Dr. Ben Yudkoff, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer at Lumin Health, hosted a Reddit AMA on the Spravato community on November 21, 2025. The below blog post is a recap of one of the questions presented on that AMA, syndicated to the Lumin Health blog in the event that it answers any questions about ketamine therapy, Spravato treatment, or general concerns you may have about treatment.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Spravato/comments/1p2ar6v/ama_im_dr_ben_yudkoff_psychiatrist_cofounder/
Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you’re interested in learning more about ketamine for depression at Lumin Health. Thank you once again to the moderators and community members for facilitating such an engaging discussion.
ChampionshipAble5196:
Hi Dr Ben. I have just been approved for spravato. I wanted to know if you had any advice on what to expect from my first session? I am hopeful after reading comments but do not want to go in with any expectations.
Answer:
You are a Champion, indeed! Good for you! Expect the strangest two hours you've had in a while (just kidding, well sort of...). You should be greeted by a healthcare provider and a prescriber should be onsite - this can be a doctor (MD/DO) or an advanced practice practitioner (NP or PA). You should bring an eye mask (if one isn't provided) and noise cancelling headphones (especially true if you aren't in a private space, or a space separated from others by a cloth partition - but also good practice, in general). Pick out some music. A lot of people choose music without lyrics but there's no great science to this -- pick something you like, maybe something a little "trippy," and if you don't like the music, you can always change it. Wear comfy clothing and be sure to have a ride arranged for after.
The practice will have you sit and take your blood pressure and apply an oxygen saturation monitor (the requirement to wear an oxygen saturation monitor is relatively new and is now part of the recommendations of Janssen and REMS - the third party overseeing agency that monitors how providers are administering the medication and collecting information about side effects -- these programs are common in medications that are new and there's some increased sensitivity about risk).
Once settled, the healthcare practitioner will give you the device -- usually, on the first treatment, the dose is 56 mg or #2 28 mg devices given 5 minutes apart. For the dose you tilt your head back about 45 degrees, breath in gently (like smelling a flower), and depress the device (which squirts the medicine into you nose). It'll feel like ocean spray, with the tiniest little burn. Then you'll taste it... a michelin starred morsel it is not. There is a bittering agent put into the medicine and people tell me it tastes pretty bad. The first dose may take a few minutes to "kick in" if it does, at all. Then there's the second dose...
Here's what people describe: at first there's a sense of relaxation and warmth, tingling in the fingers and toes, and then the experience rolls in: thoughts feel to emerge from the ether (a person can feel perched above one's thoughts, just observing them as they stream below). Patterns can emerge behind closed eyes. Music can take on different qualities. Wells of feeling can open and close. A person can lose track of where he/she/they is -- we call this "dissociation." I describe it as akin to being in a fun house at a carnival -- lots of things are distorted and shifted, and if one were to suddenly wake up in fun house with no prior consent of being there, it can be quite unnerving. But if one brings oneself into the fun house intentionally, a person can play with the distortions and move with them. Be curious -- check in with how your body feels, with what your mind is doing. Poke your head around the corner of the experience and see what's next.
There can side effects. Nausea is common and having trouble coordinating movements is another. If you have to go to the bathroom, ask for some help getting to it. If you feel kind of sea sick, just stay still (movement makes it worse), and let the people who are taking care of you know as they can give medicines (potentially) to manage these symptoms.
The experience doesn't last terribly long, maybe and hour, with another hour spent recovering adn coming back to yourself.
It's totally normal to be a little apprehensive before the experiences -- it's normal, and regular response to uncertainty. Move with it. And know that you are making good choices for yourself and your on behest. You are not coming to Spravato because you feel poorly, you are coming because you are powerfully taking care of yourself.
