I could expire tomorrow, but I’ve done really dang well for 66 years at this point. And so as far as all these people who have, you know, not feeling they’re being treated with or getting results with a treatment, per se, with depression and anxiety, that is that how, what percent of your practice is that?

Charles Miller 11:21
I’d say it’s about 70% 70%. Okay. The problem is, and I’ve mentioned to you this, in many of our conversations before is that specifically the mental health population is not it’s an underserved population, I think that comes a lot due to the expectations, it’s like, when we go to the doctor, we expect to get better. You know, when we go to seek out medical treatment for what we’ve been told is a disease process, then, okay, then we go get that go get the treatment that is recommended by the experts. Well, with in mental health, it is treated like a palliative care. It’s like we address the symptoms, we don’t ever look at the underlying issues. Now with psychotherapy, that’s where a lot of the real gains are made, like exercising a muscle, you know, the emotional muscles working through processes. It’s a wonderful tool, but it is limited by the actual anatomy of the brain, the brain’s ability to structurally process and put away pure, you know, as you work through things, being able to actually make the gains in psychotherapy, with our process, especially from a mental health component. The psychotherapy is like, the physical therapy after, after a knee or or hip replacement, it’s so important to make sure that once we get the anatomy correct, that you’re actually using it in the best possible way and getting the gains through the work.

Ed Jones 12:48
And what does that look like for a potential patient? How many sessions how often what does it look like?

Charles Miller 12:55
Yale gave us a wonderful template back in 2011. When they published their findings, they did a 10 year study 1000s of participants, it was they we looked at neurodegeneration in this group. And we, what we found is that after six infusions, we found that 92% of patients reached optimal neurodegenerative ability over the short term. That doesn’t mean that we keep it because what tears down these processes is often what we’re doing every day, oh, we’re not doing to take care of our brain and our body. And so there is a process shift. So what we do is we get the anatomy correct, we do six infusions, usually over a two to three week period. And then moving forward in with psychotherapy, just like we would with physical therapy, after we corrected the anatomy, the working with daily self prioritization, looking at the small things in your day to day life, areas where you can improve from health, nutrition, quality of sleep, work you’re doing in psychotherapy practices, coping skills, healthy outlets, all of these things have to be addressed to get the most out of our process. We cannot keep doing what we’re doing, and expect different results. Even when we get the anatomy correct, you will get better, but you won’t keep it unless you make changes. Is there a maintenance for people who are putting the plan together? Yeah, people will do boosters and because what we do, there’s no potential for dependency, there’s no need for wean off and the dose of ketamine that we use is passive enough to give to a three year old. It is very safe to utilize as the patient sees the need, because we don’t have a blood test that tells us how you’re feeling or how you’re, how you’re coping. There are periods of life where you may come get boosters more frequently, whereas other periods of life, you know, you’re doing fine and the need for boosters, you’re kind of like I guess I could have a booster but I don’t I’m okay. So as far as minimum need I like need, as you know, to keep you the best version of you. Usually it’s, you know, people will start out once a month, or you know, every two weeks to once a month after finishing stabilization, the sixth infusion process. And then as they see fit, they usually start rolling it back at that point, usually three or four months out to where they’re just gonna eventually get to a point to where we’re just a tool they have in their back pocket if they need us.

Ed Jones 15:27
Well, two questions. One is, are there people who is just not comfortable for them and or not effective? And secondly, we got to talk a little bit about pricing, because I know people listening will want that. So is there a small group who just is not compatible with this therapy?

Charles Miller 15:43
There is certain dissociative identity disorders, certain people who disconnect completely with reality. In the outpatient setting, there has been some literature that shows that certain personality disorders, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, these diagnoses are not ideal for our process in the outpatient setting, because reality or baseline, when you come in, is where you return to Well, if that’s a flexible place, then yeah, we’re gonna, we’re probably going to, you know, it’s in an inpatient setting, it can actually be beneficial in an outpatient setting, not so it puts increases the risk of problems beyond when you’re with us. And so we don’t treat those patients in the outpatient setting, but otherwise, depression, anxiety, PTSD, bipolar, OCD, the myriad of subtypes that come under that from a mental health component.

Ed Jones 16:38
Does this mean that they have to, and I know they should if they’re being treated by a psychiatrist or someone else with medication, they would be consulting him before they did that him or her before they did that, right.

Charles Miller 16:49
I encourage having everyone involved. What we do is developed by the best minds in psychiatry, Yale’s Department of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins Department of Psychiatry, Stanford, Oxford, and the National Institute of Mental Health considers ketamine and given intravenously

Ed Jones 17:04
is right in this talk, they will get to the price to intravenously under medical supervision like you do, you have me hooked up, you’re watching me with a camera, you have my blood pressure, what else you have blood, your heart

Charles Miller 17:16
rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, oxygen, yeah, continuously using that specialized caretaker monitoring, which tells us your vital second by second, not just periodic checks. Self administration of anesthesia is a bad idea. It’s become a very popular idea. With COVID, they relaxed the rules on controlled substance prescribing. And with that, somebody’s got a really good idea as far as how to make money is, is let’s take this IV ketamine data and apply it to other forms of ketamine sublingual, intranasal, that and you know, well, the intravenous model is the only one that produces this neurogenesis, which is the goal of our process. Now, if you’re looking for to feel different or feel strange, then yeah, the sublingual will do that. But we have to hold therapeutic blood levels to a certain point for an extended period of time. And the only way to do that in a reproducible and ensure best best results is with the IV

Ed Jones 18:17
model. I know because on Instagram I’m seeing constantly these ads for Are you a candidate for this was cattlemen, and, you know, just contact us. And I think what you spoke about, I think many industries, including ours, uses borrowed science, they’ll look at a really great study, but then they’ll won’t really duplicate it, they’ll go out to their furthest cousin of that ingredient and say, Oh, we you should be doing this to get this result. And it’s just not possible. Usually not possible to do that.

Charles Miller 18:45
And the struggle we have is that the IV model is more labor intensive, we can treat fewer patients because of that, we have a set limitation on at our clinic on how many patients per provider in office, we will treat, there’s no legal limitation. But we do that from a safety perspective, because my role is to ensure always efficacy, safety, comfort, that’s my role here is to ensure all those

Ed Jones 19:09
things, such an extremely good job, you have such a safe space is what I would feel I can say as far as words. And it’s very important if you are kind of transitioning into this journey of kind of separating your ego from the personalities or whatever I you know, people feel that words are appropriate. You don’t want to be in an unsafe space for that now. You know, I’ve done so many of these now. And I just I just have to say I look so forward to that Thursday, every other Thursday. I’m like, yeah, it’s this week is the week so I don’t know how long I’ll do it. But I will as long as I can continue that most likely. There’s no cost wise. What are we looking at? And you’ve already said it is labor intensive. It is I can tell I’m a businessman number one number two is I mean I’m there for you know, two solid hours are almost at You have to give me like a little office and you have to you have your people monitoring. We mean, there’s a lot that goes into my little two hours. I know that and in between you come in and you know, you’re removing the RV and you’re, you’re helping and just making sure everything’s okay. That’s a lot you have. I mean, two or three people are like helping me to get through this every week, which is no real help. I don’t need help, but it’s, what’s the cost? Yeah,

Charles Miller 20:22
it’s, um, the cost is, it depends on which treatment we do. The base line treatment, the mood or the basic ketamine infusion therapy is 395 per infusion. It is been, I think we started four years ago at 350. And then last year, we finally made the bump. Because of the increase in cost of materials and everything, it’s been rough with COVID getting materials and the cost of everything has gone up tremendously. And so we ended up raising our prices to 395. For infusion, one of the things we are excited about is that we’re seeing better and better insurance reimbursement, really, it is not something that it is something that is still a little more labor intensive. And it involves the patient, we create super bills for this process to where we pre code a couple of features of your infusion, that are insurance reimbursement that your insurance should cover. Ketamine infusion therapy doesn’t have a CPT code for insurance, yet, it’s an off label use of an anesthetic, and when something’s off label insurance can pay for it, they just don’t have to. And if they don’t have to, they usually won’t. Okay, but so but what they do pay for is the appointment, they can pay for a simple infusion, which can, which from you know, what we see is somewhere between 20 to 40% of the patients out of pocket, they can get back Oh, really using using their health insurance, they have to file the super bill with their insurance. And then usually within anywhere from two to four weeks, they get back either a check or it comes through us. And then we send it back to them. But it is it is increasing access quite a bit. We also, for patients were coming in to do six infusions at 395 per infusion that’s $2,370, for the stabilization of six, I like to be very upfront with our pricing, too, I don’t want it to feel like a timeshare, you got to come in and find out what it costs. All of this is published on our website, so you can see everything before you come. But with, you know that lump sum, that’s difficult, that’s a lot of money for anyone to throw down. And so we are in network with care credit, and we and we subscribe to their deferred Interest Program, which makes it to where the patient when they come in, they’re going to pay just the amount of treatment as long as they paid off within two years. You know, they’re not going to pay any interest. And I like that I don’t feel like people should have to pay more just because they’re, you know, just yeah, just because they’re not able to drop $2,000.

Ed Jones 23:03
I love that. And I know being a businessman, that is not unreasonable pricing. I know what goes into your overhead, I know what it has to be to make a profit. And there’s no you know, sometimes some people think it’s, you know, not, profits are not that important. That’s the only fuel that runs this ship runs my ship runs your ship, we have to be able to pay bills and to do that we have to be efficient, and we have to charge the appropriate amount and I feel very, totally confident you are charging the exact appropriate amount. Now I know people listening or say Can I try one session for 395? What’s the answer? The answer

Charles Miller 23:36
is no. The reason being is because it’s a process ketamine infusion, you’re not buying ketamine, you’re not buying an infusion itself. You’re buying the ketamine therapy, and the minimum standard in the you know, according to the science, according to the peer reviewed literature, to get even the basic benefit from this process, you have to do at least the stabilization of six. We you know, this isn’t a boutique service. And for many patients, this can be potentially life saving. And that’s, you know, it’s a it’s a lot to commit. And we understand it’s not just money, it’s time, you have to have a driver to each infusion. So it’s not just the patient’s calendar or calendar, we sync up we have to bring in a third party somebody has to drive you to and from your infusion, because it is an anesthetic and for a couple hours after you’re still a little slow to respond. But the good thing is it is literally only a couple hours. Yeah, go in there at nine o’clock.

Ed Jones 24:36
I walk out at 15 to 11 with my ride. We go to Jason’s Deli every time I eat because it does make me hungry. I don’t know if it does everyone and then I’m back to work at 12 o’clock. I mean yes cleared my system. It is amazing how now I won’t say that. I’m 100% like I wouldn’t go fly an airplane at 12 o’clock, but I’m fully functional and thinking clearly. And sometimes I’ll actually do a pie I’d cast it to our do my radio show, sometimes just two or three hours after I’m doing very well with that. And I think the more I do, the more I’m feeling the smoothness I guess I will say and the the benefit from this therapy is true. I know it’s cumulative one. You’ve said that before. And I am on an every other week protocol. Now at first I did want one a week because we weren’t more focusing on Monder neuropathic pain, and you have a hybrid is what you call it, isn’t it? What is that a hybrid IV hybrid infusion

Charles Miller 25:30
is is we call it a ketamine infusion. But ketamine is just one of the many adjuncts that we put in to the to the infusion it involves ketamine, lidocaine, magnesium steroidal as nonsteroidals, even anti histamines and we attack inflammation systemically in the body. From a multimodal approach, multimodal approach allows us to use less of each drug which minimizes potential side effects, but gets us greater gain because of the complement of all these drugs working together. I love

Ed Jones 25:58
that. And did it help me? Yes, it did make me feel better. But my hips were totally, basically gone. And no one could see that on a basic X ray, the first couple about a year and a half, two years. So we really didn’t know that I was in the state that I was in. So you can’t I mean, you can’t fix flat tires on a car with just a half a can of spray and expect it to roll down the interstate. Again, that’s to where I was. But I did have like after my hip surgery has been now I think eight weeks, I did one hybrid It was unbelievable how much better I felt. It was truly to me a turning point because I did not want to use those drugs. I used to pills of those drugs that were prescribed because I know the dangers of those. And but when you have enough pain, you’ll do anything. Yes, well, I had that enough pain and it just happened to be my day to come. And from that moment, that one hybrid, it took my pain down 50% That never returned because I think it was having a tsunami of pain just because of everything the surgery and it just turned off switches that were just beautiful.

Charles Miller 27:00
It’s inflammation. Everything kind of boils down to inflammation even there’s been a whole lot of data coming out in the last couple years on the role of inflammation in mental health. Oh really? Yeah. Oh, it’s it’s fast as we

Ed Jones 27:12
talked about all the time as far as chronic aging and all the things that happen that’s why I check or recommend everyone to check certain parameters on our bloodwork you know the C reactive protein and some of the other indicators of too much inflammation and inflammation doesn’t always mean pain right then that’s the thing out like oh I don’t have pain let does it mean your arteries are not inflamed your brains not inflamed and, and we can do markers like C reactive protein and see some of these and some may have do others. But yeah, so I didn’t know that it was really that indicated for me it’s

Charles Miller 27:41
it’s it’s an exciting look at the way our brains process things because even though feelings and you know, emotions and the spiritual nature of us, you know, everything we think and feel and are boil down to this to billions of synapses that are all communicating, you know, to create this, this image of who we are, which is what we call ego. You know, this, this this person that exists inside of us but the thing is, is that you can have a traumatic brain injury, it can change your personality can change food you like it can change, how you address the world, how you walk, talk, everything. It’s it is our thoughts and feelings are physical in nature. And what happens with periods of heightened stress and emotional stress. We see hyperactivity and then the neurons hyperactivity causes increased blood flow into the brain and the skull is this locked in shape, it doesn’t expand and contract with increased blood flow and when so and so when there’s more blood flow into the brain. Tissue, cerebral spinal fluid has to exit and so to prevent injury or damage from increasing interest interval cranial pressure, the brain will actually shut off or disconnect areas through a process called dendritic regression. What causes the dendritic regression is the hyperactivity and the hyperactivity manifests like inflammation anyway, and so seeing that inflammation you know, we can actually be able to image or see activity in the brain and understand those are hyper stimulated or hyper inflamed areas. We can anticipate these areas not functioning well later. Ketamine itself decreases circulating cytokines, which are inflammatory mediators. That’s one of the the unintended side effects of ketamine but most of our anesthetics are anti inflammatory in nature. And so the approach we use, say with the hybrid infusion is the ketamine works in the brain. Everything else works in the body, the periphery and in the spinal cord that we use, but it’s all designed to take down systemic inflammation, the brain is stimulating neurogenesis while or the ketamine has stimulate neurogenesis in the brain while everything else is decreasing inflammation in the body, basically resetting the system to not Avoid pain that should be stimulated because pain is important. You know if something’s wrong, we need to know it. But, but like in your case, once we fixed the underlying issue, we were able to reset the way the brain was sending those signals to where you felt the pain that was there, not the inflammation pain from your surgery.

Ed Jones 30:19
And I truly I know if you said it, or if I’ve read it, but to me, the more mental part of ketamine therapy is just like my dadgum cell phone that gets slow and clogged up and I do a reset, and it starts working the way it’s supposed to. And I bought the phone. And that’s what I feel are certainly did the first in the first 20 or 30. These is I felt a true reset. It was almost like I get rid of like some garbage that was been piling up in the back room. And I finally just kind of cleared the house out and I walked in it was like, Ah, this is so much more peaceful because this stuff has been bugging me for a long time. It’s not thoughts, it’s just just some burdens. I don’t know it’s hard to describe. But so is there anything else in that IV? Other than ketamine?

Charles Miller 31:06
It is. We at Scenic City Neurotherapy, we utilize a special process called minimally stimulate ketamine infusion therapy, and that is a whole protocol and includes ketamine in the basic confusion, but it also includes NAD plus therapy, I love that NAD plus therapy is a simple vitamin infusion can be taken orally, intravenously, there’s multiple ways to take it the most bioavailable, or, you know the best, the best bang for your buck seems to be IV. And so we include a that as a component to ours, because it complements the neurodegenerative process stimulates ATP production in the body, which is, you know, your body’s energy source helps your body you know, everything from muscle contraction, to clearing waste products from the brain and muscle tissue to just rebuilding you as a whole is ATP as a necessary component. And so making sure the body has the building blocks that needs to make the most of each treatment. It pushes the patient just that much farther. And it’s part of the minimally stimulated ketamine infusion process.

Ed Jones 32:13
I love it. And I remember you telling me that on first day I went there. And I’ve really delved into NAD for probably just three years, because it’s kind of risen up in just the past three or four years, it is one of the most probable components that can slow aging or slow damage of aging, and that there isn’t a whole toolbox of of us and new and all this and the fact that you know you’re willing and brave enough. And I have to say, people like you have to be brave because you’re fighting a stream and a occurrent, that isn’t really conducive to these Allah box therapies. And you had to get some peer pressure, you had to get some negative comments on. And I’ve never asked you that. But I know you did. I mean, as I as I do, I mean, I posted a tick tock the other day on how to lose body fat, and people were so insulting to me. I mean, they just give you these bad little negative comments, which really doesn’t bother me anymore. Thanks to Kevin, thank you. But you’re a brave soul and Chattanooga is very blessed to have the fact that you are following your passion in his town. And just to have an AVI of NID, I would travel to do that alone. And it’s just an add on a perfect add on. Because you think outside the box and you want to help people. There’s one thing about your clinic that you are your number one Number bread there at the top is I want this person to leave better than they’re coming in. And of course, that is the same with nutrition world too. And we are not the most common I mean, these these are the people we need to find and always say we need a team approach to have graceful aging. And that team approach is not the person who just studied textbooks in school, we need people who have not just knowledge we have people who need passion, compassion, passion, compassion, and wisdom. That’s not always easy to find. I certainly feel that you are in that boat. So tell people if they want to contact you how to learn more, what can they do?

Charles Miller 34:05
Well, the best thing to do is go to our website, Scenic City neuro.com, or Scenic City neurotherapy.com. And just see what this is about. See if this is something that speaks to you. Look around the website, all of our pricing, our scheduling all of its on there. And then when you’re ready, how you’re ready, you can call our office at 423-228-0579 and speak with Connie at the front desk who is always a joy to talk to or you can even just submit a form on our website and then Connie will reach out to you. It’s whichever way you’re most comfortable. It is the most important thing is is to make sure that we are doing the best we can for our bodies for our brains over the lifespan to keep us the best version of ourselves as long as possible. Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world And it’s a fight, we’re all going to lose eventually. But the goal is to keep as much good as long as possible. And that’s where neurodegenerative therapies like ketamine infusion therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, many of the different new neurodegenerative therapies

Ed Jones 35:16
can kind of push forward in a place that hasn’t made a lot of progress in the last 70 years. And again, I’ll go back to risk against benefit on all things, including nutrients, the risk of ketamine is so low, the risk of benefit is so high. That’s why it needs to be at least considered and people who want certainly do have the financial ability to do it. And secondly, the people who have needs to do it, which is tremendous amount. And I do believe that back in we called the old days, I guess, when we had a lot of nature, time, downtime, no social media, a community of caring, loving individuals around us. Those were all therapies in itself that helped us immensely, not even talking about the foods we eat or anything else. We don’t have that anymore. We are having to self counsel ourself, almost on so many areas, and I find that ketamine has allowed me to be a better friend to me. I really like the way he’s better friend to me. Yeah. So thank you so much, Charles. I’ve been wanting to do this because it’s so part of my passion to empower other people with options. So thank you for joining us today for this wonderful, wonderful,

Charles Miller 36:27
this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for having me.