Community Highlights: Meet Austin Harris, Md of NeuroRelief Ketamine & Infusion Therapy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Austin Harris, Md

Hi Austin, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My name is Dr. Austin Harris and I am a board certified cardiothoracic anesthesiologist with a background in psychology. I have been administering ketamine intravenously for over 16 years. Having long been both an advocate for, and delivering, ketamine infusion therapy, I decided to start my own practice centered around this modality in 2019. NeuroRelief Ketamine & Infusion Therapy, began, initially with me as the only employee. Six years later, we have grown to include 8 employees and multiple collaborating outside resources. We have provided life-altering benefits for clients coming from 5 continents. Last month we surpassed 7000 infusions given, and over 1000 patients assisted.

Ketamine infusion therapy is an opportunity for long-term growth, healing and reward, but in order to achieve these goals, it must be:

1) Delivered optimally and in a real-time adjustment and detailed customization manner. Every person has a unique combination of neurology, psychology, personality and defense mechanisms, physiology, and metabolic tolerance levels. These factors vary widely in the general population. Thus we want to artfully adjust the dose-rate of each moment of an infusion to achieve optimization of therapeutic and experiential goals. The essence of each ketamine infusion experience, done they way we do at NeuroRelief, is a transcendent, subconsciously curated experience of connection with the universe around us. Imbedded in this special state of “ego disillusionment,” our inner healer guides us on a realignment with healthy relationships to proportion, paradigm, and a sense of faith; faith that we can trust that which we do not truly control around us in the world, for it is in this trusted and connected relationship that our reward and comfort truly lies. At the same time, our subconscious “janitorial system” clears away decades of unprocessed emotional conflict in a gentle and non-traumatic way. The relief and lightness our clients feel after our ketamine infusions is unlike any other technique.

2) Combined with a specific and tailored purpose, utilizing other integrated techniques. helping that unique client to invest the neurologic and psychologic benefits into new, practical and functional patterns in terms of daily life approach and experiencing. Ketamine brings back online our neurologic “road workers” i.e. neuroplasticity. But to real help someone we need to help that individual give this returning workforce new directions so that it can build and reinforce more rewarding and adaptive infrastructure for the future. Yes, I mean the actual neural pathways themselves that many of us find are not offering us the instinctive patterns we need. These roads must be built by directing the bandwidth of our awareness in new investment patterns: less thinking “apart FROM” our sensory environment, and more thoughtless emotional feeling “a part OF” our tangible external stimuli (99.9% of which advantage us in some way).

3) Only ketamine INFUSIONS can create the opportunity for tangible neurologic change (recovery of neuroplasticity) and the deep emotional conflict resolution. Neither oral, intranasal, nor intramuscular injection of ketamine can offer nearly the opportunity of intravenous ketamine infusions because the duration of true peak experiential signal (receptor stimulation), is only a couple of minutes for those other modalities. With infusions, we are able to prolong that peak experience for 1-4 hours. It is an exponentially superior, and more legitimized pattern that allows our naturally resistant brain to absorb and follow these new experiential paradigms, with tangible neurologic change.

The need for expanded care surrounding ketamine delivery, which involves this re-training or re-building process for each client, was something I became personally knowledgable about because of my own necessary journey of healing and growth. Having faced a significant amount of stress and emotional challenges in my own life, going back to early childhood, I began to finally start to really work on myself about 8 years ago. I found that working in an interpersonal one-on-one way, combined with known techniques such as mindfulness meditation and mindful CBT structure was wonderfully helpful in re-connecting me to the beautifully stimulating feelings of the world around me. I knew then that it was these modalities that would be universally beneficial to combine with ketamine infusion therapy for maximal individual benefit for each client.

Having a background in psychology has allowed me to observe patterns in myself and our clients and helps me to explain our approach, and meet a patient where they are. It also helps in being a resource for clients in terms of guidance and support during this potentially transformational program that we offer. While I do not attempt to serve as a psychotherapist, observing human patterns in this way for 16 years has offered insights that can be of value to each client during the course of our programs.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Starting one’s own business, especially as an anesthesiologist with no training in working with patients in this way, or how to operate a stand-alone medical clinic, is extremely challenging. It has taken a great deal of humility, acceptance, daily focus on gratitude and perseverance to bring this clinic to the apex of care upon which it now stands. But it has been an incredible labor of love that has served to help me grow as a person, and even become a better husband and father. The nuanced attention to detail that is at the heart of our clinic’s ethos was possible because of my personal passion for this work and the driving mission of bringing the very best offering of care to each client.

Unfortunately, our model of care is unique worldwide in our field. Most providers are looking for profit margin, which leaves patients without the best opportunities. This is especially true in terms of “at-home” ketamine programs that have little to no evidence-based rationale, but are far more profitable to the business. In our model, we have MUCH lower margins, because we do not really charge for doing 10 times the work and overhead with each client. But the results and outcomes we get to participate and share in are incredibly inspiring. NeuroRelief has an 85% success rate at significantly improving symptoms of depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, bipolar depression, post-partum depression, chronic pain syndromes with central sensitization components, and even substance and alcohol abuse recovery. We do this via protocols that do not exist anywhere else in the world. They have been built by evolving standard approaches into something much more effective, utilizing evidence-based data and personal analysis from our many years of scientific study and experience.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
What sets NeuroRelief apart from any other clinic in the world is our comprehensive and integrated strategy for patient-centric results. We are outcome driven. And it takes time and emotional investment on the part of myself and my team to ensure that each client is receiving the greatest opportunity for themselves. Major results do not occur by some “set-it-and-forget-it”, under-dosed, under-short, non-customized ketamine care model. Unfortunately, this is the strategy and business model of 95% of the ketamine field today. It’s basically, “Here’s a little ketamine, now have a nice life, good luck…Next!” Why? Because that is a scalable model that can be volumized to make more money. That’s unacceptable to me and my team. Our reward is in the incredible results our patients display. This is our motivation and identity.

Each of our unique NeuroRelief programs include:

1) 1-4 hour (depending on diagnosis) CUSTOMIZED in real-time ketamine infusions

2) I, Dr. Harris, personally offer pre-and-post-integration sit-downs, with every client, before and after each ketamine infusion, here in the clinic

3) A personalized trained, guided and supported mindfulness meditation and mindful CBT exercise program for neuropsychological re-patterning and growth

4) Certified Integration & Recovery Coaching sessions (at least 5 hour-long sessions per program) with one of our sub-specialized therapeutic coaches. These are not typical therapists. They are deeply knowledgable in the neurologic and psychologic shift that our special ketamine infusion protocols will engender. But then they are able to, in a customized way to each client, help that individual invest those shifts into practical change in their daily approach and experiencing. FOR THEMSELVES.

5) Every client has real-time, 7-days-a-week access to my personal cell phone, as a guide and support system, throughout their entire program

And all of these components are offered to every client, for little more than the typical “drive-thru” clinic is offering for less effective ketamine by itself.

Additionally, we offer synergistic treatment services that we have scientifically demonstrated add to both ketamine efficacy, and mind and body wellness overall. These include:
1) NAD+ Infusion Therapy
2) MicroNutrient Optimization Infusions
3) Platelet-rich plasma injections for various acute and chronic pain presentations

All our services are evidence-based, and designed to offer patients holistic health benefits, with no downside. In fact, we were the first clinic to demonstrate that co-administration of ketamine infusions with NAD+ infusions, simultaneously, produce synergistic results that are far superior to either modality separately. This can add additional results to any of the conditions we use ketamine for. Additionally, this discovery has led us to develop patent-pending substance and alcohol abuse recovery programs that do not exist anywhere in the world. We can stop opiate (and other substances) withdrawal in as little as 4 hours. What’s more, in less than 2 weeks of outpatient treatment, our clients have an 80% 8-month sobriety rate that dwarfs the 10% rate of typical in-patient recovery programs.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
NeuroRelief Ketamine & Infusion Therapy has been a personal journey of growth, exploration, and discovery that has yielded me a means of truly feeling daily joy and substance. This joy comes from being able to be a humble, personal part of every clients program. This “sponsor-sponsee” type of healing relationship is so rare in typical healthcare, and one I never knew I needed. But now, I am so grateful to be blessed with this opportunity to connect and be impactful in a positive way with real people.

To anyone out there who is, or knows someone, in need of assistance with any of the struggles that we are able to provide assistance with, please give us a call. It would be our honor to share in your journey of healing and growth as well.

NeuroReliefKetamine.com
(818) 217-8699

Contact Info:

• Website: https://NeuroReliefKetamine.com
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• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/31390155/
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