Dr. Thomas Leverone / Central Coast Surgery Center - Freedom, California

People living with various chronic mood disorders can find relief from their symptoms with help from Dr. Thomas Leverone. He provides ketamine infusion therapy services to help people regain control of their health and get their lives back. By offering breakthrough treatments, people who have lost hope for healing can finally find relief. Conditions he treats include depression, anxiety, and complex regional pain syndrome.

The ketamine infusions offered by Dr. Leverone, a board-certified anesthesiologist, are administered at Central Coast Surgery Center in Freedom, California. After being one of the first western medicine doctors to use ketamine therapy for mood disorders, Dr. Leverone went on to become the very first to offer it for pain. Thus, he kickstarted the revolutionary pain treatment.

He is well-versed in all things ketamine and also helps other doctors open their own ketamine clinics to make cutting-edge treatments more widely available.

Offered Treatments

IV Ketamine Infusion Therapy

Treated Conditions

Depression
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Neuropathic pain syndromes
- Including CRPS I and II (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome), RSD (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy), Fibromyalgia, Lyme Disease, and more

Important Info

Dr. Leverone prefers that you have a mental health care professional refer you for the treatment.
- You’re required to have a mental health care professional to provide chronic care for you, with a visit scheduled preferably the next week after infusions.
You must provide:
- A recent History and Physical from your regular doctor. Typically there is no pre-procedure lab work required unless it’s suggested by your history and physical.
  - Pain patients only: Lab work is required and consists of standard “pre-operative” screening labs, plus screening liver function tests. Your doctor will know what these are. No patient will be scheduled before review of these lab results.
- A complete list of all medications and their dosages. You may be required to taper off or stop some of your medications prior to treatment.
Dr. Leverone does not participate in any third party payor or insurance plans.
- If you wish to attempt to get reimbursement from your insurance company, you may request a copy of your records and these will be supplied. You may then contact your insurance after the fact to request reimbursement.
Payment must be made in full prior to tretament and must be cash or credit card.
You must have someone else drive you to and from treatment and take responsibility for getting you home or to your hotel. It is advisable not to be alone during the 24 hours following treatment.

Your Treatment: What to Expect

Depression / PTSD Treatment

You will need an IV started but may remain in street clothes. A friend or family member is allowed to stay with you throughout the entire procedure. You may listen to music using your earphones. You will be offered a very small dose of a sedative if you wish to help you with anxiety. During the infusion, most patients will experience a mild dissociative sensation, most will have some sedation and slight euphoria. The infusion lasts for one hour. Typically patients are ready to go home within 30 minutes of the conclusion.

If the treatment is successful, and it is determined by your mental health care professional that future infusions are necessary to keep recovery progressing, these future treatments can be scheduled. In addition, in certain cases, various outpatient self-administered ketamine doses or other extenders can be prescribed to continue the positive effects of ketamine.

Pain Treatment

Patients will be brought to the treatment area where they will change from street clothes into a hospital gown. An IV will be started and secured. Monitors will be placed for all vital signs. Oxygen will be provided via nasal cannula. Sedation will begin using benzodiazepines and prophylactic anti-emetic drugs will be administered. After appropriate sedation is achieved the agreed-upon dose of ketamine will begin to be administered by infusion. The infusion is administered over four hours. During this time the patient will be kept as comfortable as possible by, as required, additional sedatives and neuroleptic drugs, or in some cases with a concurrent infusion of Propofol. Propofol is only used in cases where a patient chooses to be sedated to the extent that there is no cognitive experience of the ketamine.

At the conclusion of the infusion period, the patient will be allowed to rest until such time as the normal cognitive function returns to a level that will allow discharge. This amount of time is impossible to predict and ranges from one to several hours.